Review: The September Issue Words : Surbhi Shukla The September Issue is an intriguing documentary about the editor of the American Vogue, Anna Wintour & how she & her legion of designers, models, photographers & editors toil it out to put together Vogue’s marvelously massive September issue. Anna Wintour, the subject of the documentary, gazes at the interviewer like a tiger saying,” There’s something about fashion that frightens people.” Such a severe statement to all those who consider people who like to dress up to be ‘shallow’. Of course, nobody really tags people to be ‘dumb’ solely on the basis of what they choose to wear. For most people there isn’t really a choice between Kmart & a Carolina Herrera. The movie doesn’t prove Wintour to be any deeper than anybody’s perception. She still remains an enigma, as the documentary fails to dig deep despite having been shot over a period of nine months in the summer of 2007. Still, Wintour doesn’t come across as a mean person, only straightforward and brutally honest & yet her slightest comment hits like a threat! She embodies a passionate woman with amazing skill who doesn’t feel the need to talk. Oh well, she doesn’t really need to!
make it any less intriguing. Anna’s ego leaves no place for anyone else’s. Though all of her colleagues think of her as the most powerful woman in the United States, Grace Coddington, the creative director for the American Vogue, is perhaps the only one who refuses to buy into the fear of Wintour. It is their relationship that is at the crux of the film.
Grace, Anna’s fellow British born colleague, also a former model like Anna herself, started to work for the American Vogue the same day as Anna after a car accident that forced her to give up modeling. Grace mirrors the image of a purist & has a comparatively realistic outlook towards the world. “Everybody isn’t perfect; it’s enough that the models are perfect.” She is the only one who isn’t intimidated by Anna; guess 20 years of knowing her comes in handy! She is rightly the second star in the film as she The documentary uncovers all the hard work & directs almost every photo shoot in the film. Being a very approachable person, she is like a guiding star office politics behind the glossy pages of Vogue’s bulkiest issue, quite literally the ‘bible’ of the fashion to her juniors “Don’t be too nice; even to me or you’ll world, & Anna, righteously the ‘Pope’. With her high lose.” She speaks from experience. Count on knowledge to pass through her like glass. She has perfectionist attitude, she puts together pixelised quite a sense of humor and she cleverly asks for the dreams of innumerable fashion houses & fresh budget of the shoots to be raised in designers. An amusing moment in the documentary was when one of Anna’s editors called Sienna Miller’s hair limp and lackluster. Did you think it was all fun front of the cameras “Sure way to get the budget being cover-girl? up!” She knows how to get her way around “Make The drama may seem a little dim after ‘The yourself felt and make yourself necessary”. An devil wears Prada’ & ‘Ugly Betty’, but that doesn’t
1
Review: The September Issue
important message to consider for anybody planning on surviving the fashion and many have gone, they just couldn’t take the heartache”. Andre Leon Talley, Anna’s editor-at-large comes across as rather pompous and pretentious as he complains “There’s a famine of beauty! “ & plays tennis with a Louis Vuitton towel draped across his shoulder. A spark of warmth flashes through Wintour’s otherwise frosty aura when she is around her daughter ‘Bee’ who playfully ridicules fashion and says that there are other more important things out there and states her desire to go to law school. “We’ll see”, says Wintour with obvious sinisterity. Wintour’s politically engages siblings too are ‘amused’ by her job. Wintour transformed Vogue by putting celebrities on its cover, thus, entering the entertainment media, making her a marketing genius. Wintour & Coddington may share a stiff relationship, but they make the best blend of a businesswoman & an artist, which is what keeps Vogue at the top of its game. ”She (Coddington) & I don’t always agree, but over the years we have learnt how to deal with each others point of views. “ The September 2007 issue marked the very end of an economic boom. It is very evident that even the make-believe world of fashion isn’t pretty .As famously said by Meryl Streep in ‘The devil wears Prada’ that everyone, even someone who ‘takes themselves too seriously to care about what they wear’ is a part of the fashion industry, even though they may blithely
be unaware of it .In the end, this over-view of fun, fast paced, high end journalism and its emphasis on power, money, professionalism & glamour is sure to get everyone wanting to know more!
2