beauty call

Anna

The September Issue. What to say, what to say…

Anna Kim

What struck me most had nothing to do with fashion or Vogue or Anna Wintour.  I walked away thinking that Vogue was like any other office - plus the pretty amazing clothes and accessories. For some reason an aura surrounds Vogue so that it seems… not normal, fantastical, different from the everything else. But in the end it’s still an office with the usual cast of characters:

Anna Wintour

The sharp, savvy boss who rules. Her words are the fashion gospel. Her decisions are final even if it means changing things at the last minute and causing chaos (read: panic) for everyone else doing the work.

Grace Coddington

The brilliant, passionate creative not afraid to speak her true thoughts. What she says is real and her work is genuine. She fights to be heard. She fights to matter. And she does.

Charles Churchward

The sycophant scared silly of pissing off the boss. Its yes yes yes to whoever he’s talking to. You think he’s your friend but he’s probably talking about you behind your back.

As much as I liked it, the documentary took away some of the Vogue magic for me. So many celebrities and famous people, athletes and designers claim to be normal people like you and me. And they are. The reality TV show craze definitely reflects that. But sometimes, sometimes, its nice to not expose everything as it really is and let the fantasy live.

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Laura Schilling

Favorite moments as follows:

Grace Coddington

She spends the entire second half of the movie slomping down the hall to worry over which of her spreads have just been cut.  Practically hyperventilating after one such panic attack, her anger builds and builds, until she pulls out the big guns: “They’re all lying to me.  It’s just incredibly boring.”  I love that the worst thing anyone could be to her was boring.  At the end, it’s genuinely moving when she sees that 90% of the issue is hers.

Andre Leon Talley

Panther cape on the escalator.

Mario Testino

“I keep thinking about white.  White columns, white birds, white statues.  Of course there’s the Coliseum, but maybe we don’t need to do that.  Also the Vespas.  And the soldiers.  I want to use soldiers and horses.  Put the horses in unexpected places.”

The movie was fantastic, an adrenaline rush for anyone interested in fashion.  At the end, as the credits were rolling, all I could think was I LOVE NEW YORK CITY – and that I was in a theater full of people who felt the same way.

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Alyssa Bishop

What struck me most about The September Issue was an underlying, subtle theme that although fashion is the bread and butter to so many people, there’s a human element that has to exist in order for it to thrive. The reason Vogue is such a successful brand is not because Anna imbues a do or die attitude to her Conde Nast dominion. It’s because she and the people she surrounds herself with are passionate about fashion – can love it and hate it and laugh at it. From Andre Leon Talley’s kitted out LV “workout” gear to Grace Coddington’s mission to keep the industry’s romance alive, they do what they do because they truly love it and admittedly, are just a little bit nuts. The September Issue did what every good documentary does – it respected the elevated field on which its subject plays while shedding new light on the human interactions that push, pull, compromise, and contradict to keep its subject on top. We learn that Vogue has every reason to be and remain on top, but we also discover that it takes a hell of a lot of people to put together a magazine and most of them think the process is just as crazy as we do.

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Andria Castellano

Although I must admit there were times throughout this movie where I was in Producer’s Heaven, I expected more… The clothes were amazing, the sets were magnificent and the sheer genius behind the whole production of the issue was fantastic.  I appreciated that we got to see a side of Anna that glorified NOT her “ice queen” reputation and demanding “bitchy” side, but the true and most impressive fact that she is a career woman, a working mom and someone who has more influence in this industry than any of us can comprehend.  Coming from a related industry, my experience in the world of fashion production helped me understand and admire rather than judge her ability to confidently make spot-on decisions and to instinctively know what’s right.

What I missed in this documentary was the explanation and the thought behind each magnificent story… What were they inspired by in Galliano’s show? What made the “color block” story so important for this issue?  Why was Sienna Miller the cover girl?  That all seemed to fall by the wayside… I missed the substance and the vision BEHIND the vision.

Aside from that, what I was most impressed with was Grace Coddington.  I had no idea she was such a visionary and such an influential force at Vogue.  I loved how we got to see inside her world, her passion and at times (as we all feel at our jobs) her frustration.

Overall it was inspiring.  It will definitely make you value not only the quality and work(wo)manship behind such a powerhouse magazine, but also give you insight into a world forbidden to most and unfortunately considered frivolous by even more…