The Real Devil Wears Prada

After a busy day of class, errands, and meetings that started at 7:30 AM and ended at 9:00 PM I decided to relax by watching The September Issue. I have been waiting and waiting for this movie to come out and today it was finally released on DVD. The September Issue is about American Vogue and features its notorious head editor Anna Wintour. If the fashion industry was Indiana University Apparel Merchandising department Anna would be the director of the department (if you are reading this and you’re an apparel student at IU, you know exactly who I am talking about). She is the only opinion that matters and the most influential decision maker. Her choices not only affect the designer world, but they will also affect the mass market when the trends she picks to feature in the magazine trickle down into retailers like Target.

The September Issue provides a behind the scenes look at what goes into making one of issues of the magazine. They are creating the September issue, hence the title, which is the most important issue of the entire year. It is also the biggest and the September 2007 issue that they are working on had a record breaking 840 pages, which 727 were ads. Anna is of course the star of the film but it also shows Creative Director Grace Coddington who creates incredibly gorgeous pictures. I also loved how we got to see Anna’s more personal life and see some happy emotions from the usually firm editor.

After watching the documentary it made me want to work at Vogue. It is extremely stressful and sometimes heartbreaking. I don’t want to give too much away but my heart was cut in half when Grace fell in love with a picture for a 1920’s inspired spread but Anna immediately cut it out of the magazine. But I think if I worked there it would toughen me up and it would be the best learning experience I could possibly have. The September Issue is a must see for anyone remotely interested in the fashion industry. Maybe someday I will be walking down the halls of the Vogue offices freaking out if Anna Wintour is going to like the clothes I picked out for the run through of the Reese Witherspoon shoot - well, a fashionista can dream…