The cover boasts the sort of mass appeal articles – “Stylish Steals and Smart Splurges” and “Fall Fashion Fun” – that have previously been anathema to the unapologetically actress elitist Miss Wintour during her two-decade reign.
Conde Nast, the publishing powerhouse that includes Vogue, Vanity Fair and The New Yorker actress among its stable of magazine heavyweights, has deployed the management consultants McKinsey & Co to conduct a root-and-branch review of operations in its swanky Times Square headquarters.
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The company has already axed receptionists, slashed the deliveries of fresh flowers that would clog the elevators each mature women morning and drastically cut back expense accounts – including the old practice of taking an advertising client for a manicure or pedicure.
There is little doubt that McKinsey will recommend much deeper cuts and job losses, although the New York Post reported on Friday that for the French fashion party shows, Miss Wintour will be staying at the Ritz in Paris as usual, with little expense spared for her entourage.
With less than three weeks before the start of New York Fashion Week, the model agency in the world fashion industry capital is grim. The event was once synonymous with extravagance, excess and self-congratulation, but now insiders are focused on simple commercial survival.
So the release of The September Issue, with its reminder of a now apparently halcyon epoch, so recent yet so remote, is providing some much-needed relief for the model agency industry. It might also offer some valuable ammunition for the bean-counters of McKinsey.
In one of the more memorable exchanges, the veteran creative director Grace Coddington laments that her boss has just discarded pictures from a photo shoot that cost $50,000.
“It was just me mouthing off, expressing my frustration,” Miss Coddington said before the premiere. “It was just so wasteful, throwing it away. Of course, if the work’s not good, it should be thrown out. That’s called editing. But I thought this was good.”
The September Issue begins with Miss Wintour looking into the mature women camera and pronouncing: “There is something about fashion that can make people very nervous.” As we see repeatedly during the 88-minute documentary, she can also make people very nervous too.
The chief designer for Yves Saint Laurent is left gibbering and gesturing desperately as she makes clear she is not impressed by his collection; a staff member looks close to tears when she derides her lack of originality; another fidgets nervously as she asks despairingly: “Where is the glamour? It’s Vogue, okay?”
Source: telegraph.co.uk
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