The September Issue

Welcome back, hope you all celebrated Star Wars Day in the appropriate way, i briefly considered reviewing Return Of The Jedi, but i decided that three Star Wars posts in as many days may be somewhat overkill, so i will leave it till later to complete my series on the original trilogy. The September Issue is a 2008 documentary feature revolving around the production of the september issue of Vogue magazine, directed by RJ Cutler, the film looks at the conception, writing and styling of the magazine, and the conception of what was, at the time, the largest edition of a monthly magazine ever produced at 820 pages.

The film revolves around Vogue and it's editor in chief, Anna Wintour, notoriously frosty and cold, Wintour runs Vogue with an iron fist, and that is apparent from this film, however the film also does a good job of showing us the woman behind the pageboy bob and the large sunglasses. The idea for the film came about in 2006, after the release of The Devil Wears Prada, the film had the unintended consequence of turning Wintour into a celebrity outside of the fashion industry, and giving her a reputation for being mean, frosty and unemotional, in order to repair her image, Wintour commissioned a documentary, detailing her private and professional life, and the development of the magazine.

The film begins by showing us the Vogue offices, Wintour's country home in upstate New York, and her life with her daughter, a university law student, the film then shows us Wintour's trip to europe and her meetings with the fashion council in Paris. What is hugely focused on in the movie is Wintour's relationship with Grace Coddington, Coddington, a former model who is now fashion editor at American Vogue. The relationship between the two is featured heavily throughout the film, and Coddington often seems to be the only person who occasionally stands up to Wintour.

The September Issue is highly successful as a documentary, as it provides an unadulterated and reasonably unfiltered look into the creative process at Vogue Magazine and the way Anna Wintour runs the magazine, the film also manages to make it's protagonist, who was previously thought of as being cold and unapproachable, into someone empathic and strangely likeable. The September Issue is entertaining and fun, and is an accessible documentary for anyone interested in fashion. Rating: B

Anna Wintour: Just because you like to put on a beautiful Carolina Herrera dress or a pair of J Brand blue jeans instead of something basic from K-Mart it doesn't mean that you're a dumb person.