Notorious US Vogue editor
Anna Wintour and her team superimposed a picture of
Sienna Miller's face onto another one of her body after complaining she was too "toothy" for their front cover, a new film reveals.
The decision is documented in The September Issue, an 89-minute fly-on-the-wall exploration of life behind the scenes at Vogue, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival last week.
In it, director and producer RJ Cutler tracks the compilation of the magazine's biggest ever issue, which ended up weighing nearly two kilograms and selling 13 million copies.
According to British newspaper The Telegraph, editor-in-chief Wintour is shown complaining that actress Miller - their chosen cover girl - is too "toothy", while other magazine staff comment on the number of fillings she has.
Renowned Italian photographer Mario Testino took the shots but the magazine ending up using one shot of Miller's face and superimposing it on another taken of her body.
Miller's publicist told the Daily Mirror newspaper that the star was the first to admit her photos were always retouched, saying: "no one is ever that perfect".
And Vogue's spokesman insisted the retouch was not personal.
"While some retouching is a fact for any cover, no one is more convinced of Ms Miller's beauty than Vogue," Patrick O'Connell told the newspaper.
"The fact she appeared on the magazine's September cover, our most important issue of the year, is a testimony to this truth."
The documentary also centres on the two-decade relationship between 59-year-old Wintour and Vogue's creative director, Grace Coddington, who did not want the film crew there.
"The first time we encountered Grace she said, 'Get away from me'," Cutler says in the film's production notes.
"The next time I saw her, we were at the Chanel show in Paris and she said, 'Anna isn't even here, why do you even have to come around'?"
Eight months of filming and more than 300 hours of footage was eventually moulded into the 89 minute documentary, which also delivers rare insights into the other side of the Wintour mystique.
Cutler says scenes with Wintour's daughter, Bee Shaffer, and others in which she contemplates her relationship with her siblings, are among his favourites.
It is not known if the film will be shown in Australia.
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