Coddington was born on April 20, 1941 t o hotelier parent s on the island of A n g l e s e y, Wa l e s . Her int er es t in fashion began in her t eens, when she would anxiously await the arrival of a current i s s u e o f Vo g u e m a g a z i n e, w h i c h was at least three months outdated due to the fact that she needed to order it on “Ru s h - C o p y �. She lived many
miles away from any designer shops, so Vo g u e w a s h e r o n l y connection to the fashion world. She says that she loves “the whole sor t of c h i c t h i n g (“I t a l i a n a t e c u l t u r e”) [a b o u t Vo g u e] t h a t w a s s o entirely out of contex t compared to the l i f e s t y l e t h a t [s h e] l e d ”. A s a t e e n, s h e was pale-skinned and convent-educated and never went any where on her holidays, so she just looked at Vo g u e . A r o u n d t h e a g e o f 17, t h e r e w a s a Vo g u e m o d e l c o m p e t i t i o n, a n d someone submit ted her pic tures. She ended up winning the Yo u n g M o d e l s e c t i o n . She then began her modeling career for
Grace Coddington’s celebration of fashion has danced along its cutting edge for over 30 years. Abandoning a highly lucrative career as a leading model on the 60s London scene, alongside such swinging contemporaries as Jean Shrimpton and Twiggy, Coddington signed on in 1968 as a junior fashion editor at British Vogue. She quickly established herself on the other side of the camera, coordinating photo shoots with David Bailey, Cecil Beaton, Helmut Newton, Sarah Moon, and the eccentric Guy Bourdin. A close working relationship with royal photographer Norman Parkinson produced a series of startlingly vibrant location shoots that have come to be considered classics. At British Vogue, Coddington also introduced the sweeping narrative epic, a familiar feature of her work nowadays at American Vogue, where she has been creative director for the past 14 years. GRACE: Thirty Years of Fashion at Vogueis not only a collection of Coddington’s greatest work, it is a visual reminiscence of her life in fashion.
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She first came to the mainstream public’s attention after the 2009 release of The September Issue, R. J. Cutler’s documentary about the putting-together of the 2007 September issue of U.S. Vogue. Ms Coddington, who plays a prominent role in the film, was an unexpected breakout star who is now hounded by fashion wannabes, photographers and streetstyle bloggers. In a world of tweeting and instagramming, the old-media megastar, whose job of styling and creating fashion shoots is one wholly behind-the-scenes, still seems unsure how to navigate her new celebrity, She said to the Telegraph: ‘It’s not as though I’m a rock star where people are very aggressive. I guess I’m too old to lead a really exciting life.’ But, slightly more emboldened, she later said to the New York Times: ‘They think I’m everybody’s property. You’re like public domain. And I think that’s disgusting.
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