Grace Coddington is the Star of “The September Issue”

By Kat Ahn on September 23rd, 2009

I finally got a chance to watch “The September Issue,” and I had a few questions in mind.

1) Would we be seeing Anna Wintour’s assistants actually speaking about their experiences working for the infamous Fashion editor?
2) Would we find out about the reason why Anna Wintour never wears her hair in any other style other than “the Bob?”
3) How many Starbucks lattes does Anna Wintour consume per day?

The documentary, directed by R.J. Cutler, goes behind the scenes at Vogue Magazine to see how the September 2007 issue gets made from which designers and pieces make the pages, as well as how they decide to shoot the cover model for this very-important issue. As we all know, this was shot before the Global Financial crisis and the beauty and extravagance of the clothing is a welcome change from the current Economic realities of the Fashion industry.

Though I thought that this documentary was going to focus solely on Anna Wintour, the Editor-in-Chief, whose icy nature has scared designers and assistants everywhere, I instead found myself gravitating towards Grace Coddington, Vogue magazine’s Creative director. Coddington reveals that she and Wintour started working at Vogue at the same time and thus, she is the only one who dares stand up to Anna Wintour about her creative choices. Most of the other employees of Vogue look to get out of Anna’s way as no one wants to get on her bad side.

Coddington is the woman who is behind the extravagant and glamorous shoots and has a warm nature to her that seemed to be the polar opposite of her boss. It made me wonder how she managed to work at Vogue all those years, even when her genius was not always rewarded. And of course, because this is a film, you need to find someone to root for, and so I did. I found myself wanting Grace’s shoots to make the September issue and not be cut out for not having “the right lighting,” or “being too…something.”

With regards to the workplace, Coddington says, “It’s important to make yourself felt and necessary.” Ain’t that the truth?

And so….the answers to the above questions…

1) Though we saw Anna’s assistants answering the phones, we did not get to hear what they thought of working at Vogue. (SIGH)
2) No, but I’m actually impressed by how perfect her bob looks every single time the woman is photographed.
3) My guess is 4 Starbucks lattes per day. I wonder if they are paying for product placement.