September 2014 issues: more than six chickens

Above are most of the magazines we surveyed. 

September issue mania ensued chez moi last Saturday with BFFF* Karen. In a highly productive four hours, we visually consumed and discussed fifteen different September fashion magazines. Our selection weighed in over thirty pounds for a total of over five thousand pages of ads, trends, fashion editorial, do's and don'ts and proclamations of what's in and what's out. We learned our lesson from our first session two years ago and did preparatory homework by dividing up the issues a week before and bookmarking what we liked and compiling our discussion points before we got together. We take this seriously. Seriously.

What follows is our take on looks we thought would be possible to affordably add to our wardrobes, what looks we could create with what we already have, what we loved just because and even a little DIY (Karen is very crafty). The trends we noticed: fur, feathers and fringe. One could add a lot or a little. But a touch of any of the three f's looks new. And there are lots tailored looks with ladylike details such a top-handled bags, silk flower corsages and gloves. And flats! After a few years of four-inch plus heels, flat shoes are on the models. (However, just because a shoe is flat, does not mean it is urban-street worthy). And coats, which is great for San Francisco. Lots of coats in bright solid colors, bold prints, double-breasted or bathrobe style. A cool looking coat adds instant dash.

Long and lean looks good for Fall. In the right proportion, it could work on anyone.

The sleeveless coat is a new option. Again, it's a long, lean and tailored look. 

Prada and Max Mara showed skinny scarves which is an easy look to duplicate. 

In fact, all the scarves featured for Fall are a little smaller. 

Beautiful leather gloves in great colors.

 Here's a DIY look that caught Karen's eye: fake fur muff. 

Another DIY idea, a silk flower collar adds a pretty detail to an outfit.

Our favorite fashion spread was in Vogue, "Dark Horse" shot in Peru by Mario Testino and edited by Tonne Goodman. The above is not an outfit that either of us could wear, but we sure do love it. 

And I do love this Bottega Veneta skirt. Black turtleneck, great flattering skirt, boots and bold cuff? I could do that! Interesting to note that most of the looks we ripped out to save came from trusty Vogue. 

September issues: more than a bunch of bananas, but less than a chicken

Weighing in at over three pounds, my 2012 selection of September issues. According to the American Family Scale, it's more than a bunch of bananas, but less than a chicken.

It's that time...the September issue Olympics. As a magazine and fashion lover, this is both exciting and daunting. It's no longer the September issue, it's issues. At one time, Vogue was the only September issue that was fat with ads, fashion photos and editorial. I could leisurely flip through the pages and when I eventually reached the last page, I was confident that I knew what I needed to know about what was new for fall. Now all the fashion and style mags across multiple categories are on to the extra ad revenue and cache. For style and culture hunters, there's now at least fifteen magazines to study.

Two years ago, my BFFF (best fashion friend forever) Karen and I decided to tackle the project together. We began at about 10 am on a Saturday and it took us until early evening to dissect our collection of September issues. We read, sticky-noted, ripped out pages, highlighted, discussed what worked and what didn't until we couldn't see straight.

It's a job and we're just the girls for the job. We started with breakfast treats, moved on to lunch, then afternoon coffee and finished the day with a martini made by hubby Matt. And of course, we stayed hydrated throughout with lots of water. It was a marathon after all.


We missed our session last year so Karen and I have already set our date for our September 2014 issu-athon. I've already received my September Vanity Fair and Harper's Bazaar (with the lovely granddaughter of Audrey Hepburn photographed by the grandson of Richard Avedon). I've done my due diligence in scouring them both and placing sticky notes on various pages for discussion with Karen. Vogue has yet to kerplunk it's big bad self in my mailbox. But I just experimented with a new experience. I got an email from Vogue saying the iPad version was available. I downloaded it and flicked through the first third. It was fun in a novel sort of way, but I felt like I was cheating! I'm saving the rest for the real deal. But the iPad does illuminate all the rich fall colors in the photos beautifully. I did make note that long skinny scarves are in. I like that a lot.

I do have a perusal process. As I flip through the mags I ask myself: What's really new? What catches my eye? What elements of an outfit do I already have? Which ones do I want to add? Are the proportions new (wider pants? shorter tops?)? Most of the outfits are in the multi-thousand dollar range, so chances are slim that I'll buy that exact Prada item. But how can I translate what I like into something I can afford (and still give the appearance of expensive elegance)?

As a pre-game warmup, I just watched The September Issue film again. It's enlightening to hear the creative discussions and see the passion, angst (especially Grace Coddington!) and focus (especially Anna Wintour!) to put Vogue together. I so appreciate all the work, thought and creative mastery that it takes to create a world of beauty, exoticness and elegance all in one package and have it delivered to my doorstep and my iPad.

I'll report back on our findings from our upcoming session. And I'd love to hear your thoughts on your favorite September issue this year, whatever magazine that may be.

It Girl: Grace Coddington

Seemingly all at once, there are several books and movies featuring longtime Vogue creative director Grace Coddington. And one she has written herself, which I read over the holidays, Grace: A Memoir. Admitting that she's probably only read two books in her life, Grace is more surprised than anyone that she has written a memoir. But public appearances and interviewer questions stirred thoughts and memories after the release of The September Issue. So the woman who spends her life behind the scenes orchestrating fashion photoshoots became a celebrity, answering questions about her life story. In the film, Grace's forthright manner and passion for her creative vision was in direct contrast with Anna Wintour's cool, sometimes Arctic, demeanor. This made for great drama and the audience couldn't help but relate to and root for Grace. Especially when Anna was slashing an entire fashion spread dreamed up and made real by Grace, who very vocally and emotionally fought back.

Born in 1941 on Anglesey, an island on the north coast of Wales, she grew up in a hotel run by her parents which she describes as "a plain building with whitewashed walls and a sturdy gray slate roof, long and low, with the understated air of an elongated bungalow." Grace says she grew up with "sand dunes, rugged monochrome cliffs, druid circles and bleakness", seeing "beauty in the bleakness." At fifteen, she spent her days drifting in her little sailboat named Argo "in grand seclusion." All of which makes perfect sense today, that she appears to be down-to-earth but creates such elaborate fantastical fashion spreads. And always interested in clothes, she made most of her wardrobe on a Singer sewing machine using Vogue patterns. I can certainly relate to that. And she says that as a child, she read her older sister's Vogue saying she liked it for the fantasy of looking at beautiful clothes and getting lost in its pages.

At eighteen, she knew if she stayed on the island her only career choices were "working in a clock factory or a snack bar", so in 1959 she ventured to London with a girlfriend to try modeling. Grace enrolled in the Cherry Marshall modeling school. (A quick search and I learn that Cherry has an interesting story too, one that I plan to explore.) Grace had early success with modeling, winning a Vogue competition and posing for the top photographers like Norman Parkinson.

And so with modeling, her adventures into the fashionable world begins. Casually and anecdotally, Grace mentions the names of friends, lovers and co-workers, all celebrities today. Names like Mick Jagger (she made out with him), Vidal Sassoon, all the fashion photographer greats and her first husband Michael Chow. Then in her late twenties she was told that she was getting too old to be a model and that she should be a fashion editor, so she got her first editing job at British Vogue.

The book has great photos, capturing the feeling of the time. Above is a 1981 photo of Grace with hairstylist Didier Malige, colleagues on fashion shoots then, but now life partners for over thirty years. I love her look in this photo.

Grace's sketch of the front row who's who at a fashion show. 

"With Anna at a Versace show. Photo: Arthur Elgort, 1998"

In the book's introduction, Grace modestly says "I'm always surprised that people who've seen the movie (The September Issue) respond to me in such a positive manner. Maybe it's because I come across on-screen as so emotional. It makes me appear idealistic, in contrast to Anna, who is by nature much more determinedly and quietly controlled. Or maybe it's because I appear to be put upon." Grace is loyal to Anna, writing about "the creative push and pull of the way Anna and I work together." Her thoughts on The Devil Wears Prada?: "its portrayal of fashion is utterly ridiculous".

The memoir contains a selection of Grace's fashion spreads:

British Vogue, shot by Helmut Newton, 1971.
That's Grace in the pool above and below in the black bikini.

Grace's elaborate and fantastic Alice in Wonderland multi-page creation for American Vogue.
Photos: Annie Leibowitz, 2003.

Coinciding with Vogue's 120th anniversary, In Vogue: The Editor's Eye, an HBO documentary about the fashion editors premiered recently, not having HBO I haven't seen it, but I'm hoping to soon. And of course, It-girl Grace is featured. And the same for the gorgeous companion book, Vogue: The Editor's Eye, which is on my wish list.

In her memoir, Grace takes the reader up to the present day when she celebrates her 71st birthday at a party thrown by Anna Wintour. Nearly everyone important to fashion was there. In a toast to Grace, Anna says "To me you will always be the heart and soul of the magazine, its guardian at the gate, its beacon of excellence..."

Grace is an inspiration for sticking to her passion and vision. Having worked in the fashion world for over fifty years, it must be pretty cool to be an "It" girl at the age of 71.

Vogue Nostalgia

Just out: Nostalgia in Vogue, edited by Eve MacSweeney with a forward by Anna Wintour.

I've always had an emotional reaction and attachment to certain Vogue photographs. I started reading Vogue when I was fifteen and the photos by Helmut Newton, Irving Penn and Richard Avedon showed me a world that was rich in elegance, beauty and sometimes an edgy provocative sexuality. I would tear out the photos and save them in a three-ring binder that I still have. Through those photos, I experienced a vision of glamorous, worldly women and what they wore. Although it wasn't just the outfits; it was the powerful combination of attitude, surroundings and clothes (sometimes not much!). The photos told a story that I wanted to know more about, delve into and hold close.

Clothes can have a huge emotional tug; they are a marker of how we want to show ourselves to the world. The awareness starts in those coming-of-age years when we are trying to figure out who we are, how we fit in and what we want to be. I grew up defining life events by what I wore, or sometimes what I wore and why I wore it created the event and made the memory for me, for better or worse or bittersweet.

Ever since it started in 2000, the Vogue "Nostalgia" column is the first thing I turn to when I receive a new issue. When I first read "Nostalgia", I realized that I wasn't the only one who felt such a personal reaction to certain Vogue photos, experiencing them as talismans for a future self and the clothes as life-defining.

Photo from Nostalgia in Vogue, Marimekko hand-printed dress and sandles.  Photographed in Finland by Gordon Parks. 

When I heard that Vogue was publishing a compilation of these columns, I pre-ordered the book, it arrived yesterday and I've been studying the writing and the photos every chance I get. On page 88 is an essay from the April 2008 issue of Vogue that is especially evocative for me. In her poignant essay "A Backward Glance," Elizabeth Kendall tells of her first encounter with a Marimekko dress in 1965 and what a life changing experience it was. Her mother died right after she discovered Marimekko and my mother died right before I saw a Marimekko dress for the first time.

I made my first trip to California when I was nine and my aunt, uncle and I drove to Big Sur and had lunch at Nepenthe and I was awed by a hip waitress wearing a Marimekko cotton canvas dress. The cool dress, the endless Big Sur horizon and the loose hippie Nepenthe vibe cinched my decision to move to California "as soon as I get old enough." When I got back to New Orleans, my aunt sent me a black, white and gray Marimekko fabric dress that she made for me. I wish I still had that dress. (In addition to being surprised to read that someone else had a profound moment seeing a Marimekko dress worn for the first time, by crazy coincidence the woman wearing the dress in Kendall's story was Robin Von Breton, my daughter's high school English teacher!)

The book is a collection of sixty-three essays by authors, designers, musicians and actors such as Joan Didion, Margaret Atwood, Karl Lagerfeld, Anjelica Huston and Manolo Blahnik. Patti Smith writes about finding a discarded stack of Vogue magazines when she was little and how those photographs were her first introduction to art and fashion.

Lisa Fonssagrives, in a Lilly Dache hat, photographed by Irving Penn in 1950. The photo that inspired Patti Smith for her "Nostalgia" column, "When Hats Had Names."

I've saved this cover since it appeared in 1988. It's of model Michaela Bercu photographed by Peter Lindbergh.  I was drawn to the elegant theatricality of the jeweled cross on the Christian Lacroix jacket surprisingly worn with faded jeans. It wasn't until I read her "Nostalgia" essay, "When High Meets Low," did I find out she did that accidently because the matching skirt was too small!

One of my all-time favorite "Nostalgia" stories was written by Sophia Coppola. It doesn't appear in this book and I'm curious to find out why. It seems an obvious choice. When I saw Sophia's essay in the October 2003 issue I had a shock of recognition. I had unconsciously stored that 1974 provocative photo of Charlotte Rampling in my memory and here it was again with Sophia's thoughts and feelings about it. So much of what she said I related to.

The magic of nostalgia is that it's not just in the past. It's happening right now. It's a touchstone from the past, but it also inspires the present and the future. When we feel a reaction to a photo or artwork or writing, it's for a reason. Qualities about it touch something deep and if we take a little time to let those feelings surface, we learn about ourselves.