Opinion | When Anna Wintour slammed Margaret Court and Scott Morrison over LGBTQI rights, was she just trying to stay relevant?

So Anna Wintour skipped the couture shows to play hard ball at the Australian Open on January 24, eclipsing lifestyle coverage of her attendance at the event with front-page news.

The Vogue US editor-in-chief and Condé Nast creative director’s strident criticism of Australian tennis champion-turned-pastor Margaret Court and Prime Minister Scott Morrison over “backward” track records on LGBTQI rights issues unleashed a flurry of global news coverage. This included opinion pieces by incensed commentators who denounced Wintour for daring to stray from the fluffy sidelines of fashion into the big boys’ world of politics.

Wintour, of course, had form on the LGBTQI rights trail and was presented with the perfect platform: a keynote speech at a global sporting event, one with a venue named after Court. There has been a campaign to have the former player’s name stripped from the Margaret Court Arena over her comments on same-sex marriage and transgender children.

That said, it was unusual for Wintour to veer into political commentary.

Following two surprising announce­ments from Condé Nast that book ended the event – the January 23 news that the company’s digital media port­folio will be placed behind a paywall by the year end and then the January 27 announce­ment of the launch of Vogue Business – the timing of Wintour’s comments seems more than coincidental.

In stirring controversy, Wintour made herself and, by association, the Vogue and Condé Nast brands momentarily relevant. Relevance is an issue the magazine sector continues to struggle with in the face of print advertising decline and dramatic restructuring.