Full Of Grace.

Grace loves kitties.

I saw The September Issue yesterday morning with my wonderful friend Blaire, and since I'm a cheap chica we took advantage of AMC's $6 before noon deal. Hence, we found ourselves in a dark theater with Anna Wintour while the majority of the city still slept, or slurped mimosas through a hangover straw at brunch. I for one found the film very worth my early rise and shine, and I think Blaire did too.

The September Issue that the documentary swirls around. Grace didn't love Sienna...

I was going to live Tweet my viewing, but I realized that if I had some d-bag next to me fiddling with her glowy phone through an entire film, I'd be super annoyed and decided to forgo the electronic connection. Besides, I was too enthralled to peel my eyes away from the screen for very long. There were so many wonderfully delicious moments in this film and nearly all of them starred the oh-so-inspiring and utterly lovable Grace Coddington.

Marc Jacobs loves Grace.

Just who is Grace? She's the magazine's current creative director. Working under the dictatorial guidance of Anna, she oversees the ins and outs of many of the magazine's photo spreads.

Examples of shoots from the Vogue archives overseen by Ms. Coddington.

She pulls together stories based on a theme, gathers clothes to fit her narrative, helps cast the models, directs the photographers, and approves the images. That's a lot, but actually that's not all. She also dresses the models, styles the shoots, laces corsets, and buttons, and wraps, and...well if you need a fashion related thing done, she does it.



And she's been doing it for years. She's been at American Vogue since 1995, before that she was under the umbrella of British Vogue, and before that she was a well shot young model. She knows this business inside and out and she's not even a bit done making brilliant things happen within it.

Grace in her modeling days.

Her eye is sharp and her sensibility is romantic. She keeps her senses perked for inspiration that may strike in any, tiny way, through any narrow conduit. She's a true example of someone born to do what they do. Her work means a lot to her, and seeing her fight the good fight in it's honor against her boss is remarkable. She pushes when it's time to push and warmly embraces when it's time to comfort or concede or console. She's a perfect foil to the galaxy-large egos stomping the halls of her office.

A wonderful shoot from the August '08 issue of Vogue starring Karen Elson as Grace.


The book published by Edition 7L featuring thirty years of work by Grace. Click the image for ordering information.

Her shoots are gorgeous additions to the annals of fashion photography and I hope she continues to do her thing for years and years to come.