I don't think that Mme Anna understands fashion
After watching this documentary I got the impression Anna doesn't really understand fashion - the philosophy of it. Fashion is about 'fashioning' one's life - living according to high aesthetic principles while maintaining a personal originality. Attire is one aspect of that. Lord Byron understood this, as did Baudelaire, and as do Carine Roitfeld and many designers such as Lagerfeld. From reading Vogue, it seemed to me that the spirit of the magazine was in congruence with these ideas. That beautiful attire is an art, that fashion is a symptom of the taste for the ideal, that it is not materialistic but spiritual, and that brands are like the trademarks of a new nobility of style + quality.
Anyone who has seen the film will probably agree that none of these things are brought up, which makes me question whether Anna thinks this way. Instead her daughter is allowed to say that she laughs at how seriously the 'fashion people' take fashion. At one point Anna says that her family members are amused by what she does but then offers no philosophic defense to it other than smile and shrug. She seems to imply that whatever bourgeois or philanthropic work they are doing might be more meaningful. In the opening scene, she effectively downplays the importance of fashion when saying that it is “not dumb” to strive for it. This was her only defense of something so important and sacred. I do not understand this moral ambiguity and lack of philosophy. I would not expect it from someone like her.
This is why I made my statement, despite her extraordinary taste, style, editorial talents, and business sense.
Also, I would bet that Carine Roitfeld kept a better-dressed office staff in Paris Vogue.