The September Issue

It's October 1, so today was the day to see the documentary, The September Issue. It's also the last day that it's showing at a theater close to me. It's a 90 minute documentary that covers preparation of the 2007 September issue of (American) Vogue magazine. The key players in the documentary are Anna Wintour, Editor in Chief of Vogue, and Grace Coddington, the creative director at Vogue. Anna Wintour is still a bit of a cypher, but she doesn't come across as personable, just as a woman who does what she needs to get her job done. At the beginning of the documentary, one of her colleagues explains that she doesn't try to be nice or friendly to strangers. She's not as over the top as Meryl Streep's Miranda Priestly from The Devil Wears Prada. Of course, you knew why Miranda did things, but Wintour is a bit cryptic. I guess that is the difference between drama and real life.

Grace Coddington is a more memorable person--as she shares her thoughts with the documentary crew (and the audience) as she creates and styles fashion shoots. She's a former fashion model and she has an amazing ability to create different visual scenarios that highlight different fashion designs (she knows how to show the clothing!) and she produces results: lots of great pictures for editorial shots. Each one of her layouts had very strong pictures that were unfortunately edited and made shorter. The documentary is pretty funny, because Wintour wears several lovely fitted sheath dresses (I'm trying to find a pattern for the indigo and white ikat dress, with a shoulder yoke on the front and back), with heels, all the time, and Coddington is always wearing a shapeless black dress with clunky sandals.

I recommend it! I'm going to rent it when it comes out on DVD, so I can take a closer look at some of the fashions.

I'm working on my second pair of Marlene pants, and I've got some finishing touches on

BWOF 09-2005-129. I should be able to post some reviews over the weekend.