Original subtitles

-[car horn beeping] -[sirens wailing in distance]

-Okay, so we'll try to take as much off. -[Anna Wintour] Yeah.

-As quick as possible. -[Wintour] Yeah, that'd be great.

Ooh.

Sorry.

[phone ringing]

Hi, so it went well?

Yes, it was good.

-Yeah? -Yeah.

It was romantic and cinematic.

-[Wintour] You look great, right? -He cannot take a bad picture.

-[Wintour] Good. Hiya. -Hello.

Vogue has always been the defining magazine publication about fashion.

[woman] Stop it.

[Edward Enninful] Fresh!

[woman] O-M-G.

-Wow! -There's only one, look at that face.

-Look at that body, look at it. -The body!

-I mean... -[exclaims]

[Enninful] There's no one like Naomi Campbell,

there isn't.

No wonder she gets away with murder.

-Okay, that's not here yet? -No, it's there.

[Wintour] So three in, three out and the cover.

You never forget your Vogue covers.

The dream ultimately was to be on the cover of Vogue.

When Anna put me on the cover, it was like, "What?"

Where's that blue one we were looking at the other day?

[woman] I think we have that one.

When you think of Anna Wintour, you think of just this like,

chic, strong, boss woman.

I mean, that seems to be more in the palette.

She is this Warholian enigma,

like a famous haircut, kind of like a living legend.

[Tonne Goodman] There's no two ways about it.

Vogue is Anna Wintour and Anna Wintour is Vogue.

-[Wintour] So you want me to sit here? -Yes please, Anna.

-Okay. -[woman] Anna, I'm sorry to ask you,

would you mind awfully taking your sunglasses off?

No, I'm gonna wear them.

-[Naomi Campbell] Right, are we ready? -[man] Sound's rolling.

[sighs] Wow, what does the '90s mean to me?

God, the '90s just changed everything.

Way too much fun, way too messy.

But I'll let Kate tell you those stories. [laughs]

Oh, no. [laughs]

[Enninful] It was the decade that turned the fashion industry upside down.

-It was a whirlwind. -If you made movies,

you didn't hang out with the fashion people.

If you did fashion, you didn't hang out with music people.

[Amber Valletta] There was a huge change that kind of happened with fashion,

film, music...

all of these creative industries were starting to converge.

It wasn't just about music, it became about the clothes too.

It was a great time to be alive.

[Enninful] It really felt like a revolution was underway.

Every corner you would see this image, it was inescapable.

You have to anticipate what they want before they know they want it.

Oh. But we need to talk about the fact that I was the only Black person too.

They weren't treating us the way they treat us now. Absolutely not.

The public was fascinated by fashion.

When I saw the Tom Ford Gucci, it was like, "Oh, my God."

You're like, "Yeah, I wanna turn heads, why not?"

[laughs]

-Is everyone happy? -[Gwyneth Paltrow] Define happy.

[laughs]

[♪ electronic music playing]

That decade changed everything.

Okay.

-Okay. -Okay.

-All right. -So I'm looking at you?

[man] Yes, please.

[radio host] No place like New York today. What a day.

Right now in Central Park, the present temperature

is still pleasant, 49 degrees, humidity 44%, the wind's starting...

Ever since Anna Wintour, the editor of British Vogue,

was brought to New York by Condé Nast, there have been rumours

that Miss Wintour would become the editor of American Vogue.

Now the hot publishing story is that this probably will happen

on September 1st.

It was a big deal when Anna went to American Vogue.

I remember it very well.

[Jonathan Van Meter] There was a picture in some publication

and then I, like, leaned in to look at her,

and it was just like a whole new character in the universe

was introduced at the moment. I was like instantly fascinated.

I'm actually concerned about those bathing suits.

I'm not sure we should be doing them anyway.

I grew up in England back in the '60s.

I was interested in the world of fashion

because it was such an explosive time in London then.

My dad was a London Fleet Street newspaper editor.

He also had a reputation for being a little bit tough.

I first started working in journalism when I was in my late teens.

And like so many things in life, it just unfolded.

[woman] These are the colours. What do you think?

-[Wintour] Fabulous. -[man] It's great.

It's gonna be a wonderful sitting.

Condé Nast asked me to join Vogue as Editor-in-Chief

because they felt it was time for change.

Under the previous leadership, every cover of Vogue looked all the same,

very close up, airbrushed,

big hair, big makeup, big earrings.

Everything was very ornate.

[in French accent] Before Anna arrived, the magazine was extremely boring,

boring, boring, beige, boring, boring.

Sometimes you just need to tear everything up and start over.

-[beep] -[people chattering indistinctly]

[Wintour] I had no plan, but I knew I had to have really creative,

brilliant people working with me.

She's very demanding, she's very demanding.

You have to give a lot of your time,

but if she feels you have a talent for a thing,

she totally supports it.

[Wintour] Hamish, I actually interviewed,

and I could see my assistant looking a bit pale.

I'd been wearing my latest clobber

and one of Anna's right-hand women looked at me aghast.

He walked into my office and he and I were wearing the same jacket.

[laughs]

The same jacket.

[Wintour] So I knew he was the person for me.

But I think when you surround yourself with people

that agree with you, it's a disaster.

-Okay, I'd better see Jo. Thanks, Trudy. -[Trudy] Thanks, Grace.

[Grace Coddington] I worked with her first at British Vogue in the mid-'80s,

but I found it difficult, to be honest, and she knew it.

Grace actually quit British Vogue because she didn't like what she called

I was doing to Americanise British Vogue and she went to work for Calvin Klein.

It was just a timing thing that I thought was perfect

and she didn't, obviously,

but we didn't lose contact.

When I was given the editorship, the very first phone call I had,

sitting at this desk, was from Grace.

She said, "I'm starting on Monday, officially

"and so why don't you start with me?"

More, more, more. More, more.

At this point in time, I really was on a different trajectory.

First Calvin and then Harper's Bazaar, but Anna is very forthright.

[Wintour] It took me a while to persuade her to join us,

but I succeeded.

I think we all need people that challenge the way you think,

and that challenge the way you have done things

and, you know why, for so many years I worked so well with Grace or Tonne

or Carlyne, of course, Hamish,

because they looked at the world through different eyes.

[Carlynne Cerf De Dudzeele] It was a good team, I must say.

You know, when you are looking at the row, it was like,

"Oh là là. The Vogue team is arriving."

I mean, it was fun! It was power!

[pilot] I'd like to welcome you aboard this British Airways Concorde

and I hope that we'll have a very special flight today.

[engine whirring]

I remember I was on a plane, coming back from London

and a very conservative gentleman sat next to me and we started to talk.

He asked me what I did, and I said I worked at Vogue,

and he said, "I love Vogue, it makes me think of Audrey Hepburn.

"Grace Kelly and I think about all these amazing icons."

And then he said to me,

"And of course Vogue could never be Madonna."

And that was like a light bulb going off

because I thought, "Well, of course, Vogue should be Madonna."

[male reporter] Nudity, suggestions of bisexuality,

sadomasochism, multiple partners.

I like to provoke people, but I don't think about the danger of it,

and if there is a dangerous element, that's exciting to me.

Madonna was controversial, but she represented

such a shift in who was creating fashion,

who are young women, young men looking up to

in terms of who their style icons were and with all respect

to the very, very nice gentleman I sat next to on the plane,

it wasn't Audrey Hepburn and it wasn't Grace Kelly.

It was a different generation, it was a different time.

[woman] Who do I wanna be? Madonna.

She doesn't care what anyone thinks and she's just herself.

Every girl in some way wanted to be Madonna.

♪ Strike a pose... ♪

It's Madonna.

[woman] They're trying to find a different way to dress

than how their parents want them to and everything else and that.

It's a kind of rebellion.

[♪ pop music playing, Madonna "Vogue"]

♪ Strike a pose... ♪

We all love Madonna, let's say it.

-We love Madonna. -We love Madonna.

♪ Vogue, Vogue ♪

♪ Look around ♪

♪ Everywhere you turn is heartache ♪

♪ It's everywhere that you go ♪

♪ Look around ♪

♪ You try everything you can to escape ♪

♪ The pain of life that you know ♪

♪ Life that you know... ♪

She was not afraid to express herself with her fashion,

express herself through her sexuality.

[announcer] Madonna!

[woman whooping]

Madonna was the ultimate in girl power.

♪ So come on, Vogue ♪

♪ Let your body move to the music ♪

♪ Hey, hey, hey ♪

♪ Come on, Vogue ♪

♪ Vogue ♪

♪ Let your body go with the flow ♪

-[chorus] ♪ Go with the flow ♪ -♪ You know you can do it... ♪

I was the biggest Madonna fan.

I was her dog walker back in the day.

She was my neighbour and so I was, like, eight years old.

♪ Don't just stand there Let's get to it ♪

♪ Strike a pose There's nothing to it, Vogue ♪

I remember waiting for every Madonna video to come out.

You would just wait for it to see what her look was gonna be,

what she was wearing.

It's like where you get all your inspiration from.

♪ Ooh, you've got to ♪

♪ Vogue ♪

If you stay with the tried and true, you're gonna get left behind,

so I didn't think about the risk.

You do what you think is right.

I landed, called everyone, the shoot happened.

[beeps]

[Wintour] Okay, good. And the colour print of Madonna.

It made perfect sense to me

because she had become so associated, Madonna, with fashion.

She wore clothes,

took clothes, made them her own, redefined them.

The idea of putting her on the cover,

it seemed rather clever... [laughing] to me.

[Wintour] I remember looking at the images,

choosing the one of her coming out of the pool.

I loved the informality of it.

[man] I just think she looks so great here.

[Wintour] The printers did call us to say, "Have you made a mistake?"

"And who's that pretty girl?"

They didn't even know that it was Madonna because at the time,

there was such a defined image of her being a lot more made up.

This is a great picture.

A T-shirt and jeans and a sailor cap. You know, why not?

But this is what she really loves to look like.

I think Anna has a definite mission.

We tried to approach Madonna in a different way.

[Bowles] She was wearing all the magnificent clothes,

but she was just wearing them at home and devouring popcorn,

and there was something real about it which was very new for Vogue.

[Parker] I think it was probably around that time

that I started saving my March issues, you know, I did that,

was it the March and September issues, the big fat gorgeous ones, yeah.

One day I went over to walk Madonna's dog and she brought down a shoebox

and gave it to me and Kourtney, and we opened the box,

and it was all neon rubbery bracelets.

And she said, "Here, girls, I'm so over this phase."

We went to school, wearing all this neon stuff.

And everyone was like, "Oh, my God, where did you get that?"

We were like, "Madonna gave it to me." And they were like, "Yeah, right."

I'm like, "No, seriously, Madonna gave it to me."

[Goodman] That cover was a huge success.

Having her plastered all over the newsstands,

every corner you would see this marriage of Vogue

and this pop culture star who was, you know, as daring as Anna.

[Wintour] It felt new, it felt different.

It felt like the statement that we were looking for.

-[man] Five, four, three, two, one! -[crowd cheering]

[man] Happy New Year, everybody!

[fireworks exploding]

[Enninful] Right at the beginning of the decade, I was 18,

I was a model and a stylist just starting out in the fashion industry,

and I remember going to WHSmith, January 1990,

and I saw five supermodels on the cover of British Vogue.

I just loved it.

It was a black-and-white picture, the girls looked like themselves.

It was like a direct sort of break from the '80s.

Let's not forget those girls,

they hadn't become the phenomena that they would become yet.

George Michael looked at these girls and thought...

[snaps finger]

"That's a moment, I'm going to put them in, all in my video, Freedom! '90."

[♪ contemporary music playing]

[Enninful] A popstar not appearing in their own music video

happens all the time now.

But back then, we'd never heard of it.

[Campbell] I had been listening to the album,

I was listening to it anyway.

I just thought, "Well, if anything, it's gonna be a great memory

"for us to have this video."

I didn't know it would create such an impact.

♪ Oh, yeah... ♪

[Enninful] I was a stylist at the time with an agency

and I knew all our books went out, every stylist in London wanted that job.

[Camilla Nickerson] I was just a young sprite,

didn't know how to do much.

I was asked to go and have an interview with this film director, David Fincher.

I had to go and meet him out at a film studio

where he was storyboarding the set for Alien.

I went on not to get the job and she got the job,

and I was devastated.

[laughs]

I was just happy for Camilla because Camilla and I go back a long way.

A lot of people say, "I met you when you were younger,

"I met you..." I said, "No, there's a few people that met me

"when I was 14 and Camilla was one of them."

She was a real talent.

♪ And I guess it was enough for me... ♪

I was really nervous because then you've gotta do it.

♪ ...the game is not the same No way ♪

♪ Think I'm gonna get me some happy... ♪

David had a very clear idea to see the women being themselves.

♪ I think there's something you should know... ♪

[Nickerson] One thing that he wanted was an enormous,

long white sheet for Christy

made out of a very particular Irish linen.

And so all of my budget... [laughing] just went on the sheet.

♪ I just hope you understand ♪

♪ Sometimes the clothes do not make the man... ♪

I still had to find the clothes for the rest of the cast

and then that pretty much came from my wardrobe.

My boyfriend's boots ended up on Naomi's feet.

Nev's boots? They were Nev's? That doesn't surprise me.

And this lovely mohair sweater was the one that Linda pulled over her head.

♪ All we have to see... ♪

My God, it must've been all smelly when she got that sweater back.

That was a lot of hours in that sweater.

♪ Freedom! ♪

It was in a huge hangar.

The girls were super nervous and practising their lines.

Naomi and Linda were like trying to get it just right.

This video was absolutely incredible.

You look at it and you have the goose bumps.

I must've watched it thousands and thousands of times

because the girls looked gorgeous, he was incredible,

obviously, Linda in that video was just like heaven.

♪ Freedom! ♪

At the time, I was the face of Chanel and the advice was

I could be jeopardising my high-fashion position

by doing a pop video.

Then when I saw it I thought,

"Hmmm. I should've done this." [chuckles]

[Nickerson] Later I got a phone call, and I was very surprised

because it was Anna Wintour on the phone.

"Would you like a job at American Vogue?" I just thought it was a bit of a joke.

Is somebody pretending to be Anna? You know, I was like, "Sure."

[Enninful] That video was pretty much in every household around the world.

All of a sudden you knew who they were.

Naomi, Linda, Christy, Cindy, they didn't need second names.

[reporter] Supermodels, who are they?

Ask anybody in any shopping mall.

-[reporter] This woman? -That's Christy Turlington.

Do you all know who this is?

Linda Evangelista.

Suddenly I felt famous.

Something I had never felt before.

I remember, in Milan,

when we woke up to read

what I had eaten for breakfast the previous morning,

I was like, "No, why would they care? This is a joke." [laughs]

And it just put us on another level, that's for sure.

For me, I loved Linda.

I was completely Linda obsessed.

[reporter] Are there any drawbacks to being so beautiful?

No.

No.

No.

She was the reason why I cut my hair,

she was the reason why I dyed my hair lots of different colours.

I remember I was in New York and I went to Garren

who was Linda's hairdresser, so I was like,

"Oh, my God! This is Linda's hairdresser touching my hair."

And he cut all my hair off.

I was channelling my inner Linda.

They attract almost as much media attention as royalty.

Naomi Campbell.

They were giving interviews

and they were becoming personalities in their own right.

It's nice to meet you. I see you in all these magazines.

So they weren't these silent, removed people that you couldn't touch.

They were the equivalent of the biggest movie stars we have today.

They had the licence to do almost anything.

The public became fascinated by the supermodels.

[Van Meter] It was in the summer of 1990,

Anna sent me to write about Linda and Christy.

And at the time, I had written, like, one other piece for Vogue.

Linda was an hour late.

And she was wearing, like... kind of like a pale green miniskirt

that was just as short as it could possibly be.

We drank vodka, she smoked Marlboro Reds the whole time.

She ordered two pieces of chocolate cake, didn't eat any dinner.

[laughs]

I remember thinking, "Of course, like, this is perfect.

"You're a supermodel. This is how they are, right?"

I think I basically said, "How much money do you make?"

And she said, "We won't get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day."

One of those moments where you slowly lean in

to make sure the tape recorder's running.

I knew right away that's, like, the last line.

I remember getting a call saying, "Anna doesn't like the ending.

"She thinks it makes them sound mean."

I was embarrassed for her,

that it would not reflect well on Linda

who was so much a part of, you know, our being,

our world, our family.

And I just put up a fight, I was like, "You cannot cut this line."

I just knew instinctively that it would be the quote heard round the world.

I had no idea that...

so much attention would've been brought to it.

[Enninful] The world thought, "My God. We were in a recession."

I remember every day leaving the house

and being so thankful that I could at least earn £9,000 a year.

Fellow models, such as Linda Evangelista made some pretty shocking comments,

"I won't get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day."

I think she said it to be funny, but in print, it didn't read as funny.

I think poor Linda has regretted ever saying that.

I don't wanna be known for that.

I've done so much more than just that quote,

you know, and it's really sticking.

She certainly got out of bed for less than $10,000 for Vogue.

[people chattering indistinctly]

I think that the stories that fashion had been telling

had lost touch with what people were feeling

and that they were seeing, that they were living.

[Enninful] We weren't rich.

We weren't going into Sloane Street buying outfits,

we were just trawling the markets.

We really wanted magazines to reflect the world we lived in.

[Moss] I remember the photographer Corinne Day kind of saying,

"We're gonna change the world." And I was just like,

"With a fashion picture?" But they kind of did.

[Enninful] Corinne Day's Third Summer of Love shoot

with Kate Moss on the cover of The Face,

with that huge smile, the wrinkled nose,

that felt real to us.

I remember seeing Kate in that picture and I was just like...

blown away.

[Goodman] The Face magazine was this small British magazine,

but everybody noticed that cover within the fashion industry.

There was such authenticity in Corinne's pictures that you felt

these have to be the real deal.

With the clothes that we knew from the markets,

with the fashion that we understood, the little daisies in the hair,

little leather strings,

that headdress, I mean, you wouldn't get away with it now.

The reason I think that story is such a strong, pivotal story

is because it's not about fashion.

You're watching a girl, you're not looking at the clothes

and that's a real change of direction.

[Enninful] It was a rejection of fashion.

Anti-fashion became fashion.

[Moss] I didn't like some of the pictures

because that's not how I wanted to...

like at, you know, 15, I wanted to be glamorous

and what they were showing in the magazines at the time.

The first Face shoot, horrible, really awful.

To me, fashion magazines are all about unattainable flavour.

It wasn't fashion.

I mean, I think this was very difficult for a lot of women.

There was this kind of woman with a certain shape,

whose hair was done,

whose makeup was done, whose nails were done.

And then all of a sudden comes Kate saying, like, "You know what?

"It's, like, a slip and no makeup," and it's, like, people were lost.

Not young people, but certainly those women

who were used to going to the beauty parlour

and opening Vogue, they were lost.

You know... [scoffs] as a New York girl, that grew up on the Upper East Side

and, you know, for me, it was very shocking.

When I saw Kate in those photographs, I had no idea what she would become.

[♪ pleasant music playing]

The first time I met Kate, I walked into The Face magazine

and Kate was sort of walking towards me and it was really...

I'm saying this without exaggeration,

it was really like one of those cheesy scenes in a film

where everything just went into slow motion

and angels came out and spoke to me.

I'd never seen anyone so staggeringly beautiful before.

It literally, like, silenced me.

It's the only time I've ever had that,

which is surprising considering the amount of actors and actresses

and celebrities that I've photographed over the years.

It's interesting because Kate Moss on the cover of The Face magazine

did not turn her into a supermodel right away.

The fashion industry actually wasn't ready for her.

[Luchford] I took some Polaroids of her

and I started taking them to show designers in London

and I couldn't get anyone interested.

They still wanted to work with people that had more of a sort of '80s aesthetic.

At that point, I'd become friends with her

and she was still travelling back and forth from Croydon

and she would borrow money to get the train home, completely broke,

picking up the odd editorial here which you never got paid for

or little advertising job there.

And I remember her saying, "I'm going to New York this weekend."

-[engine whirring] -[car horn beeping]

Calvin Klein called me up, he said like,

"Can we meet?"

At the time, Calvin Klein had struggled during the recession

and it needed a rebrand.

He said like, "I have like these jeans that I've been doing for years.

"Now I really want to change and I need a logo.

"Can you come up with something?"

And then I went on to do the CK logo, as you know.

And then Calvin asked me to do the jeans campaign,

the Calvin Klein Jeans and he put a picture on the table,

he said like, "I want pictures like that."

The girl was sitting down and she was wearing a pair of jeans.

It was Vanessa Paradis

and he said, "I wanna do a campaign with Vanessa Paradis, but topless."

I mean, there's something in me that I don't mind provoking a little bit.

Right, I mean, I'm French, so provocation is part of the game.

[chuckles] Uh...

So anything a little bit controversial, I was like, "Yeah, let's do it."

So we start, contact Vanessa Paradis. Blah, blah, blah.

"No, don't want to do it." She didn't wanna do it.

She just didn't want to do it.

She didn't want to do Calvin Klein because she was Chanel.

Nevertheless, we need to find someone that is like that and like...

there I said like, "Well, Kate Moss.

"You should meet that girl Kate Moss, it'd be perfect."

And Kate Moss, she looked very cute, but she didn't look like a model.

She was a bit short, a little bit crooked legs,

teeth were like a little bit eh, like, not perfect.

But you put her in front of a camera and...

[mimicking explosion] it explodes.

So we organise a meeting with Kate and Calvin.

We're sitting in his office.

And Kate Moss comes in, and she starts talking

with her English like, "Oh, no."

Like lowering her face, like super cute, like adorable.

We sat her on the carpet, just like the picture

and Calvin was like, "Oh, my God!

"It's perfect, it's perfect, it's perfect."

That was it. Kate Moss became the new Calvin Klein girl.

[Moss] I remember hearing that Vanessa Paradis didn't wanna do it.

Oh. Okay, well, I'll have it. [chuckles]

Calvin Klein signed her to a contract and she flew home on Concorde

with three million bucks in her pocket and it was like, "Fuck, this is awesome."

[chuckles]

So it was really like a sort of transformation that took place in a week.

Calvin was the one that saw the power of Kate

before anybody else, certainly before any...

Maybe others, people at Vogue, but I certainly didn't see it.

[Moss] The timing was everything.

A year before or a year later, it wouldn't have happened.

The first shoot was a lot of singles

with the photographer, Patrick Demarchelier,

but then I did my first big commercial.

I was really nervous.

It brought together this unknown model with this notoriously famous rap star.

[reporter] Do you know this face?

Okay, forget about the face, do you know the rest of him?

[photographer] This is perfect.

[reporter] It's Marky Mark.

Marky Mark at the time, Mark Wahlberg,

he's an Oscar-nominated actor these days, but back then

was one of the biggest hip-hop stars and he was sort of loved by men, women.

And he was famous for having his pants on show.

Shout goes out to my man Calvin Klein. Good lookin' out for the drawers.

When I saw that advertising, his remarkable body was certainly awesome.

[Enninful] You caught them at a moment.

It was the first time a hip-hop star,

or pretty much any music star had fronted a high-fashion campaign.

Ooh. She got freckles.

[mimicking motorcycle]

Next question.

[Moss] It was quite overwhelming.

I was 18, you know, he was a big superstar rapper

and I still felt like a, you know, just a girl from Croydon.

They asked me to be topless,

it was just a lot of people on set, a lot of men.

I did feel vulnerable.

Now that could definitely come between me and my Calvins.

Do you have Calvin Klein underwear on?

That advert premiered on the music channel MTV

in every household, pretty much all over the world.

Calvin's clever.

He had an instinct about what young people wanted to see.

-[sirens wailing in the distance] -[car horn beeping]

[Parker] I remember Calvin Klein ads all over the buses,

all over Times Square.

You know, I lined up for my Calvin Klein underwear

at Bloomingdales like everybody else. The minute they dropped,

I was there 7:00 in the morning at Bloomingdales on 59th and Lex.

You know, these people were influencing us.

That campaign turned around the fortunes for Calvin Klein.

It went crazy.

People went crazy for Marky Mark and crazy for Kate Moss.

All the photographers wanted Kate, Kate, Kate, Kate, Kate.

They all wanted to work with her.

She was anti-supermodel, anti-fashion

and she was 100% real, and 100% the '90s.

[John Galliano] She was... is gorgeous.

We didn't really worry that she wasn't maybe as tall

as the other girls or maybe not this or that.

Kate was Kate, you booked Kate because it was Kate.

She had a very different kind of beauty

and it altered our perception of what was beautiful.

Models did not look like Kate Moss before Kate Moss.

[Enninful] I remember thinking, "My God, fashion's really changed."

Kate ushered in a whole new body shape and a new kind of beauty.

[reporter] Among the new names is Shalom, Kristen McMenamy

and there's 19-year-old Amber Valletta.

We represented raw beauty, you know, edgy and different.

There was something sort of a little off.

[laughs]

Me, I've got a giant forehead.

Kate's got the wide-set eyes.

She had crooked teeth, quite fangy really.

Sorry, Kate.

Before Kate, I was sick of trying to be a pretty girl

because I felt almost like a fake.

And then the hair got chopped, I shaved my eyebrows off.

That's when it started to really take off.

The change came like a train coming out of nowhere in the dark.

All of the supermodels and all of the supermodels of tomorrow...

I was of tomorrow,

we weren't getting booked any more.

Some blamed Kate, you know,

for sort of changing essentially what modelling was.

The other girls could feel that Kate was the new thing.

Um...

For sure.

Some expressed their feelings too, but I'll let Kate tell you those stories.

[laughs]

Oh, no.

[laughs]

I'm mentioning no names.

Yeah, there was definitely a bit of like,

"She's come along, what's gonna happen to us?"

They knew.

I remember being backstage at a fashion show in New York City

and all the supers were like,

"Oh, my God, Calvin didn't book any of us. Calvin didn't book any of us."

I remember the panic on all of those supermodels' faces.

If you have a hockey team,

you don't retire the whole team all at once.

You bring in rookies one at a time.

I mean, I'm...

It's really nice to see these new girls.

My first season at the shows, I was intimidated.

Not now, please.

They just seemed giants to me

and I was like scrawny and, you know, quite shy.

They're just more sophisticated.

They're women and I'm not really a woman yet, I don't think.

But then Christy and Naomi took me under their wing,

so from that moment on, I was fine.

[people chattering indistinctly]

What was kind of clever actually was how Christy Turlington

and Linda Evangelista decided they didn't wanna be left out of it,

and changed their haircut,

and changed their look,

and suddenly boom, they were being photographed by Dave Sims

and Corinne Day, and they were in it.

[people chattering indistinctly]

I remember thinking it was a very kind of exciting time,

seeing those new faces coming into the scene,

but in those very early '90s, we were losing a lot of people too.

[♪ melancholy music playing]

[Wintour] The fashion community was one of the hardest hit,

so many people that we cared deeply about were being affected.

You'd be at a dinner party,

the light would catch a friend's face just a certain way.

[gasps]

And you knew.

It's hard to think about this now, but there really was trepidation

about talking about HIV or the illness itself.

It was just not discussed.

I become very inarticulate when this subject comes up,

but, um, Robert, who was my partner,

we were together for nine and a half years,

he died of AIDS.

My boyfriend died of AIDS.

You know, out of my ten best college friends,

only seven, well, seven died, three are alive.

I had a, you know, a really close friend called Alan Buxbaum whom I...

Was one of the first people I met when I first moved to New York.

We spent a lot of time... with him.

I had just had my first child and he told my husband,

"My biggest regret is I won't see him grow up."

I mean, it's just...

I just don't even have words to describe how horribly sad and terrifying it was.

We'd lost so many friends at that point, and people still weren't talking about it.

I think that Anna felt

the fashion industry hadn't done enough, honestly.

The most urgent need at the time, beyond raising the money,

was to make people aware

that the whole world was being affected by this.

So it was not a question of should we do this,

it's just a question of how should we do it, how quickly,

how can we make a statement that will reach

not only our community but the world?

It may be one of the largest single charity events ever,

Seventh Avenue is going on sale tonight,

selling $20 million worth of retail designer goods

that will go for a fraction of that price,

all the money will go towards the battle to fight AIDS.

Listen, when Anna wants to do something, Anna does it

and Anna does it probably in the biggest, most important, creative way.

And it was amazing.

[reporter] Over 100 designers raided their showrooms,

pouring forth a cornucopia of couture at below wholesale prices.

The idea was to create a street fair where designers all came

and manned their booths.

This looks great, but we don't have more variety.

So if you were at the Calvin Klein booth,

Calvin was there or if you were at the Vogue booth,

I and many other editors were there.

She had this idea to get everybody together.

You don't say no to Anna.

[laughing]

The word "no" does not exist in Anna's vocabulary.

There are 148 American designers here represented.

It's very important to the whole industry and I'm part of it, so I wanna do my part.

This is really exciting

and I just hope everyone's going to shop like crazy.

[Michael Kors] The lines were huge,

clothes were flying everywhere. There was just this buzz.

[Enninful] Seventh on Sale, it was such a statement

and it really started to shine a light on HIV.

And then people thought maybe it's okay to talk about it.

You know, if sometimes in fashion, you feel what you do

can feel light or frothy...

And in this instance, we thought, "Wow."

What we do actually can make a difference.

We've already raised well over $1 million and we haven't sold one frock yet,

so you should ask us again on Monday morning,

but we're hoping for a big figure.

Seventh on Sale, as small as it was,

really changed the conversation.

I think when I look back at my career, honestly, I have to say, it's...

it's the initiative that I am the proudest of.

She had not actually been on the scene that long at Vogue,

but we all realised what a huge force Anna and Vogue could be.

-[sirens wailing in distance] -[car horn beeping]

I tell you what I loved in February was...

I remember sitting in lots of meetings saying,

"Where is the next generation of new designers

"that Vogue should be supporting?"

We need people to inspire us, not just people that are churning it out.

Vogue had this enormous power with the designers

because, essentially, Vogue could make or break them.

I mean, more often than not, they made them.

[machine whirring]

[Ferguson] Before the Internet or social media,

that is where you'd get your information from.

If the leader was telling you that this is good,

it got everybody looking at you.

[machine whirring]

Vogue was very important for the designers, you know,

because Vogue was like a dictator.

If you were not in Vogue, meaning you were like...

[mimicking snarls]

That was the power of Vogue, which of course was Anna Wintour.

We were at a moment where everybody was walking up and down,

very uniform, kind of boring. I mean it was...

Those were the moments that I was happiest to have my dark glasses

because, you know, it was just dull.

[Wintour] I think André, our creative director,

and Hamish kept saying to me, "You really need to get to know

"and watch what John Galliano is doing in Paris."

[people chattering indistinctly]

[Wintour] You could already see that theatricality and that storytelling.

[Galliano] Yes, Kate! Go, go, yes!

Wicked! Wicked!

[Wintour] There was always a story there.

A fleeing heiress running from a vengeful suitor

and you felt that emotion and that magic

on the runway and in the clothes.

I intrinsically understood that John was one of those designers

that was just gonna change everything.

[Bowles] Those dresses were exquisite,

but they weren't wearable and they were so expensive to make,

he didn't have any money left to make another collection.

And I think lots of people felt he wasn't going to survive.

[♪ enthralling music playing]

[car horn beeping]

[Galliano] I was living hand to mouth,

eating baked beans off little Bunsen burners,

living on friends' floors and, you know,

whoever would be kind enough to feed us.

[Wintour] I mean, I was very focused on trying to help him,

lending John or rather giving John money

just so he could eat or have a cab ride home.

Anna had said, "You just can't miss another season, John,

"you've gotta get your act together, you can't, you know, you can't."

And this was like, I don't know,

four or five weeks before Paris Fashion Week,

but I had no money, I had no way of producing stuff.

So then Anna and André kicked in.

It was kind of extraordinary.

Anna published a 12-page spread featuring his last collection

shot by the fabulous Steven Meisel and Ellen von Unwerth.

Even though it wasn't available to buy anywhere.

I mean, I didn't have a business.

I didn't have an atelier, but I had 12 pages in that Vogue.

[Bowles] And that was really a turning point.

From then on, John's future was made in fact.

I just wanted to help the wider world to understand his genius.

[Bowles] And then Anna's creative director,

André Leon Talley, took it out to a meeting with a potential investor.

And then I just remember André pulled out the American Vogue.

"This is what American Vogue thinks of John Galliano. What are you doing?"

[laughs]

I mean, I must say it's rather clever,

with Vogue's seal of approval,

he had just enough money to stage his show.

But I think it was like three weeks

before the Paris Fashion Week deadline.

How am I gonna pull this off?

I threw myself into someone's kitchen and kitchen table

and started, you know, cutting bias things

and the only fabric we could buy had to be off the shelf.

And it was black, satin black crepe.

How do I make that look like more?

So I started using the wrong side and the right side,

and putting the bias together like a jigsaw,

calling in the favours of the girls.

I wanted to be part of that show.

I knew this man one day, when he could afford to pay us, he would.

-Hey. -Hello.

[Moss] I wanted to do it, it was the make-or-break show.

We all had just one outfit.

Before you went on, he would give you your character.

You would arrive and you'd be like, "Okay, let's hear it." Right?

[Moss] It really revs up everything.

Many directions were given to Kate.

"I dunno that I can say it, but you're a girl from Croydon

"and you haven't had a shag for ages, and you really wanna get fucked."

Boom!

[♪ opera music playing]

I remember being there, and... oh, my God.

It was just such excitement.

[Moss] Each and every girl felt so amazing.

[Campbell] I don't know how to describe this feeling to you,

but the high that I felt.

Like, it was just so beautifully done.

[Galliano] Because you'd seen those girls, Kate, Linda and Naomi,

all of them on print,

but you were able to see them walking past you,

and you could hear the rustle of the silks and the taffetas

and smell the scent of the gin on their breath.

And it was the first time.

[Wintour] I remember sitting there watching,

it was probably 25 looks.

Very few looks, all in black because that's all he could afford.

That is a show I will always remember.

This is a moment that was going to change how we all dressed.

He brought a level of creativity and imagination

and theatricality that we hadn't seen before.

I mean, many people have copied that since,

but he was certainly the first.

[clapping]

[Galliano] I think, on that day, I proved my mettle

and I proved that I could do it and I was a couturier.

[clapping]

And I think the word spread in Paris that, you know,

this punk in the Bastille was, you know, getting a lot of clients.

[laughs]

[Bowles] Within a year, John had become the head at Givenchy,

the first British person to lead a French couture house.

And I think it was a lot to do with Anna's backing of him, I am sure.

Listen, we've placed some bets, they haven't always been right.

But I always think of Vogue as having a deep responsibility

to raise the profile of whatever the talent of a generation may be.

[Enninful] The '90s were underway and Vogue was at the heart of everything.

It was really amazing to watch.

But some of the new generation were about to shock the establishment.

We definitely had like this attitude, messy hair and baggy pants.

Anna was appalled, frankly.

[cheering]

All of our parents were like, "What are you guys doing?"

I remember being completely stunned.

[Goodman] This is gonna become a trend,

this is gonna be something that we're gonna endorse?

It was awful.

It was like, "Jesus, what has happened?"

All of a sudden, we were seen as careless,

we were seen as radical.

"No sex, we are British." It's not the reality, you know.

London was alive.

We were all just in the same room at the same time.

[Enninful] Stella McCartney, Lee McQueen.

I've always been a bit of a rebel with a cause.

[man] We are packed wall to wall!

I say to him, "Lee, Anna Wintour's outside the door

"with André Leon Talley and Grace Coddington and she can't get in."

And he was like, "Oh, fuck 'em."

[♪ theme music playing]