"Anna, meanwhile, struggles to remain calm beneath her trademark oversized shades, her botoxed lip twitching..."

With the release this week of acclaimed documentary

THE SEPTEMBER ISSUE, and the death of ultimate designer-with-a-sense-of-humor Alexander McQueen, we decided to explore the recent surge of fashion-based cinema. Though I believe we are more interested in individual style here in Humboldt than in that elusive moneymaking monster called "fashion," that doesn't mean we can't be entertained or even enlightened by it in some instances...

COCO BEFORE CHANEL follows Audrey Tautou as Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel, from her childhood in an orphanage, to her years as a burlesque singer, to her first runway show as a designer. Something the film always lingers on is how uncomfortable the women of the era look, all bustled and bursting out of stiff corsets, long skirts trailing on the floor behind them, just begging to be tripped on. Enter feisty Coco, sewing boyish, comfortable clothing out of curtains, eschewing cleavage for prim mystery. Add a love triangle and you have a beautifully shot, entertaining little French biopic about the beginnings of the most well-known name in fashion.

VALENTINO: THE LAST EMPEROR shows the opposite - a flamboyant designer schooled during Hollywood's Golden Age, and his final decline into obsolescence in 2007. Finding fame as the designer of First Lady Jackie O's wardrobe in the 60s, Valentino's nam e was always synonymous with a sort of Old Hollywood glamour, even when it was out of style. Stubbornly independent to the end, Valentino insists that his clothing be made wearable and flattering, and he refuses to focus on the things that make real money in the industry today: branded perfumes and handbags. When the majority of his company's stock is bought by a large corporation, he scoffs that if they try to tell him what to do, "I would eat them!" Little does he know. The final runway show in the film, an extravagant Valentino retrospective in front of Roman ruins, could bring tears to the eyes of even the most dedicated hater of fashion, as it is so clearly the end. On the lighter side, the documentary also explores Valentino's relationship with his domestic (and business) partner of over 50 years, Giancarlo Giammetti, and it's fun to watch the old couple bicker over fake sand dunes on the runway and Valentino's excessive spray-on tans. Nino Rota's famous score to LA DOLCE VITA provides the background music throughout, a fitting testament to a bygone era of decadence.

THE SEPTEMBER ISSUE again reminds me just how alien the world of contemporary New York fashion is, but like any glimpse into a culture remarkably different from our own, it never bores. The best part of this documentary about the making of VOGUE is the dynamic between Creative Director Grace Coddington, a frizzy-haired, exuberant, self-described Romantic, and "America's most powerful woman," icy Editor-In-Chief Anna Wintour. Grace, who looks more Humboldt than NYC, feeds models giant raspberry tarts, scoffs at celebrity worship, and insists that a cameraman's beer gut not be photoshopped out of a spread, because real people aren't perfect. Anna, meanwhile, struggles to remain calm beneath her trademark oversized shades, her botoxed lip twitching, as everyone else around her cowers. Billed as the real-life 'The Devil Wears Prada,' this one is a very guilty pleasure, but a pleasure nonetheless.

See also William Klein's frenetic 1966 satire of the fashion industry 'WHO ARE YOU, POLLY MAGOO?', Sally Potter's star-studded fashion-show-as-apocalypse 'RAGE,' and for the seedier side, the doc 'FASHION VICTIM: THE KILLING OF VERSACE.' All available at LDV.  - Aimee