Double Vision: Passion, Fashion, and The September Issue
“September is the January in fashion.” Candy Pratts Price, Executive Fashion Director, Vogue Magazine.
R. J. Cutler’s 2009 documentary, The September Issue, a look at the arduous process of compiling Vogue magazine’s biggest edition of the year, was initially promoted as a profile of its Editor In Chief, Anna Wintour (left), but ended up shedding more light on Creative Director, Grace Coddington, resulting in her becoming the film’s most fascinating star.
Coddington’s free-spirited, yet focused passion versus Wintour’s structured, and equally focused, determination made for a compelling dichotomy. Even their hairstyles and overall fashion sense speak volumes: Wintour dons her signature bob, classic and conservative, a strand rarely out of place, while Coddington (below) rocks thick, flowing, rock-star-style red hair. Ironically, Wintour, often stern, tends to exude personality through attire that embraces prints and color, while Coddington, like the cool bohemian aunt in your family, is frequently draped in black, almost choosing to pull focus from what’s on her person to what’s on her pages.
Coddington fights to get her work into the magazine, but it repeatedly gets put to the side, as Wintour edits, then ultimately decides what fashion spreads will make it into the issue. As Coddington senses her spreads are on the chopping block, she can’t hide the defeat on her face, as she sits at her desk. She updates the documentary crew about her spreads’ seemingly limited lifespan: “They took two more out and there’s question marks on two more, so it’s been whittled down… and I’m furious,” she calmly discloses. After a somber pause, she reveals with a brief nervous chuckle: “And it’s very hard to go on to the next thing.”
Later, a trip to Paris reignites the inner fire that looked to be extinguished. In a film full of flash and fashion, and pretty pictures, it’s this section that shows the inner beauty, particularly as Coddington overlooks the gardens at Versailles, an inspiring perspective emerges: “You have to go charging ahead, you can’t stay behind.”
And isn’t that what fashion, and life, is all about. The September Issue is a glimpse into the glamour, but more so it’s in-depth insight into the relentless passion it takes to create, and the frustration that can happen along the (run)way.
The September Issue cinematographer: Robert Richman.
Blunt Answers
The latest to reveal responses to Vogue’s insightful “73 Questions,” the delightfully charming, and seriously funny, Emily Blunt returns to the halls of a fashion publication. The actress, whose breakout performance as the snotty, and stressed-out, fashion-magazine assistant, Emily in The Devil Wears Prada, makes a series of references to the film as she walks through the magazine’s New York office:
Emily stating her Starbucks is “a bit cold.” Editor-in-Chief, Miranda (the aforementioned Devil) had a preference for “Starbucks…hot Starbucks.”
“… They’re both so different.” In the film, another assistant holds up two seemingly identical belts for Miranda, and states that they’re both so different, to which Andrea, the fish-out-of water protagonist, scoffs in disbelief.
Seated young woman in the background: Takes on the Andrea role from the belt scene.
Stanley Tucci played Miranda’s right-hand man in the film.
Cerulean: The blue hue that Miranda references in the belt scene.
“That’s all.” Miranda’s frequent, infamously dismissive conclusion to her list of demands, is stated here by Anna Wintour, on whom Miranda is allegedly based.
“Bore someone else with your questions.” Another of Miranda’s dismissive statements in response to one of Andrea’s reasonable inquiries.
By segment’s end, wishing for number 74 from the Mary Poppins actress whose refined voice is as smooth as satin.
Pop Playlist: Madonna: “Vogue”
Arguably, Madonna’s 1990 hit, “Vogue” is her signature song, one that will always come up in conversation when discussing the icon’s contribution to pop (music) culture. With its theme of dance floor as place to escape life’s “heartache,” Madonna and co-writer Shep Pettibone paint a scene where fantasy, through imaginative (fashion-pose) voguing, serves as inspirational recharge for one’s own reality, a space that gives “new life.”
The documentarian, Jennie Livingston had already been exploring similar themes in the New York gay underground of competitive fashion-fantasy balls and voguing “battles” years earlier, with her groundbreaking film, Paris Is Burning. Yet Madonna was the one to bring elements from this world into mainstream visibility (“Life’s a ball”). While the powerful documentary delves into far grittier territory, “Vogue” focuses on the glitzier aspects of old-Hollywood glamour. It becomes more than just a catchy dance song or stylish video, it’s indicative of how a savvy Madonna took something subculture and crafted it into one of her most mainstream successes, in turn, also influencing the pop-culture lexicon, the word not just a noun anymore or the name of a magazine, but now a familiar action verb.
David Fincher’s masterpiece:
A clip from Paris Is Burning, with the legendary Willi Ninja. Take note at 1:15 - 1:25, which features a young Jose Gutierez, who a few years later would appear in the video for “Vogue” and be a part of Madonna’s “Blond Ambition World Tour.”
Margot Robbie Has a “Serious” Beauty Routine
Check out this sleek short film showing the morning routine of the actress, Margot Robbie. Yet as Robbie, in “cold gaze” mode, begins her voiceover, describing her rigid regimen, the film begins to take satirical shape…
…becoming an homage to a famous scene from a film that once starred the actor, Christian Bale:
I’m Bat(e)man
“In the morning, if my face is a little puffy, I’ll put on an ice pack while doing my stomach crunches. I can do a thousand now.”
— Christian Bale is beauty and beast as Patrick Bateman in American Psycho, a graphic alle(gory) of status obsession gone savage amid the me-generation ‘80s.
Lionsgate Films. Cinematographer: Andrzej Sekula.