Back Row with Amy Odell

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The September Issue is R.J. Cutler's 2009 documentary about the biggest issue of Vogue ever made up to that point — 843 pages, 13 million copies sold.

Amy is joined by Kate Casey, host of Reality Life with Kate Casey and a documentary and reality TV expert, to rewatch it seventeen years later. They get into what Anna Wintour really thought of the film, why she and her Vogue team hated Sienna Miller's hair so much, how it all aged, and much more.

CHAPTERS

00:00 Introduction

02:00 13 million copies sold — and what's left now

06:00 How Anna and Grace actually met

17:30 The retailers' breakfast, when Vogue set the trends

25:00 "Your girls always look the same" - Anna at her harshest

41:00 Anna at home, and the kids who didn't follow her

48:00 The Sienna Miller cover disaster

1:07:00 843 pages, and the era that ended

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Follow Kate Casey

🎙️ Reality Life with Kate Casey:

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/reality-life-with-kate-casey/id1154758766

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7iZzKUbEWAsWVkFRebb9Gu
📷 Follow Kate on Instagram: @katecaseyca

This episode was edited by Chrissi Harris.
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Back Row is on vacation this week, so we're revisiting one of the most popular episodes of the year: a two-parter on Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, in honor of The Row's 20th anniversary.

Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen were on television before they could talk and millionaires before they could read. Former Us Weekly editor-in-chief Dan Wakeford, author of the new ⁠Celebrity Intelligence newsletter⁠, joins Back Row to break down the Full House casting story, the Dual Star empire, the billion-dollar licensing machine, and the NYU years that changed everything.

Part Two — revealing the secrets behind The Row — is available to Premium subscribers. Sign up at ⁠Back Row⁠ (https://www.backrow.net/subscribe) to get newsletter access included with your subscription, or in Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

⁠Find Part Two in Apple Podcasts here⁠

⁠Find Part Two in Spotify here⁠

Chapters

00:00 Introduction

01:40 Dan Wakeford and Celebrity Intelligence

02:47 Why the Olsens are a unique case study

07:50 The Full House casting story

10:07 The reality of child stardom

16:22 How their personalities diverged early

19:49 From pennies to $80,000 an episode

26:27 The home video empire begins

33:28 The billion dollar licensing machine

48:00 Turning 18 and taking control

53:41 NYU and the paparazzi years

57:47 How everything changed

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Is everything on social media — even lifestyle content — just rage bait now? New York Magazine features writer Rebecca Jennings joins Amy to unpack her hit Vulture piece on the "influencer recession," when aspirational content no longer works and creators have to come up with "brand-safe rage bait." What does this mean both for the content landscape but also, for rage itself?

CHAPTERS

00:00 Introduction

02:00 What is the "influencer recession"?

02:45 The clipping economy & fake virality

05:15 Audrey Peters & the $25 DoorDash coffee

10:30 Why the Alo yacht flopped

14:35 Why Birkins are embarrassing now

19:30 The OpenAI influencer farm trip

24:00 Brands manufacturing their own rage bait

30:00 How Substack changed the game

34:30 Is rage bait losing its power?

Read Rebecca's story: The Influencer Recession — https://www.vulture.com/article/influencer-recession-audrey-peters-interview.html

Edited by Chrissi Harris.

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Is fashion in the throes of a total creative collapse? Critic Eugene Rabkin — founder of StyleZeitgeist and author of the new book Torn: Fashion and Postmodernism — joins Amy to make the case. He argues luxury has "devolved into a consumerist spectacle," its lack of ideas papered over by relentless marketing.

They get into the greedflation behind a $140,000 Dior dress, why "craftsmanship" is the industry's greatest con, the Italian sweatshop scandals that never seem to stick, how Bernard Arnault turned the fashion world into the fashion industry — and the death of criticism, and why nobody seems to care.

CHAPTERS
00:00 Introduction

02:30 Fashion's creative collapse: the thesis

08:30 Greedflation & the $140,000 Dior dress

13:00 The craftsmanship con

15:00 Sweatshop scandals: Dior & Loro Piana's vicuña

23:30 The death of fashion criticism

32:00 Bernard Arnault & how he industrialized fashion

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📷 Follow Back Row on Instagram: @backrow
📷 Follow Amy on Instagram: @instamyodell

Follow Eugene Rabkin
📷 Follow Eugene on Instagram: @eugenerabkin
📚 Buy the book: Torn: Fashion and Postmodernism

This episode was edited by Chrissi Harris.

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John Galliano is the subject of the Costume Institute's 2027 exhibition and will be celebrated with his very own Met Gala. Galliano's biographer Dana Thomas — author of Gods and Kings, a dual biography about Galliano and Alexander McQueen — joins the show to talk about what this means. Amy and Dana recap Galliano's fall from grace and image rehabilitation — thanks to Anna Wintour.

This is a free preview. Hear the full conversation — a detailed recap of the controversy, the apology Galliano never made, and Amy's take on whether the Met should honor him — in the full episode in Back Row Premium.

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