The September Issue

To any fashion addict, the arrival of director R. J. Cutler's "The September Issue" was cause to salivate. It has been billed as the real-life "The Devil Wears Prada" but for those of us who really do believe that haute couture is art, "The September Issue" disappoints. For years, thinly-veiled novels and Page Six items have transmitted the idea that Vogue's longtime editor-in-chief, Anna Wintour is a cold, demanding micro-manager who is frighteningly out of touch with everyday people. After seeing the film, I can say definitively that Anna Wintour is a cold, demanding micro-manager who is frighteningly out of touch with everyday people. Wintour apparently allowed Cutler unparalleled access to the Conde Nast offices in the months leading up to the largest September Issue Vogue had ever published. But for all that face time with Wintour, the audience is never really allowed in. We don't learn anything new, nor are we able to see the depths of Wintour's character. A good documentary film doesn't have to be gossipy, but it must reveal something about its subject. This is precisely why Vogue's creative director Grace Coddington steals the film. With her Titian-tinged frizz and hippy-dippy frocks, Coddington is Wintour's polar opposite, allowing her vulnerability to take center stage. We see her soar with Icarus-like wings while she directs a photo shoot, then falls, heartbroken, when Wintour kills the images, preventing them from ever gracing the pages of the magazine. Coddington bemoans the advent of the celebrity cover, but admits Wintour's savvy in realizing its sales potential well before anyone else in the business. This brings me to my Cultural Comment. I refuse to believe that I'm the only person who is as nauseated by "America's Celebrity Obsession" as I am by the media's coverage of it. We get it, Bill Maher. We Americans are wholly and unabashedly concerned with Jon Gosselin's late night dalliances. Mostly with young women who should really cease posing for the camera while they're knee-deep in bong resin. Yes, I believe that it's wrong for a cameraman who missed the last stage of evolution to scream obscenities at Ben Affleck's daughter. That does not mean that I don't slip Us magazine slyly into my robe and devour it while I'm bathing, pretending to be reading The Economist. I know I am awash in a hypocritical schadenfreude-laden rationalization. But I don't need to be lectured by other hypocrites who are employed by those same media conglomerates who give me my fix. Anna Wintour places actresses on the cover of Vogue. They are dressed in the latest sartorial splendor and made up by the likes of Pat McGrath, the most talented make-up artist working today. They reveal a bit about themselves, pose for the photographer and look gorgeous. What is so wrong with that? Anna Wintour is brilliant. Just not in front of the camera.