“I Mean…What?!?” – Abe Gurko

I absolutely loved The September Issue starring Grace Coddington and Anna Wintour.  It’s the feel good movie of the summer. Anyone who walks away without rethinking Anna, has a bigger bug up their ass than she supposedly does. She is a woman obsessed with her work. Anyone that is, knows to what degree they will fight for what they think is best for the situation at hand. In this case, Anna is holding on for dear life to what may well be…the last amazing moment in fashion…perhaps never to be seen again. Did Anna have precognitive dreams about the economy and publishing industry overall? Who knows. Either way, like a lioness, she protects and fights for each page as though they are the last of her cubs. The relationship between Anna and Grace Coddington is so unbelievably touching, that it makes the whole movie work. Call it good versus evil if you must, but I see it as two dynamic polar opposites, both equal in their conviction and in love with what they do. Without each other, the story does not work effectively or emotionally. Surely the magazine would have suffered over the years had this intense dynamic not been at the underpinnings of the creative heart of the magazine. What’s so great about the movie also is that it shows how vulnerable the Vogue staff really is. OMG…they are human after all! As someone who has had dealings with them, it is really a pleasure to see. Every time you are beckoned to their offices, a sweat breaks on the brow, the waiting room feels like Purgatory and the hopes of being touched by the hand of God (not the Pope, dear Candy, God) is all that matters. Now granted, my sister Vivian would probably laugh at how intensely I am scrutinizing “just a magazine”, but for people in the fashion industry and those who simply love fashion, it is the Bible…hence…Purgatory, God, etc.

I’ve heard nothing but complaints about the new September issue, the Vogue magazine, that is. I have to wonder what people expect from a magazine. The answer to the age old question of the meaning of life? Flip through it an move on. Put it this way, even if you hate the new issue of Vogue, you are still talking about it, which is why Anna Wintour is the  smartest person on Earth. The timing of the limited release of the film is brilliant because all the other rags have just hit the newsstand…thus stealing the thunder. In addition, Anna’s pet project Fashion’s Night Out on September 10 is on the eve of the nationwide release of the film. Can we all just say brilliant? Now, I am sure that is a team effort from the marketing and publishing side. But Anna is the creative tool they have to work with. And Grace, the lovely, poetic, venerable, angel from a romantic time gone by, is at the center of why this film is so enjoyable. She makes you laugh, almost cry and cheer for her sheer will and heart-on-her sleeve vulnerability. And Anna, by the film’s end, admits that she, too, adores Grace. That’s because Anna is the smartest woman on the fashion Earth.