Friday, January 16, 2009

bated breath for the september issue


Two minute clip with RJ Cutler and Anna Wintour
This weekend sees the premiere screening of "The September Issue" at Sundance Film Festival. The documentary, is the outcome of eight months of filming at 4 Times Square and focuses on the production of the September issue back in 2007. (You may remember it from the cover which saw Sienna Miller with slicked back hair and superdark eyebrows.. it gathered a bit of a negative reaction at the time, If I rememeber correctly.)

For all of the Wintour bashing that makes up a good fraction of the archives on this blog, I must admit I'm very curious to see this. The frustration at the absence of inspiring editorials and the seeming lack of fashion forward content often makes me forget Anna's importance within the fashion industry. Though it may be easy to question how on earth her influence can still be relevant in an age where the likes of France Sozzani (who incidentally has edited Vogue for as long as Wintour has, and yet still manages to keep up with the mood of modern fashion and society) Carine Roitfled are steaming ahead and editing much more cutting edge international editions, they are arguably able to get away with more when they have a smaller circulation and therefore less of a reliance on the approval of advertisers. As much as we may disapprove an issue for it's unoriginal content, it must be a tricky balancing act for editor in chief, to 'people-please' both the readers, advertisers and still stay true their indiviual creative aesthetics.

I'm interested to know what Anna's reasons were for allowing the team, led by Director RJ Cutler to film for such a long period of time; in total 300 hours of footage has been produced. It seems out of character for the famously icy editor and Cutler himself claims that Vogue fashion director Grace Coddington was originally less than welcoming to towards them.

10 comments:

Unknown said...

I hope they expose some juiciness. Its funny to see that Anna Wintour's office looks a lot like her office in The Devil Wears Prada. I haven't actually given much thought to Ann Wintour in a while and I'm amazed that they're keeping a bitchy soccer mom on staff.

Style Spot said...

I am so looking forward to seeing this documentary. It will be very exciting and interesting to see what goes on in there. And it'll be fun to see if anyone actually smiles in the documentary..they all seem so serious and stressed haah! I hope you're doing well, dear Stevie xoxox

A. said...

that office looks awfully familiar, hee!

oh, i cant wait to see this. after all this hatred ive built up toward anna & her less than perfect issues these past years, im ready to see a peak behind the scenes.

where can we see it first? you would know ;]

love x

Anonymous said...

Sadly, I haven't had the chance to hear about this movie. But it seems to have many high raves and marks, so we'll see.

dju*dju said...

maybe she allowed it because she wants everyone to see that's it's not all glamor and cattiness etc - it's loads of hard work.
iam not a big fan of american vogue - just a thought.

jeanie annan-lewin said...

oh you dont know how long i've waited and how much i've prayed to the fashion gods the tension is going to be amazing xx

jeanie annan-lewin said...

ps i love how edward and grace are just hanging out i LIVE for edward his all kinds of awesome

hannah-rose said...

you expressed this perfectly... it's the hang 10 of being anna isn't it? one of the most powerful women in fashion, the ability to make or break the career of many young designers, models, celebrities and photographers, but also without the ability to do some of the things that carine and france can because of the circulation (it's way over a 1 million, isn't it?). I imagine it would be hard for her, especially considering the role that US Vogue has played in the history of fashion and how most of the ground breaking things have come through her magazine, and yet she can't do much herself.

this documentary sounds very interesting, i can't wait to see it.

XXX

hannah-rose said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Mon Chér said...

very intriguing