The Cut ran into a suntanned Hamish Bowles — “literally, just off a plane from Patmos” — at Lincoln Center today, where Oscar de la Renta received the Couture Council Award from the Museum at FIT. We’d heard about a new HBO documentary shooting at Vogue, so we asked the editor-at-large what he knew.
“There’s a documentary about the editors who have created some of the more iconic images that have been associated with Vogue,” he explained. “There’s a book called The Editor’s Eye, and the HBO documentary is kind of timed to coincide with the publication of that book. But it’s exploring the unsung heroines and heroes of Vogue — the great editors from Babs Simpson, who was working with Irving Penn in the forties and fifties to Polly Mellen, of course, who worked with Avedon, and so many others, right up to Grace Coddington and Tonne [Goodman] and Phyllis Posnick and Camilla Nickerson. It’s great, because perhaps until The September Issue people weren’t aware how incredibly important the sittings editors were. They’re individual, strong, creative eyes, so it’s interesting to see.”
Bowles said World of Wonder’s Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato (of Inside Deep Throat) are making the film. So have they been around the office a lot? “They’ve been a presence, yes. They’re wonderful. We’ll see if I’m still saying that come the fall.”
