The September Issue

Vogue’s Creative Director Grace Coddington

As I’m still in New York and had the opportunity to see the film The September Issue, ostensibly a film about Anna Wintour and how she goes about producing the most influential issue of Vogue…The September Issue, I thought I would leave with a different perspective of Anna Wintour.  Well I did but it wasn’t the perspective I was hoping for.   I knew Anna was distant, decisive, determined and deliberate in her position as editor-in-chief of American Vogue, but I wasn’t prepared for the absolute power she has over the creative process.

Enter stage left a Welsh redhead with a soft and measured approach to her job but with the creativity of 10 people and as the film said ‘probably the best stylist in the world’.  Grace Coddington is her name and she became a model when she was 17 in London, worked for several years as a successful model with the likes of David Bailey, Norman Parkinson and many other famous photographers of that time.  An unfortunate car accident cut her modeling career short but thankfully for us she remained in fashion initially working for British Vogue and then American Vogue.  In my opinion and many others Grace is American Vogue.  She is the creative spine of American Vogue and is one of the few and maybe only people who challenges Anna Wintour’s opinion and frequently wins.

I am sorry to see that people like Anna Wintour have so much power in fashion to the extent that their seal of approval can literally make or break a designer but delighted that Grace Coddington is actually still very much a part of American Vogue and brings such style and beauty to the pages.  Without her, I doubt that American Vogue would be the success story that it is today and long may she reign.  Grace is charming, soft-spoken, romantic, excited and sensitive when it comes to fashion and it certainly shows in her photo shoots.  She gives me hope that fashion is not just a business about making money but perhaps a business about creating beauty.