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If Vogue is our fashion bible then Anna Wintour is our God. Throughout her twenty year domination of these precious pages – infamous for making and breaking every trend, every designer, every famous face and fashion movement – she has not only built an empire through a single publication but has herself become the omnipotent ruler of high fashion.
Famously demonised in the Hollywood hit-of-the-month The Devil Wears Prada and prior to that cut down to pieces in the tell-all tale How to Lose Friends and Allienate People, Anna Wintour has become the media icon of the sour fashionista. Power wielding, starved and hungry, and with a lack of conscience to address the popular issues playing out in political media such as sustainability, recession and all those dreary things.
In The September Issue we are served a predictable helping of Anna Wintour, perfectly prim and pucker-mouthed as ever, but alongside her we are introduced to the quieter face and creative force behind Vogue. The woman who captures the fantasy of fashion and gives us a whimsical glimpse into the escapist world of beauty and luxe that draws the readers in month after month.
The woman is Grace Coddington. An ex model and now ageing yet eloquent fashion editor, responsible for conceptualising and styling every single shoot in the two-inch-thick brick that is the September Issue.
Coddington is the yin to Wintour’s yang. She is the breath of fresh air and humourous relief for both the Vogue staff, the film crew and essentially the audience, as she clomps through the offices with her hilarious lack of style, librarian shoes and frizz ball hair (in stark contrast to Wintour’s signature bob and obsessive tidiness).
The film explores the relationship between the idealist romantic and the iron-fisted editor who come together every month to produce the pages of Vogue. The two women began at Vogue on the same day twenty years ago, and each of them, though extremely different in their approach and motivation, work tirelessly and endlessly on practically every issue and are absolutely alike in their stubbornness, dedication and love of the end result.
Though their relationship has been famously tumultuous and equally aggressive, they seem to have found that sacred middle ground between the dream maker and the money maker, which so many creative processes desperately need but fail to achieve. And although this film masquerades as a cute illustration of what it’s like working in the world of glamour, it gives an honest portrayal of a unique and fragile balance.
Credits
Director: R. J. Cutler
Editor: Azin Samari
Cinematographer: Bob Richman
Cast: Anna Wintour, Grace Coddington, Mario Testino, Thakoon
The September Issue is now playing at Rialto Cinemas in Auckland.
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