Tell-All: Behind the Beauty of Vogue

Documentary Shows Intense Work World of Elusive Fashion Icon Anna Wintour

(CBS)  As the fashion industry gears up for this year's Spring Fashion Week next week, fashionistas are anxiously awaiting the release of the new documentary on Vogue magazine, "The September Issue." The film shows how the "Bible of Fashion" puts together its coveted September edition, which tells women what to invest in for fall.

On "The Early Show" Thursday, the doumentary's producer/director, R.J. Cutler, discussed creating the film and dealing with Vogue's controversial editor in chief, Anna Wintour.

"When you meet her, you know she's special, you know that the workplace that she's in is special. You feel it right away," Cutler said.

But how did Cutler get Wintour, notorious for turning down interviews, to agree to do an eight-month-long project?

All he did, Cutler said, was ask.

"She agreed to do it right away," Cutler recalled. "We talked about filmmaking and the type of film that we would make and our approach, and she got it and really liked the idea. It was Anna's suggestion that we focus on the September issue."

In fact, Cutler said Grace Coddington, Wintour's partner, wasn't as enthusiastic about the prospect of doing a documentary at first. Cutler said the first thing she said to him was, "Go away."

It was Wintour, who has a reputation for aloofness, who was the rumored subject of the book and film "The Devil Wears Prada."

But André Leon Talley, Vogue's editor at large, said on "The Early Show" the biggest misconception about Wintour is that she is an "ice flow ... that she has no human flesh or bones."

"R.J.'s film shows that, with all the glamour, the power and the glory, there is a woman who you see warm up when she's with her daughter on Long Island," Talley said. "You see the warmth come over her face at last. ... There is warmth behind the ice flow."

Still, he added, "It's no tea party. She's putting together a very important magazine that's the top magazine for the industry, and we take our jobs very seriously."

Talley said "(Wintour) is a human being like all of us and she's not perfect."

Cutler said viewers will be amazed by the commitment it takes to put out a magazine of that caliber month-after-month, adding that the relationship between the magazine's editors, Wintour and Coddington, who seem like polar opposites, is interesting to watch.

"The September Issue" is scheduled to be released in theaters in New York on August 28th and nationwide on September 11th.