On
Monday, Vanity Fair magazine, revealing at last a tightly guarded
exclusive, introduced the world to Caitlyn Jenner, the transgender
Olympian formerly known as Bruce, and gave her the kind of old-style
Hollywood glamour treatment that ingénues pine for: a high fashion (if
soft focus)
Annie Leibovitz cover shoot with the star spilling out of
a form-fitting satin corset.
And
tasked with outfitting a newly minted glamour girl for the big moment
was the magazine’s fashion and style director, Jessica Diehl, an
industry veteran who styles most of the magazine’s cover stars but
nevertheless found the prospect “completely petrifying,” she said.
Part
of the challenge was to present Ms. Jenner as the woman she has long
wanted to be. “It was really about finding out from Caitlyn what this
all means to her,” Ms. Diehl said by phone on Tuesday. “We talked a lot
about what could work in real life, how she sees herself.”
They
talked icons and inspirations: all-American chic, classic rather than
flashy. Ms. Diehl brought photos of Lauren Bacall and Jackie Kennedy to a
preshoot discussion with Ms. Jenner. Ms. Diehl wanted to present a
range of options and price points. Ms. Jenner may yet have the
opportunity to be swathed in couture for a glossy’s pages, but Ms. Diehl
made sure she had some cost-effective Diane von Furstenberg looks on
hand, too.
The
bigger parts of the challenge were the logistics of working largely
around the usual protocols. At the magazine, only a “skeleton group”
knew of the shoot. (That skeleton crew numbered around 10, Ms. Diehl
said; she told the rest of her team they were shooting Barbra
Streisand.)
Typically,
fashion editors will borrow clothing directly from brands; in this
case, because of the need for secrecy, Ms. Diehl largely resorted to
shopping. She scoured Bergdorf’s and Barneys, Max Mara and Tom Ford,
Michael Kors and DVF, working with Ms. Jenner’s measurements in mind.
What couldn’t be sourced in store was sought online. “Online was
actually a great boon for us in terms of finding sizing,” Ms. Diehl
said.
Ah, yes: the particular difficulty of getting bustiers and ball gowns for a woman who stands 6-foot-2.
“We
all know that a tall woman at 6-2 is not sample size,” Ms. Diehl said.
(“I feel ladies don’t ever like to talk about their size, so I would
have to defer on that,” she said when asked what size Ms. Jenner is.)
Most
of the women Ms. Diehl is called on to dress — say, Jennifer Lawrence,
whom Ms. Diehl once accessorized with only fine jewelry and a live
Colombian red-tailed boa constrictor — are smaller. But, Ms. Diehl said,
“the one thing that makes it easier to dress someone is proportion.
Caitlyn’s proportions are fashion proportions, really. She’s tall, slim,
narrow hipped: kind of ideal to dress.”
Ms.
Diehl had not tried the options on so much as a stand-in before a
fitting with Ms. Jenner the day before the shoot, but found that
everything she brought fit. “That actually never happens to me,” she
said. “The physique is really extraordinary. We should all be
decathletes.”
The
shoot itself, which took place over several days at Ms. Jenner’s home
in Malibu, Calif., was a feat of seamless leak-proofing. “There were no
cellphones,” Ms. Diehl said. “They were all in a box. There was
nothing.”
Vanity
Fair also had to forgo its usual outdoor locations, set pieces and
props. “Luckily, she has some pretty fierce cars, just in the driveway,”
Ms. Diehl said. “We didn’t have to go anywhere.” Ms. Jenner wore a
cherry-red jersey-and-mesh Donna Karan dress in a color-coordinating
2011 Porsche 911 GT3 RS.
That
dress, like a few other pieces in the shoot, were sourced with the help
of the brands, though never with any indication of the celebrity being
dressed. Vanity Fair’s usual procedure, several fashion executives said,
is cloak-and-dagger, and the prospect of appearing in the issue
justifies any perceived risk.
Victor
De Vita, the senior manager for global communications and marketing at
Zac Posen, sent an off-the-shoulder gown without asking who might wear
it, and didn’t know it had been used until he saw the photos, with the
rest of the world, on Monday morning. Mr. Posen said in a statement that
he was “very proud to be included in the roster of chosen designers for
such a historic moment captured by the iconic Annie Leibovitz.”
Likewise,
Aliza Licht, the senior vice president for global communications at
Donna Karan, helped Ms. Diehl track down the Donna Karan dress from the
company’s South Coast Plaza store in Costa Mesa, Calif., without any
idea whom it was for. Ms. Jenner ended up loving it, and got to keep it,
a gift from the magazine.
That’s
a testament to Ms. Jenner’s happiness with her new look. “That was
probably, to me, the most important thing, that Caitlyn feels good about
everything,” said Ms. Diehl, who described Ms. Jenner as a partner and
collaborator.
“There
would have been no way that I would’ve persuaded Caitlyn in a moment
like this — which I can sometimes do, persuade an actress to wear
something that I really want her to wear,” Ms. Diehl said. “This was not
the moment for that.
