Bee Shaffer’s famous mother kindled her love of fashion, and journalism, discovers Melissa Whitworth

Like any teenage girl, I love clothes,” says Bee Shaffer. “But, I am very lucky - I get to do many things that a normal girl wouldn’t.”

Bee Shaffer: ‘I don’t always want to be seen as my mother’s daughter, I don’t want to get a job because of who she is’

Most teenage girls don’t get to wear Chanel couture, for example - nor do they have their portraits taken by Mario Testino, Diana, Princess of Wales’s favourite photographer. But, as the daughter of American Vogue editor Anna Wintour - the most powerful woman in fashion - Shaffer is in a unique position; the world’s top designers come to her.

In her short career as her mother’s heir apparent - she turned 18 this summer - Shaffer has worn elaborate gowns by the admired Rochas designer, Olivier Theyskens, and attended the famed Crillon debutante ball in Paris. She is often seen sitting next to her mother in the front row of fashion shows.

Next week, she will follow her mother into journalism by writing a regular column for The Daily Telegraph’s style pages, reporting from the world’s most fashionable city and sharing her insights, observations and gossip.

On the day of our interview in Manhattan, Shaffer is wearing a pretty green printed dress by Marc Jacobs and flat, gold Manolo Blahnik sandals. “I am a dress addict,” she says of her own style. “They suit my body shape.”

Her favourite designers - and tips for the future - include Proenza Schouler, Zac Posen whom she knew before he became famous, up-and-comer Derek Lam, LA-based duo Libertine and Doo Ri, a New York designer who makes pretty, simple dresses. Bee’s ability to spot talented young designers has not gone unnoticed by fashion insiders. She inherently understands the industry, they say.

“Bee is really able to wear the clothes,” says Theyskens. “She has a very good sense of the design and feel of the clothes. She has a neo-classical beauty and is very charismatic. Personality is so important - when you dress somebody for a big party, it is good to feel that the person has an ease and naturalness with what she is wearing.”

	Shaffer wearing Rochas couture at this year’s Costume Institute Gala in New York

“She is a great girl,” says designer Oscar de la Renta, a long-time friend of Wintour, who has known Shaffer since she was a baby. “It is very rare that you find a child who will inherit a mother’s fashion taste and abilities - but she has it all.”

“She has had the most fabulous training from her mother, from whom I learned a few things myself,” says Testino.

High praise, indeed. But what a burden of expectations to lay on such young shoulders. Does she ever grow tired of being compared to her mother?

“I don’t feel it at all when I am with my friends,” says Shaffer (whose real name is Katherine; “Bee” is a childhood nickname). “But when I go to a fashion show, or an event, I understand that the only reason I am going is because I’m Anna Wintour’s daughter and it can be frustrating. I don’t always want to be seen as my mother’s daughter, I don’t want to get a job because of who she is. I don’t want to be 30 years old asking, ‘Mum, can you get me an interview?’ I want to break away from that as much as I can.”

Shaffer has just begun a liberal arts degree at New York’s ivy league Columbia University - American universities don’t ask students to specialise until they are in their second year - and plans to forge her own path into journalism, perhaps veering away from the fashion industry one day. Whichever direction she chooses, she is perfectly poised to take the New York media and fashion industries by storm.

Recently, Shaffer worked at Teen Vogue, American Vogue’s little sister, and helped to compile the magazine’s annual Hollywood issue. The magazine’s entertainment editor, Nicole Vecchiarelli, says: “Bee knows a great deal about movies, music and especially theatre. It is obvious she has journalism in her blood. She has really strong instincts that are 100 per cent in the right direction.”

Shaffer’s father, David, is a child psychiatrist in New York, but most members of her family made their names on Fleet Street. Her grandfather was the legendary Charles Wintour, who edited the Evening Standard for 20 years. Her uncle, Patrick Wintour, is a political correspondent for the Guardian and her aunt, Rachel Sylvester, writes for this newspaper. Shaffer’s brother, Charlie, is studying at Oxford where he writes for one of the university’s magazines, Isis.

“I wouldn’t say that journalism is in my blood, exactly,” she says, “but when you are exposed to something so much, you take an interest in it.”

 

Shaffer was born in London and moved to New York when she was six weeks old after her mother transferred from British Vogue to American House & Garden. A year later, Wintour took over at American Vogue, which she has edited for 17 years. Shaffer grew up in SoHo and attended the prestigious all-girls private school Spence, on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, whose alumni includes Gwyneth Paltrow.

Wearing her mother’s Prada dress, after she and her friends were ushers at Helmut Newton’s memorial service in Paris in 2004

“It was definitely very competitive academically,” Shaffer says of her 10 years at Spence. “There were no boys around; so we would fight over grades. As much as I loved all the girls there, they live in this Upper East Side bubble, and I was ready to get out of that.”

She chose to stay in New York to attend university because she couldn’t imagine living away from the big smoke, she says. “I am not a small-town sort of girl. I am definitely not an outdoorsy, let’s-go-hiking type of person. A lot of people say, ‘I really need to get out of the city,’ and I always think, ‘Why do you need to do that?’ There’s so much that you can’t do here when you are younger - as you get older it is going to be such a different experience.”

Growing up with the world’s best dressing-up box has been a great perk, she says, and she counts her mother as one of her style icons. “She always looks amazing - it is annoying how good she looks.

“My mother is very generous. She lets me borrow whatever I want. She has some fantastic coats. I can’t quite fit into my mother’s clothes, she is tiny, but I do borrow her shoes - we are the same shoe size, which is fantastic. She has cupboards full of amazing shoes.”

Shaffer is acutely aware of how lucky she is, but is at pains to downplay the influence her famous mother wields. “It is weird when you go out with her and you hear photographers calling, ‘Anna, Anna, Anna’,” she admits. “But I don’t think of her as being famous.

“So much stuff is said about her - that she is this cold, mean person. But it is such a myth to me. She just comes into the office and she has a goal: she wants to produce a great magazine, which I think she does. You have to work very hard to do that and she is very direct about what she wants. I don’t think that makes her ‘Nuclear Wintour’ or whatever they call her.”

• Bee Shaffer’s new Style column begins next Wednesday