OMG The September Issue!

I was going to wait until tomorrow to post again, but I simply could not hold out on this scintillating update!

The documentary about the making of the all-important, thick-spined Vogue September issue 2007 was screened at Sundance this January. It will not come out until September 11 although Fashion Week Daily, who have seen a 90 minute screener, have these juicy highlights:

Creative Director Grace Coddington, with Anna Wintour.

Anna's apparently not a fan of black . . .

"I wonder if Anna would like this one?" (Vogue Creative Director), Grace Coddington muses, flipping through pieces. "It's black," someone points out. "That's true," Grace says. "You'd get fired for that."

. . . And perhaps not Stefano Pilati, either?

We watch her drop in for walk-through with Karl Lagerfeld and Stefano Pilati, with whom she is surprisingly (not so surprisingly?) short. What, no color in this collection, Stefano? No evening?

But she pushes for more Olivier Theyskens/Nina Ricci representation in the magazine.

Mario [Testino]'s film from the cover shoots comes back, and Anna is not pleased. There aren't enough clothes, there isn't enough Nina Ricci, and where are the Colosseum shots? She looks through the cover options, and leaves a note on one, where Sienna [Miller] is flashing a grin: "like this best, but teeth."

It's true that she terrorizes the assistants . . .

During clothing pulls for the September issue, one assistant gets shut down by Anna. "I want to kill myself!" he cries to Grace, who gives him something of a pep talk: "You have to be tougher!"

. . . And dictates what's in style.

Anna joins the brass from top retailers for the annual Vogue/retailers breakfast in Paris; it's important for them to know that Anna's really pushing for jackets this year. Anna spoke to Miuccia Prada about changing the degrade jackets from a mohair/wool blend to a mohair/silk blend, to the delight of the retailers. "You've made our week!" they say.

Anna definitely knows how to get Grace's goat.

"I started at American Vogue the same day as Anna did," Grace says. "I think we understand each other. She knows I'm stubborn, I know she's stubborn. I know when to stop pushing her . . . she doesn't know when to stop pushing me."

Grace has been working on a '20s-inspired story. It's shot, but Anna is killing spreads one by one. Grace is not happy. This is not the first time the tension is apparent between the two. "I'm in a really foul mood right now because they've just killed another spread of my '20s story, and they're about to kill another one," she says. "And they're all lying to me about it. It's just incredibly boring."

She looks increasingly emotional as she thinks about it. "I care very much about what I do, or I still wouldn't be doing it. But it gets harder and harder to see it just thrown out. And it's very hard to go on to the next thing."

They also disagree about Anna's reliance on retouching.

Grace's colorblock story is killed and has to be reshot, but she gets an idea to use the documentary's cameraman in the reshoot. The result: an image of the cameraman, jumping with his camera, and Caroline Trentini, jumping in front of the camera. Anna like it, but points out the cameraman's paunch. "It needs a little bit of retouching," she says. "You need to go to the gym!" Grace is indignant. "Everybody isn't perfect in this world," she says after Anna has left the room. "It's enough that the models are perfect. You don't need to go to the gym."

Anna wants Bee to be an editor, but Bee doesn't want to do fashion.

Anna and her daughter, Bee Shaffer, are at their Long Island home. They flip through old September issues; they have every issue of Vogue that Anna has ever worked on. While not particularly affectionate with her daughter, she does ask her advice on possible Charlize Theron covers. When the director asks Bee if she would ever work for the magazine, she immediately shakes her head. "I think I'm going to law school," she says.

"I really don't want to work in fashion," she says. "It's just not for me. I respect her, obviously, but it's just a really weird industry. It's just not for me. She wants me to be an editor. I would never put it down, but I just don't want to take it too seriously. People in there act like fashion is life. It's really amusing, but if that's your career-there are other things out there, seriously."

Anna wanted ALT do be healthy, so he took up tennis.

Cut to André Leon Talley, getting out of a car with a Louis Vuitton towel slung around his neck, a Louis Vuitton tennis racquet case in one hand, and a Louis Vuitton gym bag in another. He hits a few balls with an instructor. "Ms. Wintour inaugurated me into health," he says. "She saved my life I guess, in the long term. I was intervened about three years ago to lose weight. Naturally, what Ms. Wintour says goes, so I took up tennis."

And here is a short clip, that was released in January:

I love everything about this industry! I cannot wait to see this documentary!

Thoughts?

(Source)