When in 1945, after six long years, the Second World War ended and peace came at last, British Vogue had acquired a gravity unexpected when the conflict came about. This was chiefly thanks to two women from very different backgrounds and of very different temperaments, one British and one American, who found enough common ground to propel Vogue into the modern age. Their story is told in Lee , released in September.
On the face of it, it’s the story of Lee Miller, played by Kate Winslet, the American half of the partnership, a spirited, beautiful and ambitious model turned photographer. From 1940 to 1944, there was barely an issue of Vogue without a fashion photograph, still life, beauty picture or portrait credited “Lee Miller”. She was tireless in the role of chief fashion photographer – often the magazine’s only photographer as established figures, such as Cecil Beaton and Norman Parkinson , were now engaged in vital war work.
But Lee also explores Miller’s relationship with Vogue ’s tenacious editor-in-chief Audrey Withers , played by Andrea Riseborough. It was with Withers’ encouragement that in 1944 Miller obtained accreditation as a war photographer with the US Army and, after D-Day, followed the Allied advance across France and into Germany, where she became a battle-hardened warrior in combat fatigues wielding a Rolleiflex and hammering out words on a battered typewriter. Where Miller was impetuous, outspoken and uninhibited, Withers – an unlikely c.