Brightest Young Things

In 2007, American Vogue put out its biggest ever Fall Fashion issue.
R.J. Butler was around during the 2 months it took to make it and made a documentary about being inside the belly of the beast that is the Conde Nast Building's Vogue floor and lived to release it.
I went to see it this weekend, because, frankly, being a girl and someone who's been stockpiling VOGUEs since the age of 10 (which is when I had to spend all my allowance money to buy the 2 month delayed imported one in Serbia) and who still reads it every single month without fail- I've been dying to do so.

Here is the trailer:

The best thing about "The September Issue" is how non-sensationalist it is.
Which, for those who've been expecting a "Real life "Devil Wears Prada"" may be the worst thing.

The main narrators of the glorious, glamorous chaos we're witnessing are Anna Wintour (editor-in-chief) and Grace Coddington, her creative director. These 2 women have been working together for exactly 20 years (they started at American VOGUE, both as British imports on the exact same day in 1989) and have togehter weathered the 90s and the 00s in world fashion, which, as we all know have been a bumpy road to take, and emerged more or less victorious.

Now-they bicker and tell snide little jokes behind each other's back, but you can see they both relish working with each other-they would not have been able to co-exist otherwise.

Anna, lets face it, has to do her job-which is edit.

Grace, lets face it, has to do her job-which is create and create enough so that some of it can be edited out and only the best makes its way into the best issue of the best fashion magazine in the world.

Of course no one likes being edited.

And every editor knows that and deals with it in their own way.

And if you have 767 pages to power through, then you better be decisive.

Calling Anna Wintour a bitch would be easy, but all we see her is presiding over insane chaos, while, at the same time, being involved in every possible aspect of fashion (consulting and mentoring the designers, helping retailers, keeping everyone's direction...) and in the face of a (smart, beautiful, high minded) family that loves and respects her but finds her job, shall we say, silly?

How would you feel if you've managed to hold onto to editor-in-chief position of, what some may argue, is the most influential magazine in the world, and have your family "be amused" by what you do?

As if you decided to crochet potholders in the shape of seashells for a living or something.

Anyway, the movie is a delight of color and texture and high glamour in spots from Paris to London to Rome (for a Sienna Miller cover shoot which does not go quite as planned leaving Tonne Goodman, looking probably like the biggest bitch of them all, not necessarily ever aiming to please, just resigning to whatever ideas Mario Testino may have and shrugging Anna's concerns over the final product off) and while everything from feathers to tempers keep on flying and things are being reshot last minute (including a genius "camera reverse" moment for the color blocking story) what we do eventually see is best described as "grace under fire" both literally and figuratively as Grace Coddington, all wiry red hair and no heels powers her way through making the prettiest pictures of all.
If you think of VOGUE as a (petulent but gifted) child, Anna is it's firm-but-fair nanny and Grace is it's endlessly loving mother. She just gives and gives and will never stop giving because she has that much love in her.

In the end everything comes together just fine, just as it always does and you leave, at least in my case, full of admiration at what hard work pretty pictures are.

If you love fashion, this is recommended.

If you wish you understood it better, this is a must.