Shower Us With Your Insights, Grace!
Okay, did you watch The September Issue? (It’s on Netflix Instant.) Either way, it’s a bit blah blah blah Anna Wintour WAIT OH WOW THIS GRACE CODDINGTON WOMAN IS ON FIRE. She lights up the screen. She is crabby and brilliant.
And she’s written a dishy memoir, which the Telegraph is running an exclusive excerpt from:
It was Anna’s decision, for instance, the moment Hollywood talk turned to Zoolander, the comedy film in which Ben Stiller plays a knuckleheaded male model, that he should be taken to Paris and shot by Annie Leibovitz for a couture story. I have to say, I hated the idea, not merely because I respect Paris couture for its purity and exquisite workmanship but because an advance screening of the film revealed it to be a crass and truly mind-numbing experience. I think it was decided upon, really, because Anna had a crush on Ben. (She gets these occasional crushes — Ben, Puff Daddy, Roger Federer.)
Annie wanted Ben wearing clothes resembling his costumes from the film, which were so incredibly vulgar and nasty that I had to put my foot down and say how much better he would look in a dark suit. Even then I had reservations about the whole project. So when it came to choosing the models, I secretly went for the tallest ones around, girls like Stella Tennant, Oluchi and Jacquetta Wheeler, beanpoles who would effectively show up his short stature.
Annie then became obsessed with getting the tiny actor into a tiny pair of swimming-trunks in order to spoof a Helmut Newton photograph. He refused. She tried again. He ever so reluctantly agreed to wear them.
Okay, our love has been shaken somewhat by her failure to appreciate Zoolander, but hopefully there will be many mitigating factors, like stories about hapless interns and sad, untouched dessert buffets.