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Hello everyone. I’m dropping a quick note to let all my readers know that I will be very busy in the next couple of weeks, so you won’t see any book reviews from me until after Mother’s Day. Thanks for understanding.
In actor, author, and Instagram favorite Jenny Mollen’s first novel City of Likes, she takes a very pointed and funny look at the world of social media and social mores, friendship and frenemies, and influencers and the influenced.
Meet Megan Chernoff. Megan is a talented copywriter who is trying to get her writing career back on track. She and her family have just moved to New York City from Los Angeles. They are currently living in their actor friend’s loft while he’s on location filming. Sounds glamorous, right? Well, hardly. The Chernoffs are currently dealing with cockroaches and a less than reliable oven.
Megan and her husband, Illiya, have two small boys, Roman and Felix. Illiya works at a very exclusive and expensive high-end private social club. And it’s here where Megan meets Daphne Cole.
Who is Daphne Cole, you ask. Well, Daphne Cole is only one of the hottest mommy influencers ever! Daphne is famous for her picture perfect family and her glamorous, exciting life. Daphne has countless followers frothing at the mouth at her posts on Instagram. And companies all over seek her out to promote their products.
Megan feels like a total dork compared to Daphne, so she is shocked and delighted when Daphne befriends her. Daphne Cole wants to hang out with her! Wow!
Being in Daphne’s orbit is intoxicating for Megan. Soon she is meeting other influencer moms and gaining followers on her own Instagram account. Megan is also getting free stuff from various companies. Soon Megan is slipping further and further into influencer madness. She thinks knowing the right people and making the right connections will improve her life and her family’s life. One goal of Megan’s is to get her son, Roman, into the right school and she thinks knowing the right people like Daphne will help. And she isn’t above embellishing her son’s application letter mentioning she’s friends with Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson.
Megan at first is thrilled at the change in her life. It’s like she’s the most popular girl at school. And when Daphne invites her to Paris, Megan jumps at the chance. However, things aren’t so rosy on the home front. Illiya isn’t happy with Megan’s new life and he questions her on how her new found fame is affecting her, him, and the kids.
But things get crazier and crazier in Megan’s life, she starts to realize that Daphne and the life she claims may not be so true. Megan questions what is real and what is not. Sure, Megan may have hit pay dirt, gotten more followers, free stuff, and connections to the glamorous people, but at what cost? Is she being her authentic self? Is she make a good impact in the world? Is her family happy? In the end Megan wants to face reality and real people who love her for who she truly is.
Though I find the influencer culture quite maddening whether it comes to parenting, fashion, or fitness, I am at the same time fascinated by it. What makes someone so appealing and powerful they can command free stuff and millions of followers? I can’t quite figure it out, but City of Likes truly captures the crazy world of influencer culture with its obsession with followers, likes, free stuff, and looking perfect. It also grasps how easily people can get caught up in influencer culture. Mollen writes with a sharp wit and a keen eye. City of Likes is a great novel for anyone who has been caught up in influencer culture or finds influencer culture quite interesting.
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With the my review of Amy Odell’s Anna: The Biography, I decided to dust off this movie review I wrote for another blog ages ago. Enjoy!
To a lot of us, fashion seems like a fluffy and superficial profession. But to countless fashion insiders everywhere it is a deadly serious business. This is a business where people know the difference between puce and plum, and where hemlines and necklines are of utmost importance. And that cute handbag you just bought from Target? Quite likely it’s a knock-off of a pricier designer handbag a fashion editor claimed was the “must have” of the season.
And there is probably no more important fashion magazine than American Vogue. At the helm is the British ex-pat Anna Wintour and Vogue is the bible to fashionistas everywhere. And no issue of Vogue is more important than the mammoth September issue, chock full of fashion and beauty layouts, articles, celebrity profiles and yes, lots and lots of advertisements.
Documentarian RJ Cutler (The War Room, which focused on the 1992 Clinton presidential campain) turns his unblinking camera lens to the creation of the 2007 September issue of Vogue in the documentary The September Issue. The September Issue follows Wintour and crew as the September Issue begins with some nuggets of ideas to a fully-formed magazine on the newsstand.
The September Issue begins with Wintour reflecting on the power of fashion and how it can make some people nervous. Known mostly for her whippet-thin figure, swingy bob and dark sunglasses, it was a bit jarring to hear Wintour speak. Sure, she’s not warm and fuzzy, but there is a reflective side to her that makes her quite human.
During the film we see Wintour meeting with staff to discuss the issue. We see her jetting off to London, Paris and Rome to attend fashion shows and meet with designers. Wintour can make or break a designer with one raised eyebrow so I wouldn’t be surprised if even established designers like Jean Paul Gaultier and Karl Lagerfeld felt a bit nervous about meeting her. But when Wintour likes a designer she is behind that person 110%. Wintour was an early supporter of Thakoon (one of Michelle Obama’s fave designers). Her support of him, dare I say it, is almost sweet.
Wintour is also the editor that put celebrities on the covers of Vogue over models, and the chosen celebrity for this September issue is British actress Sienna Miller. Sienna comes to the Vogue offices and is outfitted in beautiful couture gowns, many which will end up in the magazine. However, the staff is flummoxed by Miller’s hair, which is growing out awkwardly, and not quite up to the magazine’s standards. Later, Wintour is not happy with Sienna’s photo layout shot by legendary photographer, Mario Testino, and the design staff scrambles to make a viable cover.
Though Wintour is at the top of the Vogue heap, she is not alone in making Vogue what it is. In September Issue, we get to meet editor-at-large (literally) Andre Leon Talley, the cape wearing and Vuitton-loving male Auntie Mame who seems to be employed to kiss Wintour’s skinny ass. I can’t imagine what Talley actually does for the magazine, but he definitely added a fun element to the movie. If he didn’t exist, a Hollywood would have to create him.
And then there is the brilliant creative director Grace Coddington. Coddington started out as a fashion model in the swinging sixties. But after suffering a horrific car crash, Coddington turned her talents to fashion a role behind the camera. Coddington is the yang to Wintour’s yin. If Wintour is all about commerce and wondering if it will sell, Coddington is all about art and creating beautiful and over-the-top fashion layouts that are all fantasy.
Not surprisingly, Wintour and Coddington don’t always see eye to eye. As the issue is being put together, Coddington is creating a 1920s Parisian cafe society fashion layout inspired by the designer Galianos. Coddington’s vision is pure magic, yet Wintour is not pleased with one of the photos, and wants it deleted. Coddington is not happy. This layout is her baby. Yet, I could see both their points. The shot is gorgeous, yet it doesn’t quite work with the rest of the photographs. The offending photo is cut.
However, Coddington does get to make one final decision. During a last minute photo shoot for another layout, Coddington taps the documentary’s cinematographer, Bob Richman, to join the model in a photo. He happily obliges. Wintour takes a look at the resulting photo and wants to airbrush Richman’s slight pot belly. Coddington nixes the idea, saying, “Everybody isn’t perfect in this world.” Richman’s belly stays in the picture. Finally, after months of preparation, the September 2007 issue of Vogue is released. It weighs over four pounds and is over 800 pages, the largest issue in Vogue history.
RJ Cutler’s “fly on the wall” film making style is what helps make this movie so interesting. You get to see everyone in their element without film maker commentary. I was stunned to see the staff look at the mock ups on a huge wall where pictures and layout can be moved by hand rather than doing it on a computer. I was also pleasantly surprised to see how un-Botoxed and unmade-up the staff was even though most of them, like their leader, is very, very thin. Also, I was surprised how plain the Vogue offices are. I was expecting something ostentatious and grand, but the offices are quite non-descript.
But most of all, I was surprised how much I didn’t despise Anna Wintour. Sure, she isn’t at Vogue to make friends, but she isn’t the vicious harpy the media makes her out to be. Yes, she’s reserved and exacting but so are a lot of people in any cut throat business. And I doubt any negativity thrown Wintour’s way would be applied to a successful man. But still, Wintour does show some vulnerability as when she talks about her siblings, all of them in more serious professions, who are quite “amused” by her career.
September Issue is a fascinating look at both a legendary magazine and the talented people who make it happen. It is the “must have” for both fashion and film lovers.
American Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour is probably one of the most powerful women in fashion and media. But despite her fame and influence, Wintour remains an enigma. Who is the woman behind the bobbed hair and dark sunglasses?
Fashion journalist, Amy Odell, whose book Tales from the Back Row: An Outsider’s View from Inside the Fashion Industry I reviewed last fall, also wanted to know more about the imposing and elusive Anna Wintour. And through incredibly thorough research and countless interviews, Odell delivers with Anna: The Biography.
Long before she became the editor-in-chief of Vogue, Anna Wintour was a young girl growing up in London. Her father was the editor of the newspaper, The Evening Standard so media was in Wintour’s blood. She also had a mad passion for fashion. Wintour just knew she had to combine fashion and media and make both her vocation.
Wintour moved to New York City when she was in her early twenties. She first worked at Harper’s Bazaar. She then procured jobs at magazines that are now defunct, including Viva, a Playgirl-like magazine that was found by Bob Guccione, Yes, the guy who gave us the nudie magazine Penthouse. Yes, Wintour worked on fashion layouts in a magazine that featured dicks. And after a briefly editing the British version of Vogue, Wintour was tapped to take over the American version of Vogue (and pushing out the sitting editor-in-chief of Vogue, Grace Mirabella).
Wintour’s first issue of Vogue was quite revolutionary when it comes to its cover in November of 1988. It featured model Michaela Bercu wearing a Christian Lacroix jacket with a pair of stonewashed denim jeans. Now a days, many fashionista combine high and low fashion, and designer streetwear featuring $1,000 hoodies is quite common. But nearly 35 years ago, this look was quite shocking. Readers knew Wintour would transform America’s fashion bible in many ways.
With Vogue, Wintour brought on two fashion icons, Grace Coddington and the late Andre Leon Talley. Vogue featured the top super models of the day, Naomi, Cindy, Linda, Christy (no last names needed). And later Vogue started using celebrities as cover models, something that is still a mainstay at Vogue. Vogue was simply the magazine to read for those in the fashion industry and its wannabes.
But things weren’t always rosy at Vogue with Wintour at the helm. Under Wintour’s helm, Vogue was often seen as too out of touch, and there was often accusations of racism within its ranks. A lot of people weren’t too happy with Wintour’s love of fur and featuring fur within the pages of Vogue. And to work at Vogue, one usually had to be tall, thin, rich, white, and come for the right family. Heck, Wintour even wanted Oprah to lose 20 pounds before she could be on the cover of Vogue-yes, Oprah!
During Wintour’s reign at Vogue, she’s gotten the reputation of being a bitchy ice queen, which seemed to be even more apparent with the release of the novel The Devil Wears Prada written by her former assistant, Lauren Weisberger. And of course, we can’t forge the delicious movie based on the novel which featured Meryl Streep as the Anna Wintour inspired Miranda Priestly. If Wintour was hurt by this book and the movie, she really doesn’t show it. She has much better things to do.
Another feather in Wintour’s couture cap is the Met Gala, which she transformed from a charity event to a major fashion event and showcase of celebrity, glamour, and opulence. For the uninitiated, The Meta Gala raised funds for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute in New York City.
Anna: The Biography also covers a personal side of Anna Wintour, including her marriages relationships and subsequent divorces and breakups, and her devotion to her two children, Charles and Katherine (nicknamed Bee). Wintour is now a doting grandmother and even changes diapers. Hopefully, she’s not getting poop on the Prada.
I loved Anna: The Biography. Those looking for a lot of gossip and bitchery will probably be disappointed. Odell humanizes Anna Wintour, showing the good and the bad. Anna: The Biography is a fascinating read and one I think fashionistas and anyone interested in mysterious, yet powerful public figures will probably love.
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