Thursday, September 24th, 2009
Kim Tank, Elizabeth Willse, Adrienne Elise, Irina Roma
On Saturday, September 19, the staff of PinkyShears and friends attended a screening of The September Issue. And then repaired to Stitch Bar and Lounge, a popular fashion industry hangout in the garment industry.
From the perspective of a fashion designer, the September Issue has very few surprises. Magazines are a bunch of chaos, with a bunch of ideas, observed Brandon. A fellow designer and friend, Adrienne called the movie “a wonderful behind the scenes look at the New York fashion industry, and a refresher” as a perspective on the way the industry operates.
Tanzanie Hughie, Brandon Graham, Elizabeth Willse after the movie at Stitch Bar & Lounge
Brandon felt the movie misrepresented, even shortchanged, Mario Testino and others working with Anna. Brandon saw “a very talented guy became a bit part player, unsure of himself against Anna Wintour’s will. He’s one of the few fashion photographers Vogue relies on.” Others surrounding Anna Wintour get short shrift as well. Brandon and Elizabeth agree: It would have been nice to figure out what Andre Leon Tally’s part of the whole process was- because his portrayal was almost comic relief- wearing a fabulous outfit and making proclamations like “we are starved for beauty.” An aside that showed him playing tennis was a farce.
Could it be, Brandon wonders that the point of the documentary, was to make the fashion world look accessible, but only up to a point. Accessible in a carefully crafted, stylized way.
One of the major players who gave the movie substance and heart was Grace Coddington, the creative director. A forty-year veteran of the magazine industry, she’s Anna Wintour’s contemporary, and one of the few people shown doing anything but agreeing wholeheartedly with Anna. She has Anna’s ear, up to a point. But she also has her own aesthetic for the magazine, from working hands on to style the models herself (a practice other magazines seldom use) to small touches like refusing to airbrush the rounded stomach of the documentary filmmaker, when using his picture in a fashion layout. While Anna will be herself no matter what the industry does, Grace is attuned to the shifting climate of fashion. A scene where the creative director walks the halls of Versailles, wondering about the changes in the industry, and her place at the magazine, is particularly powerful.
Miss. Elise posing with Miss. Wintour
The film keeps returning to a room of rows of magnets, each holding a page that will become the magazine. Anna sweeps in and sends a whole week’s work fluttering down in seconds. Grace tiptoes in, and visibly flinches at the wreckage of cast off photos. She keenly feels both her own creative efforts denied, and the expensive waste of suddden editorial changes. Money wasted in a sacrifice to Anna’s whims. “50,000 dollars lost,” she laments, after an entire photo shoot is scrapped.
Elizabeth, editor at PinkyShears, in a proto of the PinkyShears T-shirt.
Apart from a few, softer moments of candor, filmed at home and smiling about her daughter’s law career, Anna Wintour comes across as a boldface name. She’s a force of nature in a sleek blonde bob, a polished outfit, and of course, the shades. Although, at the conclusion of the film, we hear her wondering about leaving the business, the focus on her makes it seem impossible that she ever could. Greeting designers with a kiss on the cheek, changing a color scheme with a single raised eyebrow, she inspires loyalty and instant agreement.
While the movie’s thrumming music and riot of colored outfits send the magazine on a headlong pace to September, it’s important to remember how much was cut and reshuffled to shape the story. Now Anna’s wearing a pink flowered dress and looking pinched and tense. Now, she’s in blue, relaxing at home and wondering why her daughter didn’t join her in the magazine business. The film was as carefully styled and sequenced as the pages of the issue itself.
Tags: Andre Leon Tally, Anna Wintour, Elizabeth Willse, fashion documentary, Grace and Anna, Grace Coddington, Mario Testino, Movie Night Out, The September Issue, The September Issue movie review, Vogue
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