We know Sarah Palin isn't the biggest fan of Vogue, but we think she'd do really well guest-editing her own issue. So we've worked up a sample cover in the style of our Cover Lies feature (in which we expose how little relationship ladymags, like Sarah Palin, have to reality). While the real Vogue bows to the recession with its $300 "Steal" of the Month, Palin could show us how to get a $150,000 wardrobe for free — and how to pick a $700/night hotel, complete with robe and slippers. In lieu of book reviews, she could offer up a bunch of snide remarks about Katie Couric — "the perky one" probably can't read anyway. And for balance, Palin could add some media elite contributors, like Trig-birther Andrew Sullivan and Rebecca Johnson. (Johnson works for the fake America but the real Vogue, and says all Palin wanted to talk about in her much-maligned interview was "drilling for oil" — but what else is there, anyway?) In fact, right after a Jeffrey Steingarten piece on moose-meat, Going Vogue should include a free sample of premium Alaska crude. We hear it gets rid of both wrinkles and endangered wildlife.

Fact Check: Palin's Book Goes Rogue On Some Facts [AP, via Yahoo News]
Palin's Katie Couric Myths [Daily Beast]
Palin's Ego Trip [Daily Beast]

Remember in The September Issue how Shaffer made a big deal about how she didn't want to work at a fashion magazine? Well, now she's not working in fashion, nor is she working at a magazine. Actually, the frat boys at College Humor are about as far from the socialites of Vogue as Shaffer could get. Maybe this is just a phase, like the time when we painted our nails all black and decided to become a vegetarian. It must be, because the Columbia Graduate was looking for a job in theater, but that mustn't have pissed mommy off enough. Hope fetching Van Veen's coffee is worth it!

• WIRED: Wired.com laid off two top editors earlier this month. Today, tipsters tell us "at least six people" were canned at Wired—a mix of editorial and ad sales employees, including at least one veteran editor.
• Glamour: At least a half dozen editorial layoffs today. This follows at least seven business side layoffs there earlier this month, including a reality TV star.
• Lucky: At least four editorial layoffs today.

If you don't work at the New Yorker, be nervous.
UPDATE: Then again—a tipster tells us "at least 7 people let go from ad sales and creative services over the past 3 weeks" at the New Yorker. But uh, editorial side should be perfectly safe.
[Pic: AP]

Come on, Anna, don't you have a free designer trench lying around the office that you can throw on instead? We had seen the coat before, but it was InStyle that tipped us off to the multiple occurrences, saying she wore it three times. Well, she actually has worn it four times, in four different cities. What, Anna, you thought that the people in each town weren't going to talk?

We don't know anything about the coat, including whether or not it's actually snakeskin. (But wouldn't it be more fun if it was?) Does anyone out there know who makes it or where she got it? With it's snake print and black ribbons up the front, it's very distinctive. While you figure that out, let's investigate this exotic creature in its native habitat.

[Images via Getty]

Date: September 16
Event: Proenza Schouler show
City: New York
Species: Rattlesnake—because we can only imagine the noise she's making while laughing.

Date: September 21
Event: Meadham Kirchoff show
City: London
Species: Cobra—she has her hood down because she's in a state of repose, but startle her and that bob will fly back, revealing her fangs.

Date: September 24
Event: Giorgio Armani show
City: Milan
Species: Black Mamba—Vicious and deadly with beady black eyes. Yup, sounds right.

Date: October 1
Event: 90 Years of Vogue Covers Party
City: Paris
Species: Eastern Ribbon Snake—it is known for eating its young. You better watch out, Carine Roitfeld, editor of French Vogue. The only thing stopping you from being Anna-Conde's next meal is Mario Testino.

Penn once said that "Photographing a cake can be art," and his portraits and still life raised the value of the objects in his work from the mundane into the magnificent. He was know for the extreme precision and realness of his photography, which managed to capture the eye and the imagination in an age well before Photoshop.

His most recent exhibit, Small Trades, a collection of more than 250 full-length portraits that he took in the '50s, is currently on display at the J. Paul Getty Museum in L.A.

Here is a selective index of the early chapters of the biography, which include her early experiences working, clubbing, dating, and being obsessed with fashion (and Laurence Olivier).

Annabel's nightclub, p 37

Biba
-fabulous boutique, p42
-working a "holiday job," p43-44

bob, p40
-hiding behind it, p52

Bobroff, Steve, fashion photographer
-living with Anna, p56-57
-their house like Blow-Up, p58
-uses Anna as model, p58
-won't discuss their relationship, p58

club scene
-"At fifteen or sixteen Anna had this downtown London life," p38

Dempster, Nigel, gossip hack, p37
-dating Anna, p38-39
-says breasts "large and "quite delectable" p39
-hides in the closet from Anna's Father p40
-ambition, p40-41

Dolly's nightclub, p38

drugs -doesn't do them p37
-"hideously healthy" p38

fashion
-leads Anna to magazines, "not an interest in magazines," p54

fashion school-sets on fire during science experiment, drops out, p51

fur-wearing it when unfashionable, p44

Gitterman, Peter-boyfriend, p52

Harper's Bazaar-bluffs her way through interview, p64
-excels at her job, p65-66
-nicknamed "bacon slicer," p66
-is "bitchy and sharply critical" to other editors, p66
-describes things she doesn't like as "rubbish," p67

Harrod's-enters training program, works in "groovy teen" boutique, p51
-quits, p53

Lasky, Vivenne-best friend, p46-47
-attends Radcliffe, p51
-calls Anna "bossy," p56

London Playboy Club-attends opening, p39

Marley, Bob-introduced by Jon Bradshaw, p106
-goes backstage and "disappears for a week," p107
-said she didn't have affair, p107

McGowan, Cathy-fashion inspiration, p37, 38, 43

Neville, Richard, boyfriend
-goodlooking underground journalist, p58-59
-tells Anna he already has a girlfriend, she's OK with that, p60

North London Collegiate-hates the uniform, p38
-leaves/gets thrown out for wearing a miniskirt, p47-48

Olivier, Laurence-crush on and stalking, p38

Oxford-expected to attend, p48

Quant, Mary-fashion inspiration, p37-38
-introduced by Peter Gitterman, p52

Redbook-fiction editor, p54

weight-being skinny, p40
-being "quite chubby," p 44

Wintour, Charles, father
-hating her boyfriend, p39
-getting her a job at Biba, p42
-hating fashion, p43
-says Anna has "many boyfriends," p52
-says Anna "wondered for two hours what to wear to a demonstration, p53
-Anna never wants to work for him, p57
-gets her a job at Harper's Bazaar, p63

Wintour, Nonnie, mother
-bad dresser, p45
-loved her social work clients more than children, p46
-brings Anna to New York, p55
-"deadness" between her and husband, p61

Wintour, Nora, sister
-plain compared to Anna, p45
-thinks Anna is a "bimbo" p 49

The magazine — and by extension, fashion — world has long been an enabler of international consumption. Within the world of publishing, that consumption has been a bright light for journalistic moths looking for the sweet life, and Conde Nast, publisher of Vogue, has burned the brightest. Anna Wintour claims things are going well, but we have our doubts.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out McKinsey's has been taking a hard look at that title and others who spend freely. One of the group's main goals has been to reduce redundancy, which means Details, sources tell the New York Observer's intrepid John Koblin, should be sweating in its Italian boots, because it's basically a younger-looking carbon copy of GQ.

Meanwhile, Vogue and Traveler have taken up most of the reportedly hunky McKinsey consultants' time, and there's talk that splashy photo shoots will get shit canned. Budget cuts all around will run around 5% on the low end and, some fear, could hit a 25% high mark for some doomed titles. But the aesthetic price will be incalculable:

When McKinsey drops by publishing houses, consultants target lavish photo shoots.

"There are little ways of cutting," said one staffer, who drank a bit of the McKinsey Kool-Aid. "You don't need to send an entire posse to Joshua Tree for a shot in the desert! Who cares! If the photographer is good, and the clothes are good, the models are good, it's fine-you can shoot downtown."

This could very well mean that teenage girls and gay men will no longer flip through glossy pages to dream about buying excessively overpriced designer duds, jetting off to foreign lands and generally gallivanting around the world without a care in their head.

No, they will be forced to entertain realistic dreams like hard work and budgeting, for there will no longer even be outlandish fantasies! Photo spreads will be nothing but emblems of uniform — socialist!! — dreariness. This will most certainly have a negative impact on the luxury market and, since trends trickle down, it will eventually hit the mass market, the developing world and, finally, the Third World, which will shrug and say, "Welcome to the club!"

Without these magazines and their impossible-to-attain aspirations, the universally accepted American dream will face an even steeper challenge. Again, two words: "hard work." They're scary, right?

Well, they're most scary to the scads of hopeful journalists who have longed for town cars, expensive fashion week excursions and tabloid-grabbing media appearances. The media superstar is facing supernova and ultimate, cosmic collapse. Start clipping those coupons and thinking of the bottom line, babies, because it's the end of an era. If you needed final proof that J-school no longer leads to Easy Street, this is it.

In fashion terms, two years may be an eternity, but it's not too long for us to notice the similarities. Both of these shoots were done by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott and both feature models in ridiculous get-ups lounging about in the woods during autumn. Sure, the Vogue shoot (above on the right), styled by our hero Grace Coddington, and has a much fairy-tale vibe to it, but knowing about the W shoot (above on the left) just makes it look like a retread of the initial spread by W's stylist Alex White.

We saw The September Issue, so we know that Anna Wintour remember every skirt, model, and accessory that has been in every issue of the magazine. Either that elephantine memory doesn't apply to other magazines, or Vogue doesn't care about its Condé Nast sibling. Either way, Mert and Marcus may need to find a new gimmick. Sorry guys, but shooting celebs as Disney characters is already taken, and it's all Annie Leibovitz has left.

Some more evidence:

W.

Vogue.

W.

Vogue.

Thanks to a tipster (whose mother went to school with Wintour), we got some scans of the 1966 North London Collegiate School Magazine which contains one of the Vogue editor's early works: a review of the places people like us could never dream of getting into. Ironically, it's first two words of the article on "London's Discotheques" are "in vogue." It's like the Magic Eight Ball told her where she would end up! It only gets more delicious from there.

In vogue at the moment are the Garrison, the Scotch of St. James and Dolly's. The Garrison, run by smooth, dinner-jacketed waiters is ostensibly where the upper crust of London's rich young jet set while away time between flights...The Scotch of St James (actually it's in Mason's Yard) is small and crowded to near suffocation point...The pessimistic are already gloomily predicting that the Scotch will soon be passee but its popularity among the uninitiate is still high.

Wow, looks like Anna was hipper than hip. We just love the idea of her running around swinging '60s London in a mod miniskirt like a little Gossip Girl, not even out of school but living the high life. It makes her seem, not only human, but fun!

[At] Dolly's...the most way-out outfits are the expected uniform and the kinkiest of gear is accepted without the blinking of an eyelid

Sounds just like fashion week. As for the writing, it's pretty good (minus that unfortunate "blinking of an eyelid" cliche). It also holds all the hallmarks of her new regime at Vogue. During the recession she's trying to make the magazine a little friendlier for readers on a budget, she does the same here. After giving us the insider details on the hottest celeb hangouts, she enumerates some clubs "for the masses." That's so sweet to throw the little people a bone! It's like when Vogue uses a skirt from The Gap.

The documentary opens today, and over at Vogue.com published an interview with Coddigton that doesn't really reveal any new information. But the way we found it is from an email sent out by a Vogue flack, who's weekend/month/life is now probably ruined:

RJ Cutler's documentary "The September Issue," which goes behind the scenes at Vogue for the making of the 2007 September issue, opens in theatres today. The film's heroine, creative director Grace Coddington, sits down with vogue.com's Jay Fielden for a candid interview.

Emphasis ours.

As for the Q&A itself, we hear again how she she didn't want to be filmed initially, how she thinks its funny she's in so much of R.J. Cutler's documentary about the 2007 issue of the mag, and how she and Anna get along, even though they don't. (We did learn which photogs wouldn't allow the movie cameras on their sets and that she loves André Leon Talley's diamond tennis watch as much as we do).

What is interesting is that the big push from Vogue for the movie on the day it opens (in New York, at least, which is like the universe for the fashion world) isn't Anna, it's Grace. Wintour was supposed to be the big draw, a peek behind the iron curtain of her bangs, and this film was going to solidify her new contract at Condé Nast. Now it seems Coddington has her blessing to be the star.

Coddington does have kind words for her boss in the interview though, and name drops her "charitable" organization Fashion's Night Out, so not all is lost for Wintour. And the more tickets Wintour can sell to this project, the more powerful she'll seem.

We can just picture Anna sitting in her 12th-floor office petting a fur coat in her lap mumbling, "You win this time, Coddington. But I'll get you next time," while plotting the ways she can still salvage her victory.

Fashion's Night Out is on Thursday, September 10 — Anna mentioned it on the Late Show — and it is an evening to fight one of the great ills of society: people not buying enough clothes! Yes, go out and buy things or else fashion will die and we will have to dress in sack cloth and Ed Hardy T's for the rest of our lives!

The FNO website describes:

In a global initiative to promote retail, restore consumer confidence, and celebrate fashion, U.S. and international editions of Vogue are coordinating evening extravaganzas in their respective world fashion capitals.

Even though they're trying to sell it like one (and even asking for volunteers) it is not a charity. That's right, it's bunch of store parties across the five boroughs. In Manhattan just about every fashion emporium is participating from Balenciaga to Banana Republic and Narcisco Rodriguez to Nine West. If you live in the Bronx, you're stuck with only Macy's and Lane Bryant. Sorry.

What exactly will be going on? Some highlights:

• The Misshapes will be spinning at Versace.
• Tom Ford is having a cocktail party (Tom Ford not included)
• Our Hero Grace Coddington will be "telling a visual story" in the SoHo Prada store.
• Cindy Crawford will appear at the much maligned JCPenney in Herald Square.
• Oscar de la Renta will be singing at the Carlyle Hotel. Vogue editor Hamish Bowles will be singing at Juicy Couture. How that is helping humankind, we have no idea.
• Carolina Herrera herself throws a party for photog Larry Fink at her boutique.
• Anna Wintour told Letterman that she'll be at Macy's in Queens, but she didn't say which one. We are determined to track her down and get a photo.
• Bergdorf Goodman seems to be the most fun of all, with windows by Zac Posen, a celebrity designer cook-off judged by Padma Lakshmi, the Olsen twins tending bar, and André Leon Talley hosting some sort of game show.

The plan seems to be to spend a lot of money getting people in the stores to spend a lot of money. The one thing we haven't heard anything about is discounts. Just because Catherine Malandrino is converting her Meatpacking showplace into a French cafe for the evening doesn't mean that suddenly more people will be able to afford one of her cocktail dresses. Also, none of the money made will go to charity, it will go right into the pockets of retailers, where it belongs. Most participating locations will have stations for visitor's to donate used clothes for charity, but it seems a bit like bringing a canned good to get access to an open bar.

So, just why is Anna doing this? Of course if all the brands go out of business, so will Vogue. But times of crisis are also the best times to consolidate power. Who knows if this one-night shopping event will save New York's fashion industry (it won't) but it already has people talking about Anna as if she's the one and only person who can save the fashion world from crumbling. Also, Condé Nast is sure to give her another 5-year contract (and, we hear that the deal is already done). Well played, Anna. Well played.

She seemed up-beat and talked sweetly with her husband, until the barista told Anna that she liked her necklace....Anna looked none to pleased at that! See pic attached!

Coddington is the magazine's creative director and is in charge of the majority of photo shoots. This former model—who worked at British Vogue and Calvin Klein before starting at American Vogue on the same day as Wintour—is often described as a "genius," including by Wintour herself in R.J. Cutler's documentary (out this Friday!). It appears that she is the only person willing and able to stand up to the Ice Queen of the fashion world and still escape with her life.

A consensus seems to be quickly forming that Coddington is the unlikely victor is this glossy cage match. In the New York Times, Cutler says, "[Anna] is cool, [Grace] is warm and languid," he said. "Anna is all about ‘next,' and Grace is most interested in a historical perspective on art and fashion. Every time they got together, sparks flew." The Associated Press writes, "Coddington seems to pump passion and artistic integrity into the pages while not being swept up in the celebrity frenzy that seems synonymous with fashion these days." Even Maureen Dowd calls it to attention

"There is friction in the Mick Jagger-Keith Richards relationship between the 59-year-old Anna and her closest collaborator, the 68-year-old flame-haired creative director and former model Grace Coddington, who is the only one willing to tweak "the Pope," as Anna is dubbed by a staffer. Coddington tells French Vogue, "We have a real mutual respect for each other, even though sometimes I feel like killing her."

The feisty, flame-haired visionary didn't want to be filmed and only relented at Anna's behest. But watching the documentary, you'd barely know it: she charms Cutler's (and thus, in some ways, Wintour's) film crew and soon is using them for her advantage by talking money with Anna on camera so that she can't cancel her budget. This dame knows how to play the game and isn't afraid to fight dirty, but she doesn't do it in the name of flighty Fashion (with a capital F) but she does it for art, which gives her a nobler cause. Here she is in full-on exasperation:

At one point in the film, she counsels a junior editor who just suffered one of Anna's tongue lashings, "Don't be too nice, not even to me, because you'll lose. You have to beat your way through." And that is just what Coddington does. She admits that both she and Wintour are stubborn, adding, "I know when to stop pushing her, but she doesn't know when to stop pushing me." One of the greatest scenes in the movie comes when the two share a long, awkward, silent elevator ride together on the way to visit Jean Paul Gaultier. It seems the only reason these two tolerate each other is for the good of the magazine.

Eventually, Coddington gets so palsy-walsy that she puts one of the September Issue cameramen into a last-minute photo shoot as a prop. The resulting pictures are fresh and fun and even manage to make Anna smile, although it's not clear if she likes the pics or is just enjoying telling a middle-aged cameraman that he's too fat. When Coddington hears that Wintour wants to Photoshop out his belly, she gets on the phone and threatens the art director and tells him that he has to leave it alone. "Not everything can be perfect in the world," she rails. It is the climax of the movie, where Coddington eventually triumphs over the tyrant, who has been chipping away at her artistic integrity for the entire 90 minutes.

Wintour tries exerting her iron will over everything in order to make it perfect (see an example in the clip below). The portrait the movie paints is not incredibly flattering, where she orders around designers, photographers, and especially editors based on her precarious edicts. The audience can appreciate the way she does business, but not the tactlessness she brings to it.

While the film begins with Anna, it ends with Coddington, her mane of red hair blowing in the wind as she looks out on the gardens of Versailles (where the magazine is doing a photo shoot). She stands still and silent, just taking in the sight. "It's beautiful," she declares simply before returning to work. Yes, Grace, it is. And so are you.

The McKinsey consultants are zeroing in on Vogue as one of their early targets for "restructuring" and whatnot. We imagine that means that they went in, ready to do their cost-cutting, and were frozen by fear when they stared into Anna Wintour's black pools of eternity (eyes). Now she is proceeding to spend just as much money as ever—Keith Kelly says her normal European tour of fashion shows is a go.

Wintour's European entourage, which is usually about 10 people including her creative director, fashion director, several top stylists, European market editor, beauty editor and Publisher Tom Florio, is estimated to cost the company close to $250,000 in travel expenses.

Something's gotta go, to pay for the $30 pommes frites at The Ritz in Pair-ee. That "something" is...whatever they can take away from the New Yorker, which hasn't had a staff member who could kick a McKinsey consultant's ass since AJ Liebling left. David Remnick's magazine has lost its coffee stirrers.

Luckily the fundamental scientific principles governing the motion of heated molecules and liquid dynamics tell us that milk will mix itself into coffee without being stirred by an outside force. Well done, McKinsey.
[Pic: Getty]

[A beleaguered waiter passes around the world's least-likely-to-be-eaten hors d'oeuvres on top of a copy of Vogue (Anna let them put food on Vogue?!) at the afterparty for the screening. Image via Getty]