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