The September Issue

Vogue, September 1906. Illustration by Stuart Campbell.

I’m knee deep in research for my new book, Compulsive Consumption. It explores the events leading to the demise of the Gilded Age, including the murder of Stanford White, the sinking of the sister ships Titanic and Lusitania, WWI, the implementation of income tax and the stock market crash of 1929.

They say history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme – and as we sit on the precipice of WWIII it’s sounding and looking a lot like deja vu. It seems we’re trudging a similiar path to the one our ancestors walked a century ago.

I was honored, I guess that’s what you’d call it, to witness the collapse of the World Trade Center in 2001. I also got a front row seat to watch the Freedom Tower rise to completion as the company I worked for, Incisive Media, moved into its new offices at 120 Broadway in 2008, just as the structural beams began to rise from Ground Zero.

Now, as Conde Nast prepares for its move downtown, as the premier tenant at One World Trade, I thought it would be a good time to review the 2007 documentary, The September Issue. The film documents the making of the largest issue of Vogue in history – 644 glorious pages. It’s also loaded with flip phones, and push pin layout walls and paper, paper, paper. The film made a star of the best kept secret in the fashion world, Grace Coddington. It’s worth watching for anyone interested in the demise of print media.

Of course, the 2014 September Vogue is about 2 inches thinner than its 2007 sister. That’s the point here! We’re all glued to our iphones, ipads and soon to be iwatches as an industry spirals downward in decline and the world falters toward a world war. Look up people. Take your loved ones by the hand and rejoice. We’re alive at the end of one age and the dawning of another. Can’t you feel the ground shifting under your feet. Wake up, it’s digital deja vu.

A little more on the shifting ground in downtown Manhattan from another casualty of the digital age – NYTIMES