Initially when I got invited to last week’s screening of The September Issue at the Wellington launch of the International Film Festival, I accepted on the basis that last year’s launch had some sweet cheese and crackers, goody bags and free booze (I vaguely remember Persepolis). After I got around to Googling the film, I spent the days in the lead-up to the launch squealing (internally, mostly) with excitement about a film on American Vogue and, more importantly, its ferosh editor-in-chief Anna Wintour. (And FYI, there was no cheese and crackers at the launch – that I could find anyway.)

In the bathroom after the film – a place where I get a lot of inspiration for these blogs, dontcha know – women were gushing about how it was their/their daughter’s/their niece’s/their next-door-neighbour’s daughter’s dreeeeaaaam to work at Vogue, and how inspirational the film was. According to other reviewers (i.e. Bran and Danyl at The Lumiere Reader) there may have been a message beneath the film’s fierceocity (fierceocity: used in describing how fierce something is; the amount of fierce something has – Urban Dictionary.com) aside from cover model Sienna Miller having big ol’ teefs and rubber not being a texture, but for fashion goons like me, the main point was that Vogue is major and I must buy it in September.

The focus of The September Issue is the clothes, the shows and, most importantly, Vogue’s ice queen, Wintour. Designers Karl Lagerfeld (Chanel, Fendi), the quite hilarious and possibly Seasonal Affective Disorder-suffering Stefano Pilati (Yves Saint Laurent) and Thakoon Panchigul (Thakoon) make appearances in order to reinforce the significance of the woman labelled the most important person in the global fashion industry.

The film sees Wintour and her team, including creative director Grace Coddington and no one else of significance, putting together the September issue of Vogue, set to be the magazine’s biggest issue of all time – that issue being the ‘January’ of the fashion year. It is, in essence, the slightly less-awesome documentary version of The Devil Wears Prada, but with more bitchiness, office politics, photoshoots and feathers.

And the film is only one of three (yes, three!) fashion films at this year’s festival – Coco avant Chanel (in NZ, called Coco Before Chanel) and Valentino: The Last Emperor are a dramatisation and documentary respectively on two of the most influential designers of the last century.

These are my three big picks for the festival. See Heather’s film fest blog for more on what’s coming up!

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Laura McQuillan is a Wellington journalist and blogger , with an opinion on everything from fashion to politics. Her one true love is shoes.