The chalk-and-cheese relationship between Anna Wintour and Grace Coddington, the editor and stylist of American ' Vogue' respectively, is at the centre of a riveting film about the magazine, writes JESS CARTNER-MORLEY
IF THERE is one thing more painful and offensive than having Sacha Baron Cohen send you up it is, of course, having Sacha Baron Cohen ignore you when you were expecting him to send you up. That is what has happened to us in the fashion industry.
Brünowas unavoidable at Paris fashion week: staging flouncy rows with bouncers outside show venues, shooting tampons on to the catwalk from the second row at Stella McCartney. Naturally, we were all thrilled at the prospect of impending stardom – but it didn't quite work out like that. There is a brief scene in which a young Californian catwalk model is made to look a bit daft, and another in an American army barracks, where an officer demands to know why the new recruit has added a silk scarf to his uniform and Brüno patiently explains that without it the camo print is "too matchy-matchy", but it amounts to little more than a cameo role for fashion.
There is, however, another new film that painstakingly unpicks the industry from its inner seams. The September Issue, directed and produced by RJ Cutler, follows Anna Wintour and her team through much of 2007 as they put together the September issue of Vogue. (September is the fashion world's January, the month the new year starts; the September issue of any magazine is the biggest of the year.) The September Issue is utterly riveting. A starker contrast to the high-volume antics of Brüno is hard to imagine: this is a film in which the dramatic action centres on photographs being shuffled around on a lightbox. Audiences who assumed The Devil Wears Pradaexaggerated Wintour's chilliness for effect will discover from The September Issue that the opposite is true: even Vogue's publisher agrees that Wintour doesn't do warmth ("We'll leave warm to me".) There is an excruciating scene in which a stylist presents an idea for a story about pink clothes: Wintour: "So it's all pinks. Do you really feel this is the most important message to put in our September issue?" Long pause.
Stylist: “I thought it was pretty.” Long pause.
Wintour: “Maybe you want to develop it a little bit more.” Ouch.
Wintour’s influence in fashion extends far beyond the Vogue offices: she wields power in every corner of the industry, from advising Gap on the right young designers with whom to collaborate to having Miuccia Prada “reinterpret” elements of a collection she doesn’t think will sell. She conducts herself like an old-school mafia godfather: meticulously courteous (she is, famously, never one minute late for any appointment) but with the power to end a career with a clipped word or a tiny frown. The film serves only to reinforce Wintour’s icy reputation – as the publisher puts it, “she isn’t available to people she doesn’t need to be available to” – but it humanises her nonetheless. She is not cold and demanding just for fashionable effect; she is entirely focused on producing the best possible product and entirely unconcerned about who she might offend along the way.
But even Wintour cannot eclipse the star of The September Issue, stylist Grace Coddington. Coddington joined American Vogue 21 years ago, on the same day as Wintour; she appears to be the only Vogue staffer uncowed by her boss. On screen, Wintour and Coddington are a double act in the mould of Bogart and Bacall: all spiky exchanges, pithy asides and deep but grudging admiration. Coddington is as fiery and emotional as Wintour is cool and reserved: to watch them do battle over whether or not to shoot a rubber dress is to see the great fashion battle of creativity versus commerciality acted out in an urbane New York office – a Punch and Judy show scripted by Woody Allen.
IT IS OFTEN noted that the qualities that have made Wintour so infamous – the unwillingness to cede control, the emotional coolness – would hardly raise an eyebrow in a similarly successful man. Another fashion-based film shortly to be released focuses on the same qualities in another female fashion legend, Coco Chanel.
Coco Avant Chanel tells the story of Chanel’s early life, from her arrival in a rural convent as a small child up to 1919, when she was just finding recognition as a designer.
The narrative may lack thrills – strange, really, to do a biopic of Chanel and leave out the later, more controversial years – but where the film triumphs is in showing how the Chanel aesthetic, now synonymous with classicism, femininity and elegance – was in its day truly transgressive and shocking. Coco’s wardrobe of flat straw boaters, men’s silk pyjamas, starched collars, simple Breton tops and stark monochrome is depicted as a direct affront and challenge to the romantic Edwardian aesthetic. (Later, in 1932, Colette was to describe her as “a little black bull”.) Her boyish, sleek silhouette runs in complete contrast to the society belles around her, upholstered cream puffs in their lace and silk ribbon.
Fashion is often dismissed as a world populated by airheads. But getting dressed in the morning is – or can be – an act of creativity, of rebellion, of expression and ambition. Chanel knew that; Wintour understands that. And the blonde in the yellow hotpants? I’m still hoping we’ll make it into his next film.
