- Anna Wintour did not remove her sunglasses while firing Condé Nast staff, one employee said on X.
- The layoffs came after Condé Nast decided to combine music site Pitchfork with GQ.
Anna Wintour is famous for her intimidating black shades — and one writer says she didn't remove them while laying off workers at music site Pitchfork.
Allison Hussey, a former staff writer for Pitchfork, wrote on X that the longtime Vogue editor kept her sunglasses on in a meeting informing staff they were losing their jobs. Wintour was elevated to global chief content officer of Condé Nast and global editorial director of Vogue in 2020.
"One absolutely bizarro detail from this week is that Anna Wintour — seated indoors at a conference table — did not remove her sunglasses while she was telling us that we were about to get canned," said Hussey.
"The indecency we've seen from upper management this week is appalling," she added.
Condé Nast announced last week that Pitchfork would be absorbed into GQ.
Pitchfork editor-in-chief Puja Patel departed following the announcement. Multiple employees were laid off. The decision immediately attracted widespread criticism.
Wintour said in a staff memo reported by Semafor that the merger was the "best path forward" for Pitchfork, which was founded in 1996 and championed indie and underground acts. Condé Nast bought the site in 2015.
Wintour, who reportedly inspired Meryl Streep's character in "The Devil Wears Prada," has long been known for her iconic black sunglasses, sporting them at runway shows and press events.
In 2019, Wintour told CNN that she wore them because she found them "incredibly useful … you avoid people knowing what you're thinking about," while she described them as her "armor" in a 2009 interview.
"I can sit in a show and if I am bored out of my mind, nobody will notice," she said.
The Chanel sunglasses also stayed on when Wintour was interviewed last year by the Financial Times over lunch at The Ritz hotel in London.
The newspaper's fashion editor, Lauren Indvik, wrote that a member of Wintour's family "once told me they are prescription glasses, and she can't see well without them. She smiles often and laughs easily, but the sunglasses are a two-way shield from eye contact."
However, Wintour is often photographed without her sunglasses.
Condé Nast did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, made outside normal working hours.