Duchess Kate and her sister Pippa were out and about this weekend, getting photographed at the wedding of one of their friends. Unfortunately, we don’t have the photos – you can see some of the photos here, at The Mail. The Duchess wore red and looked pretty good. I like her in bold colors, and red really flatters her coloring. Although… the dress is all lace. All red lace. Tacky? Kate loves her lace, so this might be a problem in the years to come.

Speaking of Kate and fashion issues, Page Six has an interesting report this morning about how the editor-in-chief of American Vogue, Anna Wintour, is still trying to woo Kate for a cover. There were rumors about Wintour wanting Kate to pose for a pre-wedding cover too, but nothing ever came of that. And now Anna is trying to get Mario Testino to convince Kate to pose:

Anna Wintour is still quietly but persuasively campaigning to land the new Duchess of Cambridge, Kate Middleton, for the cover of US Vogue. Sources tell us that Wintour has been appealing to famed photographer Mario Testino, a close friend of the British royals, to reach out to the elegant newlywed to shoot her for the fashion bible.

There has been huge competition to land the first big cover shoot with Kate, who married Prince William in April.

A source tells us, “Anna has been speaking to Mario about winning over Kate. She is really pressing him to shoot Kate for the cover.”

Peruvian-born Testino is famed for his iconic photographs of Diana, Princess of Wales, and has remained a close family friend, photographing William, his brother, Prince Harry, and Prince Charles. Testino also took William and Kate’s official engagement photo.

Another source said, “Every magazine has been trying to get Kate, and many assume it will eventually be Vogue. But even with the Mario Testino relationship, it is not clear when this will happen. The Palace must approve it, and they are very protective of Kate.”

The duchess turned down the chance to be a British Vogue cover girl before her wedding. It was reported British editor Alexandra Shulman had hoped she would be photographed by Testino for a wedding edition, but she declined the invitation.

Middleton’s wedding dress, by Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen, was a huge sensation. Her support of British designers and her ability to switch to affordable main street has made her a fashion inspiration, with her outfits selling out online immediately.

“There’s nothing trashy or vulgar about her,” Wintour has been quoted as saying. “She dresses her age and never looks out of place.”

Reps for Vogue and Mario Testino declined to comment. Buckingham Palace reps last night declined to comment.

[From Page Six]

It seems like Kate would probably agree to a Vogue UK cover before an American Vogue cover. I would imagine if she did an American fashion magazine before a British fashion mag, there would be a great deal of outrage in the UK – she’s their duchess, after all. Americans just like her because she’s a pretty brunette girl married to Princess Diana’s son. She’s not our icon, you know?

A few more things – PETA is trying to win over Kate. Apparently, for Prince Harry’s recent birthday, William gave him a birthday gift of 250 “pheasants, ducks and partridges” – game birds intended “for a shoot at the Queen’s Sandringham Estate”. So PETA is pissed off that William and Harry are going to hunt the game birds, and the president of PETA wrote Kate an open letter, which you can read here. As you can imagine, Kate has not responded.

Also – Prince William has given an interview to his grandmother’s most recent biographer, and he discusses some of the details of planning his wedding. There are lots of quotes from William about how great his grandmother is, but one of the most interesting little side notes was about staff – Kate, William and Harry share staff and office space. And NINE staffers. Once again, I’m not saying that Kate and William (and Harry) don’t need or deserve staff – they do. I just find it interesting that we hear all about how William and Kate are so “normal” and they aren’t even living royal lives and they don’t have any full-time staff. They do. They have nine people working for them in London. You can read more here.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

I’ll admit it, this story made me like Lady Gaga after too many months of being totally over her. When Gaga accepted her “Fashion Icon” award at the CFDA Awards on Monday night, she gave a little speech and told a funny story about Anna Wintour, the editor of Vogue. Anna is a big fan of Gaga – Gaga has performed at Vogue-sponsored events, been featured in a Vogue pictorial with Oprah, and this year, Gaga got her own Vogue cover. So, Gaga and Anna have the kind of professional friendship in which they could conceivably call or text each other. So when Anna found out that Gaga was receiving the “Fashion Icon” award, she texted Gaga. What happened next is great:

Lady Gaga should probably add Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour’s name to her contacts list. When the 25-year-old “Edge of Glory” singer appeared at the CFDA Fashion Awards on Monday, Gaga shared an embarrassing story involving the famed fashionista during her acceptance speech.

“I can’t believe I’m allowed in here. When I was told I won this award, Anna Wintour sent me a text message,” Gaga said, pausing for dramatic effect. “She text messages.”

After the crowd cheered, Gaga continued to recount her awkward conversation with Wintour. “So she sent me a text message, and it said, ‘We’re so excited to tell you you won the CFDA fashion icon award.’ And I actually thought it was Anna Treblin, who was one of my very close friends and [my stylist] Nicola’s assistant, who I go out and have drinks with all the time. I have a couple Annas in my phone, so my reply was, ‘Yes, bitch, we did it.’”

“Quite quickly I got a reply that said, ‘How lovely, and we will all be waiting to see what you will wear,” Gaga recalled. “And then I thought, ‘Well won’t you be helping me choose what I will wear?’ And then I said, ‘Oh! it’s Anna Wintour.’”

[From Us Weekly]

I would have loved to see Anna’s face when she read Gaga’s message. I bet she looked like she sucked a lemon. Or maybe she laughed. God knows.

By the way, have you heard about Eminem’s new single in which he disrespects Lady Gaga? The track is below – the lyrics about Gaga are “Tell Lady Gaga she can quit her job at the post office/ She’s already a male lady/ Wouldn’t f— her with her d—/ The verdict’s in.” Meh. I like Em, but that sounds like an easy one, I think. Oh, there’s also a Bieber reference too. Here’s the song (beware – it’s very NSFW):

Photos courtesy of WENN.

I was kind of ignoring Lady Gaga for a long time. She seemed predictable to me in her outlandish antics. Her music is ok for that type of pop genre, and I’ve enjoyed it occasionally when it comes on the radio. I’m not a fan and before last weekend I hadn’t even watched any of her videos all the way through. I kept meaning to do it, but never bothered. Then she wore that outlandish meat dress to the VMAs. After she pulled that stunt, I looked up her videos (they were just as out there as I expected) and started questioning her sanity along with the lengths she’ll go for fame. She seems like she will stop at nothing.

All the pressure to be “on” all the time seems to be getting to Gaga. We’ve heard that she’s been hospitalized multiple times in the past year due to the stress from touring and crash dieting, and it’s affecting her performances. Vogue editor Anna Wintour, herself no stranger to diva behavior, is said to have found Anna unprofessional and diva-like in her performance this spring at the annual Costume Institute Gala. We heard stories about Gaga refusing to play that night and needing to be coaxed out by Oprah, and now there’s news that Anna hates her for it!

According to Maureen Callahan, author of the much-anticipated biography Poker Face: The Rise and Rise of Lady Gaga, the eight-time VMA winner performed in May at Wintour’s Metropolitan Museum Costume Institute Gala, and the two did not get along.

“She [Gaga] sort of had a meltdown before she went on and as it was described to me, Anna was really none too pleased with her,” Callahan told RadarOnline.com in an exclusive interview.

“Anna wasn’t impressed. She thought that she was just sort of behaving like a childish diva and not the professional who was about to perform for her peers; these incredibly famous designers and celebrities,” Callahan continued.

“She sequestered herself in the back room for a good hour. She was an hour late to perform and I also heard that she had been demanding things. She went to Anna at the last minute and was saying, ‘I’d like it to be this way.’

“And Anna just said no. I don’t think she’s used to hearing that very often. When you’re dealing with two egos like that, it gets interesting.”

Wintour made an appearance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon in September and addressed the incident saying, “We had Lady Gaga this year.

“She was communing with God and she was praying in the back, waiting for God to tell her it was alright to go actually onstage.”

The Gaga biography hits bookstores Tuesday, September 14, and Callahan promises to give readers a sense of who the pop star icon is as a fully flushed out human being.

“Lady Gaga is everything she claims to be but also is nothing she claims to be. She is the biggest contradiction ever. She is the incredibly ballsy and bad ass girl who’s also so lonely and hungry for affection that she’ll employ someone to take naps with her and go to the tanning booth with her,” Callahan said.

[From Radar]

We’ve already heard some details from this upcoming biography, and I think that even if there are potentially embarrassing stories in there, Gaga won’t mind. She wore raw meat for God’s sake, she wants people to talk about her at any cost.

Last week, there was a disturbing story from a mother of a young singer and former Lady Gaga collaborator named Lina Morgana who died of an apparent suicide at the age of 19. I’m not going to recount all the details (which you can read here), but the gist is that Morgana’s mom is accusing Gaga of copying her late daughter’s persona and performance style. Morgana and Gaga were both mentored by the same producer, Rob Fusari, and recorded over a dozen songs together. Morgana’s mom claims that her daughter’s dark personality and flamboyant style were uniquely hers and were nothing like Gaga’s, then Stefani Germanotta, at the time. The article claims that a mere month after Morgana’s suicide in October, 2008 “Germanotta became Lady Gaga [and] took the music industry by storm.”

Gaga is definitely an opportunist and I could see her appropriating this late singer’s style. Initially I thought it may have had more to do with their mutual manager’s plan to spawn an eccentric star than any nefarious plot on Gaga’s part. Fusari sued Gaga for $30 million, claiming that he created her entire image and name and that she cut him off right before she hit it big. According to the lawsuit, Gaga stopped answering Fusari’s calls in May, 2007, well before this other woman died, however. It may just be a sad coincidence that the poor girl died and the timeline might not be as damning as the article makes it out to be. Gaga has since settled that lawsuit with Fusari for an undisclosed sum.

Over the weekend, Gaga successfully passed through airport security clad in underwear, a bra, a gold lame open jacket, and a giant metal belt with handcuffs hanging off it. It all seemed so lame and try-hard, as do most of her moves lately.

In case you think Gaga might go away now that she’s maybe reached the tipping point by draping herself in steak, she’s set to cash in with a perfume, put out by Coty. What will it smell like – rotten meat, burnt out sparklers and wig glue?

Lady Gaga is shown on 9/12/10 and 7/2/10. Anna Wintour is shown on 2/16/10. Credit: Fame Pictures

If he was anybody else, I would be telling him to move on. But because it’s Tim Gunn, and because he refuses to stop talking sh-t about Anna Wintour, I want him to keep talking. While Tim promotes his book, he’s been verbally bitch-slapping Anna Wintour – nay, all of Conde Nast – for the past few weeks. He’s been talking sh-t about just about everybody though – but for some reason, it’s the Wintour stuff that gets the most play. Anyway, Page Six caught up with Tim at the Project Runway show yesterday, and he was in good spirits. Probably because he knows Anna doesn’t have the balls of steels it would take to come over and bitch him out in person:

Tim Gunn says he expects “hell to freeze over” if he runs into Anna Wintour this week. The fashion expert writes in his new book that he saw Wintour being carried by bodyguards down the stairs after a 2006 fashion show. Gunn, promoting his book, “Gunn’s Golden Rules,” said Wintour went “ballistic” at his comments.

He told us after the “Project Runway” show, “I wasn’t slinging mud or criticizing her character. More than 30 people must have seen it. I’m just the only one brave enough to tell the truth. Lord knows hell would freeze over if I came face to face with her here, but I probably wouldn’t be able to see past her handlers.”

[From Page Six]

Another beautiful slam – Anna is surrounded by “handlers” – meaning, she’s out of touch, she consciously surrounds herself with sycophants, she’s a f-cking joke. I want to marry Tim.

Page Six had another story about Wintour too – although it started out as a Naomi Campbell story. Tonight, there will be a big charity event (that CB and I were invited to, alas, we aren’t going!) called Fashion’s Night Out. Wintour is one of the organizers, and designers donate their clothes, models donate their time, and it raises a lot of money for charity. Well, Naomi Campbell was one of the models, and many sources claimed that Naomi was a big, fat pill (shocking). Some claimed that Naomi wouldn’t agree to come unless Wintour put her on an upcoming cover of Vogue (ha). Anyway, Naomi threatened Anna with a phone or something, because Anna released a brisk statement: “Naomi was on time, professional and a joy to work with.” She said, cowering in fear of The Naomi.

Anna in Sept. 2009 & January & March 2010. Credit: WENN.

This story comes via Jezebel, and it’s about our beloved boyfriend Tim Gunn. Tim is in the midst of his publicity tour for his epic tell-all Bitches Be Trippin’. I wish – no, the book is actually called Gunn’s Golden Rules: Life’s Little Lessons for Making It Work. This morning, Tim went on Regis & Kelly to discuss the book, and he brought his attitude with him, thank God. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the tsunami of bitchy hilarity that we’ve previously covered – instead, Tim just decided to take Anna Wintour out – AGAIN. Previously, Tim had told a story about Wintour that got wide play – basically, that Anna made her bodyguards carry her down flights of stairs because Dame Wintour wouldn’t deign to walk in her heels at an event.

So, in the Regis & Kelly interview, Regis asks Tim for his biggest diva story, and Tim talks more about Wintour. Tim repeats the story about Wintour being carried by her bodyguards, then says that when Anna heard that Gunn was telling the story, “she went ballistic and ‘this must be retracted and you must rescind the statement. It‘s untrue…’” Then Gunn verbally bitchslaps Anna once again: “Well, it was true and there were many witnesses to it. I wasn’t the only one who saw it. And the reason it appears in my book is because her reaction to it. And the message is, the gold rule is: accept responsibility for your own behavior. If you’re going to be carried down five flights of stairs, own up to it.” He also talks about her “working a Manolo” – it’s pretty priceless:

Fabulous. I love him. I love that he’s THE ONE person to call Wintour out. Maybe he can take on Blake Lively next? Perhaps.

By the way, did everyone see Tim bitch out Gretchen on Project Runway two episodes ago? That sh-t was magical. Tim needs to bitch out contestants more often.

Did you know that Tim Gunn has written a book? He has, and he’s giving us some juicy gossip about some high-profile fashion people. The book is called Gunn’s Golden Rules, and I guess it’s supposed to be a fashion bible for people who adore Tim Gunn (raising hand). Anyway, Page Six has an early excerpt of the book, and it’s a good one. Tim tells two great stories, one about Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour being carried down stairs by bodyguards, and the second about Vogue’s Andre Leon Talley being fed like a bird.

Tim Gunn has seen a lot, but his story of watching Anna Wintour get carried down five sets of stairs by her bodyguards after refusing to ride an elevator takes the cake. In his new book, “Gunn’s Golden Rules” (Simon & Schuster’s Gallery Books), co-written with The Post’s Ada Calhoun, the flamboyant “Project Runway” host dishes on his encounter with the Vogue editor at designer Peter Som’s fashion show at the Metropolitan Pavilion in 2006.

After the show, writes Gunn, “I was with a colleague from Parsons, and we had been discussing the will-she-or-won’t-she-take-the-elevator question, so we ran over to the elevator bay to see if Anna would deign to get on. She wasn’t there. Then we looked over the stairway railing. And what did we see but Anna being carried down the stairs. The bodyguards had made a fireman’s lock and were racing her from landing to landing. She was sitting on their crossed arms.”

Adds Gunn: “I ran to the window to see if they would put her down on the sidewalk or carry her to the car like that. They carried her to the car. And I thought: I will never forget this.”

It’s not the only instance of divalike behavior by a Vogue staffer: Gunn also writes of a run-in later that year with Editor-at-Large Andre Leon Talley at the New York Public Library at a panel discussion with photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders and People editor Martha Nelson.

Gunn, Nelson and Greenfield-Sanders went to sound-check, but Talley refused. Gunn writes: “When we return to the green room, we see that someone has spread a translucent barber’s bib over Andre and he’s reclining, his arms at his sides. He’s being fed grapes and cubes of cheese one by one, like a bird in a nest.”

A spokesman for Vogue told Page Six, “Tim Gunn has a very vivid imagination. There is no truth to any of this.”

[From Page Six]

Oh, snap. Vogue’s spokesman doesn’t sound too happy. I bet the spokesman really said “[THAT BITCH] Tim Gunn has a very vivid imagination.” Anyway, I believe Tim’s story. I was going to say “especially about Andre Leon Talley” but I believe both the Talley and the Wintour stories equally. Talley seems like a madman, and in 2006, ALT would have been dieting, right? Being fed like a bird was probably part of his “diet”. Oh, and Wintour being carried by bodyguards just makes sense if you’re wearing crazy heels. Why take off your shoes to walk? Real fashion is never convenient, bitches.

Unlike Miley Cyrus’s classy leather dress at The Last Song premiere last night, Emma Watson’s leather-and-lace concoction failed to win me over. This is Emma at a cocktail party in New York last night, and this is what Emma was wearing when she met Anna Wintour, for goodness sake. I’m sure this dress is “high fashion” and expensive as all hell, but it just looks totally cheap to me. The lace cutouts in the leather, the detailing at the hem, it’s all so… tacky. And not what I expected of Emma at all! She’s usually so lovely and stylish. Who dressed her in this monstrosity? It’s Christopher Kane, a designer I don’t know at all. And now I don’t want to know him. Emma has a contract with Burberry, and she should stick to that line, seriously. Here’s a little more from OK UK:

EMMA Watson proved her Hermione days are over as she stepped out in a racy leather and lace dress in New York last night.

Harry Potter star Emma Watson showed off her grown-up style as she attended a London Show Rooms cocktail party in New York wearing a lace dress with leather panelling and floral accents.

Emma, who was happy to sign autographs for fans waiting outside, matched the stunning Christopher Kane frock with a pair of towering black heels.

It was the first public appearance the 19-year-old has made since splitting from boyfriend Jay Barrymore after two years together.

Emma recently received a standing ovation after appearing in her university’s stage adaptation of Anton Checkov’s Three Sisters.

An onlooker said the star, who is currently preparing for the release of the final Harry Potter film, was “nervous” but said Emma’s performance was “faultless”.

The actress was joined by Vogue editor and fashionista Anna Wintour at the star-studded bash held at Pulino.

[From OK Magazine UK]

There have been rumors that Emma is a new favorite of Anna Wintour, and that an American Vogue cover might be forthcoming. I wonder what Anna thought of this? I can never tell her taste in fashion, honestly. Wintour might have thought this junk was fabulous. Hopefully not.

I do like Wintour’s ensemble though:

Emma and Anna in New York on March 25, 2010. Credit: WENN.

Two weeks ago much-maligned Vogue editor Anna Wintour, the alleged subject of the movie The Devil Wears Prada, had an interview with Mike Wallace that aired on “60 Minutes.” Wintour seemed haughty and made some obnoxious statements. The most offensive thing Wintour said was cut from her “60 Minutes” segment, but details leaked online. Wintour admitted that she asked Oprah to lose weight ahead of her Vogue cover in 1998, and she also claimed “most” residents of the state of Minnesota are fat, saying “on a trip to Minnesota…I can only kindly describe most of the people I saw as little houses.” If the nasty harpy thinks it’s “kind” to call people “little houses” you have to wonder the lengths she’ll stoop to when she’s actually trying to be mean.

This week’s Star Magazine has a story that Wintour was considering putting singer Rihanna on the cover of Vogue, which would be significant because she hardly ever chooses African American celebrities and models to grace the sainted cover. Rihanna got the cold shoulder from Wintour, though, after her nude photos were leaked online:

It could have been Rihanna’s shining moment: the cover of Vogue! But when the nude pictures hit cyberspace, her once-in-a-lifetime chance was gone in a flash. Rihanna and Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour had been talking for weeks about doing the cover and an inside spread, says a close friend of the singer, who adds that the two even chatted about it at the Met Costume Institute Gala on May 4. “Anna told her Vogue absolutely loves her and really wanted to work with her. Rihanna was ecstatic!” But since the photos came out, says the friend, “Anna hasn’t returned any of her calls. Rihanna’s so upset!”

[From Star Magazine, print edition, June 8, 2009]

The rest of the Star article is all about how Rihanna supposedly wants revenge on Chris Brown for leaking those nude photos of her, and we mentioned this briefly in an earlier story about Rihanna’s upcoming appearance in court. If the photos cost Rihanna the coveted cover of Vogue she’s got even more reason to want to get back at Brown. Let’s hope that translates to Rihanna giving compelling, damning testimony in the felony assault case against Brown.

Vogue editor Anna Wintour was a guest on “60 Minutes” on Sunday. In a clip posted to the web, Wintor describes how she got talkshow queen Oprah to lose weight ahead of her appearance on the October, 1998 cover. Vogue has been under fire for failing to represent women of color, particularly during Wintour’s reign, and Oprah’s appearance on the cover was noteworthy.

Wintour told Mike Wallace that she merely suggested to Oprah that she lose some pounds in order to feel more “comfortable” for the photoshoot, and that Oprah readily got on board. From the way she words this it sounds like Oprah probably went on another one of those unhealthy liquid diets to lose weight fast. Wintour also said she encountered very overweight people during a rare trip to Minnesota, and described “most of the people” as “little houses.” That’s harsh:

Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour had quite the request for Oprah Winfrey.

Wintour had told the talk show host to drop 20 pounds to be on the cover of the fashion magazine back in 1998, the editor revealed during an unaired segment from her 60 Minutes interview on Sunday.

“It was a very gentle suggestion,” she said, laughing. “I went to Chicago to visit Oprah, and I suggested that it might be an idea that she lose a little bit of weight.”

She added: “I said simply that you might feel more comfortable. She was a trooper!”

Winfrey, 55, must have listened to the fashion legend. She was featured on the cover from more than 10 years ago with the tagline: “Oprah! A Major Movie, An Amazing Makeover.”

“She totally welcomed the idea, and she went on a very stringent diet,” Wintour said. “And it was one of our most successful covers ever.”

In the 60 Minutes interview, Wintour, 59, also defended the use of Photoshop to make people “look their best.”

“That’s one of the things that makes me rather angry, that I don’t understand,” she said. “That if you look wonderful, does that make you less important? Less powerful? Less serious?”

Although Vogue typically only covers stick-thin models within its pages, she said her magazine maintains an awareness of obesity.

“I’d just been on a trip to Minnesota, where I can only kindly describe most of the people I saw as little houses,” Wintour said. “There’s such an epidemic of obesity in the United States, and for some reason, everybody focuses on anorexia.”

Wintour, who commissioned a feature on the topic complete with illustrations, said that it was an important issue.

“We need to spend money time and education on teaching people to eat, exercise and take care of themselves in a healthier way,” she said. “It [has gotten people] provoked, which is really the point.”

[From US Weekly]

The media focuses on obesity too, it’s not fair to say that it only focuses on anorexia. The issue is that fashion magazines like Vogue portray very thin adolescent-looking models, and Wintour is more exposed to criticism of that in her line of work. There’s no simple answer to either issue, but calling people demeaning names like “little houses” isn’t going to help us work toward promoting a healthier body idea. It’s outrageous that she claims “most people” in Minnesota are obese. I guess we can’t expect much more from her. Do you think she told Jennifer Hudson to lose weight before her 2007 cover too?

You can watch Wintour’s entire “60 Minutes” interview on YouTube. The quotes in which she admitted she asked Oprah to lose weight and calls Minnesotans fat come from a section that was deleted from the segment. The part where she says she told Oprah to lose weight can be viewed on Video.AOL.com

Photo credit: WENN.com

Fashionistas and fashionista-wannabes will finally have their prayers answered. A documentary about American Vogue’s editor-in-chief Anna Wintour has finally been made. The documentary is called The September Issue, and was filmed over the course of the 2007 preparations for the September issue (obviously), the biggest issue of the year for Vogue.

For those of us used to seeing Anna Wintour’s slight, impeccably-dressed figure and over-sized Jackie-O sunglasses featured courtside at every important runway show, it’s a dream come true. Wintour is known as the one woman who can make or break a designer. Her memory is encylopedic, her fashion sense… well, I wouldn’t say it’s flawless, but she certainly has a strong vision of what’s good and what’s not. Meryl Streep’s character in the film and book versions of The Devil Wears Prada were loosely based on Wintour, but I don’t consider her a “devil”. There’s actually a line in the movie that I think is very appropriate, and I’m paraphrasing – “If she were a man in this job, people would only talk about how well he does his job.” Reuters has more details on The September Issue, which premiered at Sundance.

Vogue Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour throws opens the doors to the magazine widely viewed as the American fashion bible in a new documentary that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.

“The September Issue” centers on Wintour, whose stern rule over the fashion industry while running the Conde Nast magazine has earned her an icy reputation that is said to have inspired Meryl Streep’s role in 2006 film “The Devil Wears Prada.”

Structured around Vogue’s eight-month preparation for its biggest issue of the year, director R.J. Cutler was given rare access to the Vogue offices on New York’s Times Square, tailing Wintour and the magazine’s creative director Grace Coddington.

“I was certainly surprised by Anna’s prominence in this industry,” Cutler, who produced the Oscar-nominated documentary “War Room, told Reuters. “It’s true that she is really this singular figure in this enormous global industry.”

“You can make a movie without (director) Stephen Spielberg’s blessing and you can publish software without (Microsoft founder) Bill Gates’ blessing, but you can’t get a dress you designed on a rack without Anna Wintour’s blessing,” he said. “You kind of have to see it to believe it.”

Recent speculation has grown that she could be thinking about retirement or is being considered by President Barack Obama as a possible ambassador to France.

“I think when I find myself getting really, really angry it might be time to stop,” said Wintour, 59, without signaling whether that time might be near.

Her colleagues at Vogue describe her as “the pope” of fashion and say she is “not warm and friendly,” while Wintour says she believes her siblings are amused by her job and that people who mock fashion do so because they are scared of it.

“For whatever reason she wanted her story to be told,” he said of Wintour, who is credited in the film by colleagues for bringing back fur, an issue that has seen her become a target of animal rights activists.

The film is due to be screened this year in the United States on the A&E network, while the international rights have been sold to the Wild Bunch production company.

“Anna would have loved to have seen a more Vogue-like version of it where as my interest is in raw reality,” said Cutler, who wanted to film Wintour after reading an article about her. “I am interested in what life is like for real.”

From Reuters/The Hollywood Reorter

It’s become commonplace to disrespect Anna Wintour and Vogue magazine for all of the impossible standards they perpetuate, but I think if you go into a Vogue subscription with only a love of fashion, good photography, excellent writing and a knowledge that nearly all of it is inaccessible, you’re fine. I can’t wait to see this documentary, and I’m really surprised that Wintour would let her veil of privacy and secrecy drop for this kind of intensive documentary. Perhaps she really is worried that she’s perceived as some kind of devil. Or perhaps she really doesn’t care, and was only interested in making something for her fans.

Anna Wintour is shown at various events in the fall and winter of last year. Credit: WENN