A Condé Nast mole writes, "After X months with this company, I finally had my first Anna Wintour encounter. Sadly, this isn't much in the way of gossip, as I ran into her pretty much where one would expect to run into her - in the elevator bank in the lobby of 4 Times Square. I was getting off the elevator, she was getting on. We made brief eye contact, and I was a little frightened. Despite her small stature (and yeah, she's TINY), she really does have an imposing presence.

It's possible that this wasn't her (perhaps one of her army of Saddam-esque lookalikes?) but I consulted the photo library once I got back to my desk and I'm fairly certain. Plus, that whole aura of menace wouldn't come from just anybody at Conde Nast...at least not that much of it. If it WAS her, then that whole tale about needing to ride the elevator solo (q.v. Toby Young) is apocryphal, as she had a whole entourage with her (4 or 5 people) and they all went into one elevator."

Another reader writes, "Anna Wintour rides the elevator with whoever gets on with her. I've never seen her with an entourage; she gets on the elevator alone and just stands silently in there like everybody else. She is sort of overpowering, but mostly because in a building that is an endless pit of unimaginative black clothing, she is never in black (at least I've never seen her in black) and always looks great.

I still hate her though."