Bee Shaffer (L)_and Anna Wintour prep Vogue’s September issue.
Documentary goes behind the scenes at iconic fashion mag
The common wisdom regarding high fashion is that it favours the fresh the young the future — a limited view pushed to a detriment by all the major figures in The September Issue director R.J. Cutler’s documentary about the creation of Vogue magazine’s 2007 fall fashion issue. The long-canonized conservatively styled Vogue and its top movers-and-shakers are anything but young and fresh-faced but you’d be hard-pressed to portray editor-in-chief Anna Wintour and creative director Grace Coddington as anything but forward-looking despite the length and depth of their experience. Nor does the magazine-cum-global-brand rest on its considerable laurels. Early in the documentary we see that by midsummer the December issue is nearly mature even while the eponymous issue looms a target treated with reverence and gravity.
The fashion world is notoriously insular with great pride placed in knowing the right names and brands. If there’s a household name in the bunch it’s the hawkish Ms. Wintour. As editor-in-chief she stubbornly refuses to show her hand which is very much the point and the weakest segment of the film sees the filmmakers ham-fist a wistful piano line onto the soundtrack when we tour her home. Despite Wintour’s best efforts and her pitch-black sunglasses we do glean bits and pieces about her family past and future if not any revelations about why she is the way she is. Coddington is rendered by the filmmakers as Wintour’s gentle introspective opposite; the creative versus the critical.
The two come to heads in arguments that feel tense and playful professional and personal at the same time. They also seem genuine and rooted in a rare and fascinating mutual respect. Both have searching eyes that the camera lingers on Wintour marking up the poor soul or garment across the desk Coddington surveying and brainstorming in Versailles’ splendorous gardens. All other characters are peripheral either brightening the corners or blending in with the buffed and pristine office settings.
Cutler turns out an efficient well-tuned product pairing eye candy with industry propaganda and genuine insight without leaning too hard on platitudes or the obvious glitz of the business. The film is proud light and considered where it could easily have been glib or empty-headed and the documentary crew only occasionally strays too far into heavy-handed sentimentality and open adoration. The September Issue will be a boon to those with even a passing interest in fashion print media or the intersection between art and commerce as viewers share in the real joy of creation and the harsh reality of a pulled spread.
