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On the Runway

By ELIZABETH PATON

Is any Vogue editor worth the title these days if she doesn’t have a behind-the-scenes documentary revealing her smarts and substance? Following “The September Issue,” R. J. Cutler’s 2009 documentary about Anna Wintour and life at Vogue, and “Franca: Chaos and Creation,” Francesco Carrozzini’s new film about Franca Sozzani, the editor of Italian Vogue, increasingly it seems the answer is no.

Especially given that this week a third such film hit small-screens in Britain. “Absolutely Fashion: Inside British Vogue,” a two-part BBC documentary about the magazine, had its debut Thursday, with the second episode to be broadcast on the eve of London Fashion Week, Sept. 15.

Three makes a trend. But what the first two documentaries suggest, and the newest one confirms, is that these fly-on-the-wall dramas also serve a strategic purpose for glossy magazines in an increasingly digital landscape.

To maintain their authoritative positions as gatekeepers in the social media age, old-guard editors and employees must engage more (and reveal more) than they ever have before.

The fashion industry’s 21st-century audience, raised in an era of oversharing and immediate gratification, cares less about a finished collection or campaign or cover than about what went on behind the scenes. And a documentary, it would appear, is an increasingly popular way of lifting the curtain.

The series was filmed and narrated by Richard Macer. He embedded himself for nine months with British Vogue in the run-up to the publications 100th anniversary celebrations earlier this year.

The BBC documentary offers the usual peek into a world of runway front rows, egos and high glamour, in an office environment dominated by women and fueled by adrenaline and coffee. But it is also a place where, as Mr. Macer wryly observes at the outset in the slick and slyly faux naïf tone he maintains throughout, “things are not always as they seem at Vogue, and appearances can be deceptive.”

Case in point: British Vogue’s long-term editor, Alexandra Shulman, who has been at the helm for 25 years — or a quarter of the magazine’s existence.

She is known for her understated personal style, and her dual career as a novelist whose latest book, “The Parrots,” was published last year. Ms. Shulman, 58, clearly rules her roost as many at the top tier of the fashion world do: with an unpredictable temperament and unshakable adherence to her own editorial instincts.

“Alex says she likes to hire clever women who like to challenge her,” Mr. Macer says in a voice-over several months into the project. “But in all the meetings I’ve filmed, I haven’t seen any of them do that.”

That is not entirely true. One of the most memorable moments in the series features a choice between two shots of Kate Moss for the April cover. Ms. Shulman favors a conventional photograph of Ms. Moss looking to the camera in a Rolling Stones vest top, but her staff prefers a more dramatic shot of the model in her underwear and draped in a billowing Union Jack.

Mr. Macer takes brazen advantage of the moment by asking the meeting to engage in a vote. He then allows the ensuing seconds of silence to run their course, acute nerves etched on the staff members’ faces as they collectively engage in a rare act of dissent.

Not that it matters: Ms. Shulman, irritated but unswayed, goes on to garner the support of the C-suite executives for her choice and wins the day.

Then there’s the moment, 24 hours before that issue goes to press, that Ms. Shulman rejects the Moss cover in favor of another featuring Rihanna (originally planned as the next month’s cover star) after she learns a rival magazine is putting the pop star on its April cover.

Ms. Shulman icily refuses to be drawn into talking about the details on film, largely because the rival in question is her Condé Nast stablemate Anna Wintour, editor of American Vogue.

Weeks later, as she readies herself to unveil one of the biggest scoops of her professional career (the Duchess of Cambridge as her centenary-issue cover star), Ms. Shulman reveals no qualms about lying repeatedly on camera to the BBC crew to hide her plans, deliberately misleading them into thinking she is choosing a graphic cover rather than an individual face. It is a move Mr. Macer challenges.

“I didn’t feel awkward about lying to you, no,” Ms. Shulman says, with the tone of casual dismissal she uses often with him throughout the series.

Lucinda Chambers, the fashion director of British Vogue and a 36-year veteran of the magazine, said of Ms. Shulman: “I think she’s genuinely really well behaved. So I’m pleased when she gets to behave badly, or that side of her comes out.”

Ms. Chambers is the Grace Coddington figure of this film: the breakout star with her more-upfront approach, artistic visions and eccentric yet elegant fashion sense. “I’m more like Tigger,” suggests Ms. Chambers with a grin on their differing working styles, as she rockets around Paris from show to show. “Alexandra is more like Eeyore.”

Indeed, Ms. Chambers often appears more open than her younger colleagues to dishing out tougher home truths. Alongside anecdotes of squatting in her student days with the photographer Mario Testino, and a bygone era in the Vogue office when “feet were on desks, there were a lot more parties and people were very badly behaved,” she also opines on the shifting sands upon which the fashion world is based.

“Fashion is a funny old world and is very quick to decide whether you are in or out,” she says at one point. “It is instantaneous and relentless. You are making things redundant all the time and you are making things relevant all the time, but often in a very superficial way.”

Also onscreen, albeit fleetingly, are some of Vogue’s new guard: the silver-haired fashion features director Sarah Harris, and Julia Hobbs, the fashion news editor, who casually reveals she once bought a red Prada coat that cost the same amount as a secondhand car.

The camera occasionally pans on the small army of silent ponytailed 20-somethings with their headphones and Macs, rarely away from their seats, reminding the viewer of the wider shifts in the media world and the responsibilities of the journalists within it.

Still, in the end it is Ms. Shulman’s and Ms. Chambers’s film. Watch it, and you may not see these particular denizens of fashion week’s front row in quite the same way again.