Jessica Elizabeth Gillett AD5604 Contemporary Fashion Communication
WWW.THELOVEMAGAZINE.CO.UK
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Grace Coddington is a stylist and creative director; she is memorable for creating the rarest, magical fashion images to ever appear in a magazine (Seth, 2017). Described as the most influential editor her work opens your eyes to a lot of wonderful things, everything must be exaggerated and highly recognisable she “wants to do pictures that have weight” (Models, 2020). Grace Coddington’s ethereal, rich, and detail-oriented aesthetic has largely shaped fashion into what it is today, she has the vision to create a sense of mood or fantasy in the photoshoots she directs and tells a story that stands for the rest of time (Husodo, 2018). 5
Coddington spent her youth absorbing films or inventing characters based on the guests that stayed at her parents’ hotel and with fashion she had the transformative power to tell beloved children’s tales through styling and photography. A stunning editorial “Alice in Wonderland” (which featured in Vogue magazine) has been labelled the greatest of all time, this tale was decided upon after Grace Coddington admitted she favoured the curious child Alice and the cast of characters that inhabit the dream world she discovers over ‘Mary Poppins’ (Borrelli-Person, 2021). This editorial is built on inspiration from the idolized tale Grace chose against, this editorial reimagined the classic and incorporated the nanny’s iconic prop (an umbrella) in a selection of images.
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The core of this editorial is to highlight the effortless, relatability, and dramatised semiotics of Grace Coddington. This editorial is exaggerated but not to the point its insanity, the model’s stance is over-exaggerated to dramatise the situation and environment yet is achieved with ease to capture the epitome of style and grace. LOVE magazine (which launched in 2009) is a twice-yearly compendium of inspiration for designers,
artists, and publishers that sets the fashion agenda. The magazine targets consumers who are searching for inspiration containing photography of high-end designer brands and interviews. LOVE in my opinion is symbolic for being luxurious, playful, and inspirational, they are core components of this editorial. This editorial set’s its own fashion agenda; it is important the editorial can inspire the designers and consumers with something unique (Presenting Love, n.d.).
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The editorial location is set down a luxurious public road off Chester city centre (King Street, CH1). A noticeable semiotic of Grace Coddington and LOVE is wealth, shooting in a prestige luxurious environment ensured the editorial remained suitable and tailored to the appropriate client. Furthermore, the chosen location almost feels like a scene from the children’s tale ‘Mary Poppins’ to which the editorial makes references to. The photography captures the entire story and like Grace Coddington, the editorial provides a filmic aesthetic by capturing the model as the ‘main character’. The editorial is successful in highly focusing the image on the model whilst still capturing the deserted setting around her (an approach Grace took to dramatise her work). The model is a musical theatre student and with a passion for acting, she was confident and enthusiastic to shoot in a public environment, all the shots were taken in-between the public passing by. 12
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The model looks “effortlessly chic” (therealgrace, 2021), the styling of the minimalistic jumpsuit makes the image relatable because “sort of nothing clothes is reality” (Models, 2020). In the age of social media, there is an elevated emphasis on being relatable, and when it comes to making an important photograph, Coddington believes reality is the greatest place to start. In my opinion, this might be a reflection as to why Grace has been so successful, as consumers we are more likely to engage if we can mirror our own character and recognize our preferences, outlooks, and taste (PBS News, 2017). Influenced by the choice of garment, this editorial will be memorable for the stylists feeling for humanity. Colour was decided to be a key component of the styling, the model’s vintage boots and umbrella (a prop used in a selection of the editorial images) link closely together. Whilst the original black umbrella aligned with the ‘Mary Poppins’ concept, it felt too ordinary for LOVE. Inspired by the magazine’s young playful aesthetic and Craig Green’s 2014 S/S tie-dyed collection, I colourfully
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painted the prop which suddenly transformed the concept into something more recognizable to LOVE’s semiotics. LOVE magazine is symbolic for its use of bold colours and wild prints, in this editorial we experimented with colour to create a youthful and childlike shoot. The model poses in a vibrant orange lip whilst the focus for the rest of the makeup was to remain effortless and natural with a healthy-looking glow. The inspiration behind the vibrant lip was the continuous web of makeup artistry which often features on the front cover of the magazine. The model’s hair is styled in an afro as this felt the most memorable style in which could be achieved, whilst this style is a recognisable feature of Grace herself it is also (like her work) achieved with ease. To “make everything so believable”, the props used were heavily influenced by a shoot shot on the deserted streets of New York with model Binx Walton. Grace Coddington styled Binx with unconventional items to which people can recognise in their everyday life including home décor, food, and animals to create her “favourite photos to date” (therealgrace, 2021). I took further inspiration from ‘Peerless’ and ‘The Perfect Wife’, alongside the discussed children’s tale ‘Mary Poppins’. Further influenced by Grace Coddington and as previously mentioned, the model poses in numerous exaggerated unnatural poses to dramatise the story, in which consumers cansomewhat relate to the slouched and relaxed (perhaps childlike) stances. All clothing and accessories for this editorial are selected from the stylist’s own wardrobe. The idea behind the narrative was the capture two different personalities highlighted by the contrast of LOVE and Grace. I feel I have captured a story which equally resembles the stylist and fashion publicist semiotics. To me the editorial tells a story about a young 16
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playful character who has had a privileged upbringing, the images capture the youthful model to be living an exaggerated and dramatized lifestyle. This editorial demonstrates how I interpret their narrative now and to conclude, I believe the final shoot is a successful understanding representation of my stylist and fashion publicist upon which the memorable story is based upon. After reflection, I wish I had experimented more with a studio shoot location, despite Grace being famously known for shooting in the wild, LOVE magazine tends to opt for a more stripped-back environment in which I didn’t explore. In the future I expect LOVE magazine to experiment with the metaverse. LOVE magazine is filled with designer brands that are already staking a claim in the virtual world, executives of these luxury brands are taking the trend seriously and moving quickly to capitalize on the opportunity (Marr,2022). It is inevitable the magazine will move in the same virtual direction. Designers have huge creative leeway in creating virtual goods as market practicalities don’t apply in the metaverse, the magazine constructed to inspire will influence its consumers with endless opportunities. Visually I expect to see avatars styling garments throughout the magazine advertising the virtual luxury goods, I believe this will make LOVE more desirable to a younger consumer. I conducted some primary research to support this, the responses inform me that 49% of participants haven’t heard of the publication and 40% of participants are interested in the metaverse, I can therefore see a huge opportunity for LOVE magazine to expand their audience to a younger glass generation. As a stylist, I expect Grace Coddington to experiment with 3D fashion to showcase styles, styling sims and avatars will be the future of Coddington’s work if she expects to continue producing editorials for forward-thinking magazines. 18
This image visualises my prediction and future forecast for LOVE and Grace Coddington. The image resembles how my magazine cover would look in the virtual world. 19
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Refrences: Borrelli-Person, L. (2021). Inside the Making of Vogue’s “Alice in Wonderland” Shoot with Annie Leibovitz and Grace Coddington, on Episode 6 of In Vogue: The 2000s. Vogue. Retrieved March 10, 2022, from https://www.vogue.com/article/in-vogue-the-2000spodcast-episode-6 Husodo, B. (2018). Icons before Instagram: Grace Coddington, and 7 of her most seminal works for Vogue. Lifestyle Asia. Retrieved January 20, 2022, from https://www.lifestyleasia.com/ sg/style/fashion/icons-instagram-grace-coddington-7-seminal-works-vogue/ Marr, B. (2022). How Luxury Brands Are Making Money in The Metaverse. Forbes. Retrieved February 20, 2022, from https:// www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2022/01/19/how-luxurybrands-are-making-money-in-the-metaverse/?sh=16c659275714 Models, 2020. Unscripted with Grace Coddington – A Models. com & The Society Interview. YouTube. [Online]. Retrieved January 18, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHZiwr8fAt4 Presenting Love Magazine. (n.d.) Unique Magazines. [Blog post]. Retrieved January 22. 2022, from https://www.uniquemagazines. co.uk/blog/love-magazine-2/ PBS NewsHour. (2017). The problem with only liking things we find relatable. YouTube [Online]. Retrieved February 16, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMHZSmqyn1A
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Seth, R. (2017). Grace Coddington: A Life in Vogue. Vogue. Retrieved January 11, 2022, from https://www.vogue.co.uk/gallery/ grace-coddington-life-in-pictures Therealgracecoddington. (2021). Instagram. Retrieved March 21, 2022, from https://www.instagram.com/p/CNlZgNJJr7N/?utm_ source=ig_web_copy_link Images: All photography taken by Jessica Gillett
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