The September Issue

Yesterday was one of those cold rainy autumn days where you just want to curl up in a blanket and watch films all day as the weather is so gloomy and makes you not feel bad about yourself that you are inside all day. As it was one of those days, I decided to watch the film "The September Issue" (See Fig.1) which features Anna Wintour and the process of making the September issue for Vogue in 2007 (See Fig.2).

Fig.1, The September issue, 2009, Amazon

Fig.2, Vogue September Cover, 2007

The film started off by Mrs. Wintour herself in an interview explaining how fashion makes people very angry and that many people in our society will never understand how someone could spend thousands of pounds on a designer dress. She explains how the people who get very upset about something like that feel like they could never fit into that very glamorous world of fashion and would rather bash it than accept it and be jealous. I thought that was quite interesting to look at it at with that point of view as there are many critics of this lifestyle and thinking about it this way makes sense. I often think to myself, how can someone spend an enormous amount of money on a bag but at the end of the day I would spend that money if I had it on a designer bag because it looks freaking amazing!

The next scenes of the film showed the Vogue office and how everyone is really busy as the September issue is one of if not the most important issue for Vogue. One assistant explains that September is almost like the month of January for fashion. You change up your style as it gets colder, you give those high heels one more try and kind of give your overall wardrobe a new aesthetic which I found was an interesting perspective. Another interesting part about this film was, seeing Edward Enninful as a contributing editor for Vogue US and working for Anna Wintour (See Fig. 3, 4).

Fig.3, Screenshot from "The September Issue"

Fig.4, Screenshot from "The September Issue"

He had to plan the wardrobe for a colour blocking fashion shoot ( See Fig. 4) and was critiqued quite harshly for his selection of pieces by Anna herself. He was panicking so much and it was just really interesting to see how much he worked his way up to the point now where he is the editor in chief for Vogue UK.

Fig 5, Anna Wintour and Edward Enninful at the "Fashion for Relief" catwalk show, London 2019. Zimbo

What was also another interesting insight into the production and progress of the September Vogue issue was the photo shoot process. Grace Cuddington who has been working at Vogue as long as Anna Wintour has, directs and plans a lot of the Vogue shoots and in the film shows the behind the scenes for the shoots and explains how much budget goes into these (often up to 50,000 dollars).

Fig. 6, Screenshot from "The September Issue"

Fig.7, Screenshot from "The September Issue"

This is quite crazy to me as often you could see scenarios in the film where images get rejected if Anna does not like them, which can happen quite often as she has a very clear direction on how she wants things to go, which can be intriguing but I think that is what made her the person she is today.

Overall I think this is a really exciting film for fashion lovers as you get to see the real stress and effort that goes into the production of Vogue. To sum it up I guess you could say it is kind of like a real life "Devil wears Prada" without all the glitz and glamour.