DOCUMENTARY:It's more than a movie about fashion, it's about the tensions that exist in the workplace. LYNN ENRIGHTgoes behind the scenes of 'The September Issue' with director RJ Cutler
The recession has hit the glossies hard: sales are down by as much as 20 per cent for some titles, and consequently advertising revenue – the lifeblood of high-end magazines – is slipping too. But way back in September 2007 (much like in school, the fashion year begins in September), the bubble had yet to burst and US Vogueproduced its biggest issue ever. It was 840 pages long – 727 of which were lucrative advertisements – and weighed in at just over 4lbs. The magazine was an homage to an era of excess, and an estimated 13 million people bought into the polished dream and snapped up a copy.
The September Issue, a feature-length documentary by RJ Cutler (producer of The War Roomand director of A Perfect Candidate), goes behind the scenes at the magazine and charts the nine-month-long slog that led to the publication of that outsized edition. And although magazine sales haven taken a battering, the interest in movies and shows that expose the egos behind them remains strong – Ugly Bettyis on its fourth season and the US box office takings for The September Issue have been buoyant. The only documentaries to have debuted ahead of it in terms of earnings are the IMAX extravaganza Across the Sea of Time, Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, Sickowith Michael Moore and The Aristocrats, which boasts a cast of 100 well-known and well-loved comedians.
Should we be surprised that a documentary about fashion is up there with films that examine universally relevant subjects such as climate change and the provision of healthcare? Well no, not really, considering that fashion is a bigger part of the mainstream consciousness than ever before.
The mystery that once surrounded fashion has evaporated, largely due to the proliferation of fashion blogs (it’s hard to pin down a number but estimates suggest that there are upwards of two million of them), the ubiquity of the weekly what-celebrity-is-wearing-what magazines, and high street/designer collaborations that allow everybody to buy into the newly democratised industry. We have reached a stage where it’s not only movie stars that anticipate the question ‘Who are you wearing?’ and it’s entirely plausible that your dad knows who Karl Lagerfeld is.
The public has a far greater interest in, and understanding of fashion than they did 10 years ago, but make no bones about it, there's one woman pulling the strings of the entire industry: Anna Wintour, editor-in-chief of US Vogueand the inspiration for Meryl Streep's character in The Devil Wears Prada.This tiny – almost skeletal – Chanel-clad figure sits atop of the $300 billion global business, manipulating the puppets below – the designers, the department stores, the advertisers and the consumers.
RJ Cutler agrees that the fascination with fashion, and by extension Wintour, is a significant reason for the strong start the film has enjoyed. “This is an opportunity to see the real Anna Wintour, to see inside the previously impenetrable hallways of Vogue magazine, to see Anna and her team at work,” he says. “There is enormous interest in all things fashion and this gets to the core. It’s like being inside the queen bee’s hive.”
The woman who has been described as everything from an ice queen to an alien, and is the subject of countless rumours, ranging from suggestions that she gets her fringe trimmed daily to the reports that she is to take on a diplomatic role in the Obama administration, is an intriguing character for many, including Cutler.
“What compels me to a movie is the subject and Anna is an extraordinary figure who is as fascinating as any of the other people I’ve made movies about,” says the director, whose previous subjects include Bill Clinton and famed political advisor James Carville.
“What interests me is passion in a high-stakes environment and Anna is a driven, passionate, powerful figure on the world stage and the stakes couldn’t be higher.”
Those expecting that passion to assert itself in histrionics and tantrums in The September Issue will be disappointed. Wintour doesn’t do tantrums; she doesn’t need to. A little pout or a disapproving furrow of the brow is enough to send established fashion designers into a tailspin of self-doubt and performance anxiety.
Cutler insists, though, that “the folks who work with her love it. Because they know where they stand with her, they know when they’re succeeding and when they’re failing, they know that she’s going to drive them to achieve their best.”
He argues that the negativity that surrounds her is sexist and he doesn’t think that “a man who had the reputation that Anna has would be reacted to in the same way.”
But what first drew Cutler – a Harvard-educated filmmaker, who judging by the baggy jumpers he favours, hasn’t been swept up by the new, more fashion-conscious sensibility – to Wintour and her world? He says that he was inspired by the sheer magnitude of the “enormous industry” and its economic ramifications.
“It impacts shipping and employment and advertising and publishing. It intercepts with celebrity and the entertainment industry. There’s so much that this is central to, so I was curious.”
He admits that he does “get the tendency to see the frivolity” of fashion, but believes that to write it off as a purely trivial pursuit is short-sighted.
“This is an industry that is fundamental not only to who we are – I mean let’s face it, we all put on clothes in the morning and the clothes we wear are essential to communicating to the world who we are – but it’s also an industry that encompasses, or touches, all these other industries . . . It’s a place where great artists have crafted their work for centuries. It reflects culture. It’s all these very, very important things that people miss if they just say ‘fashion’s silly’.”
The people at Vogue certainly don’t have any time for those who fall into the “fashion’s silly” camp. Meetings are devoted to discussing whether or not “the jacket is the new coat” and hundreds of thousands of dollars are spent on extravagant Paris- and Rome-based fashion shoots. Cutler simply holds a mirror up to this office, observing the coiffed protagonists in their natural habitat. He feels no need to address the thorny issues of fur, fat and Photoshopping.
“I’m not an issue-based filmmaker. I’m not an activist. It’s not my interest. My interest is in storytelling.”
Instead he says that he is “always looking for the relationships. Any movie is about relationships; any story you tell is about the interaction between people.”
And he has found a compelling relationship to place at the heart of The September Issue– that which exists between Wintour and her long-time collaborator, stylist Grace Coddington, a fellow Brit who arrived at Vogueon the same day as Wintour in 1988.
The begrudging friendship of the sleek business-minded Wintour and the more creative Coddington is essentially what propels this movie from a documentary about fashion to what Cutler has come to term a “buddy film”, a movie that ruminates on the loyalties and tensions that exist in workplaces across the world.
Coddington’s refusal to cede to Wintour is more interesting to watch than the flapping, flustered juniors and even funnier than the sycophantic fawning of design director, Charles Churchward. The passive-aggressive tendencies of the pair – the too long silences, the playing up to the new faces in the office (the film crew in this instance) – and the rows that simmer but never boil over, will strike a chord with all those who have negotiated a tricky workplace terrain.
So Cutler feels that he has created a film that anybody can enjoy, even those who have yet to subscribe to Grazia. A film that "transcends the specifics about being about the fashion industry and speaks about workplace dynamics and politics and the nature of what work is."
It is, in fact, the members of the audience who have managed to steer clear of the fashion phenomenon that please the director.
“One of the most gratifying things about this film is the number of people who see it who have no interest in fashion – they’re brought to it by their girlfriends or family members or spouses, they’re invited by somebody who has an interest in fashion and they find, ‘My goodness, this film speaks to me’. ”
And there you have it: the perfect rejoinder to anybody hesitant about accompanying you to The September Issue, a film that speaks not only to the fashion-literate, but also to those who still think that the new year starts in January.
The September Issue is on limited release now