There was that documentary she allowed to be made, and even did publicity for; that "conversation" with fellow Condé Nast editors-in-chief David Remnick and Graydon Carter; the Wall Street Journal interview; the 60 Minutes special, dedicated to her, that will finally air this weekend. An awfully full dance card for a woman who otherwise seems to regard the press as an impertinent gnat.

In her interview last night with Jonathan Tisch, Wintour, much like her magazine, addressed a limited number of exquisitely soft issues in predictable ways. Shockingly, she thinks Michelle Obama is fantastic. Wintour also denied advertisers exert any sway whatsoever over Vogue's editorial content (explain, then, why the ladymag feels the need to present head-to-toe runway looks that exactly duplicate designers' own ad campaigns, month after month and year after year?) Wintour of course denied she had any plans to retire: "Mostly I'm thinking about the next day. I think that I have the best job in the entire world." She weathered a vocal attack from PETA protesters who threw a banner from a balcony — "As I was saying, fashion means different things to different people," she said mirthfully, before continuing — and hinted that more models may be seen on Vogue covers in the near future. (That's probably no red herring: not only has scuttlebutt of that exact nature hit fashion blogs and forums as of late, but at one of her last public appearances, in December, Wintour said she hoped to have Michelle Obama on the cover — and that came true this March. The lady does not mess around with cover talk.)

But what seems to be on her mind more than anything else is a certain dress with sequins. At the Y, she said that before the economy cratered last fall:

I probably didn't delve as deeply as I should have into what things cost. Now I ask the price of every single outfit that comes into the office, and I think a lot of my editors have been quite surprised about what a little sequin dress from an unnamed designer might be, and if it's $25,000, we'll say, ‘Okay, well, not this time.'

You might remember that in February, she told the Wall Street Journal:

Without naming names, we had a little sequined thing that wouldn't come down to here on you [points to chest.] And I said, 'How much is it?' $25,000. I said, 'No. We're not going to photograph that right now.'

And, at the December editors' conversation, she related that when a $50,000 dress "not much bigger than your shirt, Graydon" came through the Vogue offices, she said:

I'm sorry, but we're not putting that in the magazine, no matter how magical Steven Meisel thinks it is.

This dress — and I'm confident it is a dress, even though the Wall Street Journal reporter, Rachel Dodes, came away with the impression that it might have been nothing more than "a bedazzled shrug" — is Anna Wintour's rosebud. It's the MacGuffin of the recession! This slinky sequined mini-thing, which costs either $25,000 or $50,000 or some other similarly absurd sum, which may or may not have been requested for a Meisel shoot, which may be by "an unnamed designer" or alternatively a designer Wintour wishes not to name (odds-on it's an advertiser, then) — this dress is the key to understanding the new fashion economy. Surely Anna wouldn't just be wasting our time with tired talking points and six-month-old stories about nothing.

Now all we have to do is identify the sucker. You know where to send the candidates.

Earlier: Being Anna: "Sometimes You Don't Love The Press"

Related: Anna Wintour Getting Ready For Her 60 Minutes Close Up [Gawker]
Anna Wintour Gets Chatty At Sundance [The Cut]
Anna Wintour Adresses Rumors About Leaving Vogue, Michelle Obama, The Recession, And More [The Cut]
In Which We Offend Anna Wintour And She Shoos Us Away [The Cut]
Just Asking: Anna Wintour [WSJ]

As might be expected given that there were three editors of Condé Nast flagship publications present, the discussion — moderated by New Yorker media critic Ken Auletta — mainly turned on commonalities between the magazines, namely the souring economy and the internet. (Yes, this thing you are reading. Graydon Carter thinks a lot about it.)

Wintour, dressed in brown suede kitten heeled boots, a brown satiny skirt, oatmeal knit top, and a grey jacket with a large fur collar that did her lapel mic an injury midway through the audience questions, was the first to bring up the recession. "Right now we're in difficult times, but I think it makes you a little edgier," she said. "Out of bad times can come great magazines." Remnick took a similar tack: "Editors have to keep a clear eye and do what they have to do. I think magazines—ones that mean something—have a future."

In response to a question from Auletta about whether the economic downturn poses temporary or fundamental problems for magazine publishing, Wintour cautioned first against "over-reacting."

"I see a lot of people in my industry who are over-reacting. Stores that are over-discounting, designers who are creating collections for the price and what sells rather than to reflect who they are." Straitened times, she said, should not mean the end of luxury. It takes a special understanding of the world — wasn't the Dow just below 8,000? And aren't advertising pages in this month's Vogue down 22% compared with last December's issue? — to frame the fashion industry's biggest problem right now as charging too little for its wares.

Still, Wintour did offer what might pass for a glimmer of understanding. Recently, a sequined mini-dress "not much bigger than your shirt, Graydon" came through the Vogue offices, on request for a photo shoot. When she found out the garment retailed at $50,000, Wintour said she told everyone, "I'm sorry, but we're not putting that in the magazine, no matter how magical Steven Meisel thinks it is." (Of course, just this September, Vogue featured an entire article about a $64,300 gold-dipped mink coat. I guess it's lucky the issue closed before Lehman did.)

When asked about the internet, Wintour took a surprisingly pragmatic view. She recalled how this past season when Alessandra Facchinetti was fired from Valentino after less than 10 months as head designer, she learned the news backstage, before the show began, and got the scoop online. (The announcement was to have been made at the show's conclusion.) "It was a horrific, horrific situation," Wintour continued. "I mean, [Facchinetti] was weeping backstage, telling the whole awful story."

Remnick mentioned how last week's attacks in Mumbai came too late for the New Yorker's deadline — but contributor Steve Coll, an experienced reporter who'd covered Lakshar-e-Taiba before, wrote a post about it to one of the magazines blogs. (Imagine that, using your website to keep your magazine's coverage up-to-date.) "Do we compete with the Internet? I don't know what that means. We compete with specific sources...It's foolish for me to think the magazine is this thing that comes once a week, and then there's this business over here [online]," Remnick said. "It is all the New Yorker."

In fact, only Carter seemed a little troubled in his understanding of the web. "What's the point of duplicating the magazine and putting it all on the web for free?" he asked, rhetorically. (Uh, so people can, I dunno, read it?) Later he compared the internet to a supermarket, and his magazine to a gourmet restaurant. He claimed he didn't see the web as a threat, though his language was a tad on the antagonistic side: "If you're in the business of telling long stories with great pictures, it's going to be a while before the internet takes that away."

Remnick — who does post all of his magazine's content online — had the most realistic approach. "The internet is a system of distribution," he said. Of the three, the New Yorker editor seemed to best grasp how the web could be employed to enhance his publication's reach.

When Auletta asked about the way Condé Nast's readership skews older, Carter joked, "Sometimes people ask me how to get a 21-year-old reader, and I say, 'Wait eight years. He'll read when he's 29.'" Wintour claimed Condé chief S.I. Newhouse had never asked her to seek younger readers. "I'm thinking of a discerning person," she claimed, "whether they're 16 or 62 doesn't matter to me."

The elephant in the room, naturally, was Wintour's rumored retirement. Neither Auletta, nor the audience members who got to ask questions, addressed the item directly. (Apparently low balls like "Which magazines did you read growing up?" were thought to be more important.) However, when asked indirectly about the "next step," Wintour denied she would be retiring.

"My father always said to me, 'The day you get too angry, that's the time to stop.' The day I get too angry is the day I take up gardening."

I suppose there we have it. For now.

Earlier: 3 Reasons We Hope The Wintour/Roitfelt Rumor Is True

Related: Wintour Said Replaced By French Counterpart [Gawker]

Anna Wintour Says She Has 'No Plans' to Leave Vogue; What Would It Take? 'The Day I Get Too Angry' [NY Observer]

Perhaps you remember way back when the music industry was suing college students; Madonna put a bunch of fake Madonna tracks on various file-sharing services cheekily inquiring "What the fuck do you think you're doing?"

Okayyyy, Graydon... leaving aside for one sec the "heartstrings gap" between worthless college students versus farmers ...can we address the fact that private investigators use pretty much the same exact tactics to defend the "intellectual property" of every stupid brand advertised in your magazine?

How exactly did we get to the point where we can accept that ruthlessly protecting the patents of laboratory-developed seeds is a grave offense to All America Stands For, but the horrible Oriental derelicts who dare to stamp offending Ls, Vs and Cs onto shoddy bags must be stopped? (Even as, as your sister publication once pointed out, piracy is considered integral to the success of most luxury brands.) How did we get to the point where the New York Times is willing to associate Chinese entrepreneurs knocking off silly French symbols with terrorism, and meanwhile, a company that actually does something — that arguably, despite its creepy malevolence, offers some benefit to society by spending money on the research and development necessary to make the food supply more efficient — can be cast as an irredeemable villain? How did the luxury goods industry — whose titans, like LVMH, have achieved revenue and profit margins that vastly exceed Monsanto's — snag themselves such a free pass? Did they buy it?

Ha ha ha —look it's a Versace ad next to that Monsanto piece! — and yes that was a rhetorical question.

Monsanto's Harvest of Fear [Vanity Fair]

First I created an imaginary boyfriend who is modern, likes gadgets, and would appreciate a modest yet personal gift. I had no idea that a MasterCard gift card (below) would meet said imaginary boyfriend's needs.

A MasterCard gift card, I soon realized, that I couldn't even buy — but could only win in a raffle. And then give away to encourage him to buy something modern and personal that he would actually like?

I decided I needed a new imaginary boyfriend. One who would want an of-the-moment gift that was practical. Apparently, this would mean the not-really-a-gift MasterCard gift card or a subscription to Vanity Fair. I start thinking of the men in my life. I can't imagine a one of them who would want a subscription to Vanity Fair, for Christmas or otherwise.

Maybe my problem was that I was only selecting modest gifts and was unwilling to splurge? I took the plunge. Apparently not.

At this point I decided to dump all my imaginary boyfriends and look for gifts for myself. Boucheron jewelry? I suddenly re-invent the imaginary boyfriend, as there is no way in hell I am shelling out this kind of cash for myself.

Hoping to be a modern, independent woman I change the meter back to 'modest,' hoping to find something for myself I can actually afford. You guessed it.

So I decide to end my life of extremes! What lies somewhere in between classic and modern, indulgent and practical, modest and a splurge? Posters from the Vanity Fair cover archives, apparently. I am sorely disappointed.

I veer once again to my true nature: Modest and indulgent both. Perfume? Seriously? I am baby powder and a good shower kind of girl, thanks. Or a cologne girl, if i feel like splashing the flacon.

Maybe the problem is that I am a Luddite? I change my preferences to high-tech. To no avail.

Throwing caution to the wind, I go whole hog: Indulgent! High-tech! Splurge! Not-so-personal! Who needs meaning and feelings when you can have expensive things? Well apparently not me. I tried to fuck the gift finder and all I got was this stupid MasterCard.

Vanity Fair Insider
Related: Some Gift Cards Sorta Friendlier, Thanks To FTC [Consumerist]