Memo Pad: Pop Art... September Issue...

POP ART: It seems Pop magazine’s new editor in chief, Dasha Zhukova, was serious about making the relaunched title as much about art as fashion. For the first issue, Zhukova has tapped Damien Hirst to design two covers, which both feature the 13-year-old Chicago-based fashion blogger Tavi Gevinson. Hirst has made his signature butterflies the backdrop of both covers and customized the title’s logo with polkadots. Meanwhile, Ed Ruscha designed a limited edition hardback cover of Pop to mark the launch of his show at London’s Hayward Gallery this fall.

“The new Pop launches at an exciting turning point in fashion, where the possibilities and potential for creativity are almost overwhelming,” said Zhukova. “The new era is more fluid than ever before; one where teenage girls in Chicago, fashion editors in Paris, street photographers from Berlin and bloggers everywhere…redefine the fashion landscape.” To wit, the title features an eclectic mix of subjects — Cicciolina dressed by Ricardo Tisci; a celebration of Margaret Thatcher as a fashion icon; an interview with the president of Liberia conducted by Barbara Bush, and a shoot in which Rodarte “celebrate U.S. stem-cell scientists,” according to the magazine.

The launch issue has 316 pages, and a spokeswoman for Bauer, its publisher, said advertisers include Prada, Dior, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Chanel, Armani, Chloe, Mulberry, Tod’s and Roberto Cavalli. Pop has a cover price of 5 pounds, or $8, and hits newsstands Tuesday. — Nina Jones

ISSUES WITH SEPTEMBER: After an extensive promotional blitz, “The September Issue,” a behind-the-couture look at the creation of Vogue’s September 2007 issue, finally opened in New York City over the weekend.

So how did it do? The movie, which aired on six screens, took in a total weekend gross of $240,078, for an average of $40,013 per screen, according to figures released Sunday afternoon by the film’s distributor, Roadside Attractions.

And if the hype and the promise of the film’s access to the inner circle weren’t enough to lure the fashion curious to the six theaters in Manhattan where it was playing, there were the mostly favorable reviews. New York magazine’s David Edelstein called it a “guilty pleasure”; Entertainment Weekly’s Owen Gleiberman gave the documentary an “A,” and the New York Daily News rated the movie, directed by R.J. Cutler, three-and-a-half out of five stars.

Though most reviewers lauded Vogue creative director Grace Coddington as the breakout star of the 88-minute film, Anna Wintour’s on-screen persona played less well in some circles. “In interviews with Cutler, Wintour is withholding and stand-offish, just as she is with her staff,” wrote Marshall Fine for The Huffington Post. “She’s a poor little rich girl swaddled in fur and iced to the bone,” wrote The New York Times’ Manohla Dargis. And Kyle Smith of The New York Post, who rated the movie three out of four stars, described Wintour with “fangy bangs that you could open an envelope on, her mirth-free smile, the Frisbee-sized shades that conceal her arctic skin crevasses but add to her polar froideur. Brrrr! I’m wearing a winter coat as I write.”

Nevertheless, some critics left wanting more. “Unfortunately for audiences, Ms. Wintour, perhaps mindful of her icy reputation, perhaps simply mindful of the cameras, is on her best behavior,” said Joanne Kaufman of The Wall Street Journal, who panned the film, calling it “listless” and “old news” since it’s about an issue of the magazine that came out two years ago.

The documentary opens nationwide on Sept. 11.

— Stephanie D. Smith