Grace Coddington's 'More Intelligent Life' Career Interview

DolceTracker| Then and now. Above left is Grace Coddington on the cover of British Vogue, August 1962.

To Grace’s left is a current snap of Grace as Creative Director of US Vogue, with Anna Wintour, Editor in Chief.

The two women have a sometimes fiercy relationship, but one that has worked: Grace as the creative visionary behind some of US Vogue’s greatest fashion editorials and Wintour as the more pragmatic, businesswoman editor.

We learn in Grace Coddington: Creative Indeed, an in-depth study of Coddington’s career by Julie Kavanagh in More Intelligent Life that Grace resigned from British Vogue in December 1986, nine months after Anna Wintour became editor. “Anna was much more into ‘sexy’ than I was.”

By 1988 Wintour was in New York at US Vogue, and Grace Coddington returned to work with her.

With her appearance in the documentary ‘The September Issue’, Coddington became a more public figure. “It’s not like movie stardom,” she says. “It’s just that people feel I’m approachable. And I like talking to strangers on the subway: I’m a good listener, and sometimes miss my stop.”

More reading:

Vogue’s Grace Coddington: A Woman Whose ‘Brand’ Is Positioned for the Future

American Vogue: Back to the 3Rs