Sooth-sayer of British style takes her talents to New York

Press, 23 September 1987, Page 17

Sooth-sayer of British style takes her talents to New York

For the past two decades, a striking woman with a mass of copper Hair and an aura of gentle reserve has sat in the front row of the international fashion shows, recognised by all, respected by a highly critical, often bitchy fashion world. Grace Coddington, as fashion director of British ‘•Vogue,” became in her years at the magazine one of the great fashion editors.

To be a good magazine fashion editor you must liaise between designer ideas and public needs, communicating through pictures the style and the mood of the moment. To be remarkable, your work must inspire the designers themselves. A handful of people in any generation succeed with distinction. Few would disagree that Grace Coddington has earned the "great” title and influenced the world of fashion enormously. But, after 19 years of “Vogue,” Grace has hung up her editor’s hat, packed up her London flat and moved across the Atlantic to become design director of Calvin Klein’s American empire. Rumours of a clash of personalities at Vogue House had been rife since the appointment of Anna Wintour as the new editor. But Grace will only say philosophically: “I think I’ve done what I wanted to do in magazines and now there is a new regime, it’s a good time to move on. I could have gone on for another 20 years.”

Like many success stories, Grace's career has been a mix of luck and talent: “I didn’t have any formal training of any kind and only just scraped through two “0” levels. At home in Wales I spent all my time looking at •Vogue’ and making my own clothes from Vogue patterns.”

For nine years she was one of the Sixties’ favourite models. Then she was offered a fashion editor’s job by Beatrix Miller, at that time editor of “Vogue,” who says of Grace:

“Her contribution to Vogue has been immense, a harvest of memorable and directional images. I watched with great pleasure her evolution from fashionmodel to a kind of sooth-sayer of style — not only interpreting contemporary fashion but always moving towards new horizons. Her wilder flights may sometimes have left readers bemused, but always exhilarated.” “I’ve done lots of marvellous trips

with Norman Parkinson,” says Grace. “We were on the inaugural flight to the Seychelles; then, with Alex Chatelaine, we were among the first to photograph fashion in Russia. We were absolutely the first to be allowed to use China as a location.

In the late seventies she was one of the first journalists to take seriously the emerging American designers Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein and Perry Ellis. Apart from her influence on the fashion industry, Grace has always been known for her own subtle and understated style.

“To be well-dressed today I think you have to love clothes first of all. You have know your weaknesses and not to follow fashion slavishly.

“I don’t think clothes should take over your character. They help you with life, to attract people, to make a statement about yourself. If you wear jeans it’s very difficult to be authoritative, whereas with a suit it’s so easy. Just as, if you wear skimpy seductive clothes it’s very easy to be seductive. But my philosophy is to dress down on every occasion, and that’s what I love about Calvin Klein. His clothes are so understated you can impose your own personality on them.”

Buy less but buy better is her maxim. “If you can afford very little get yourself the best white shirt you can find. A white shirt is the mainstay of my wardrobe.”

Apart from her new employer, Grace’s two favourite designers are Alaia and Italian Romeo Gigli. Two complete opposites, the former designs aggressively female clothes; the latter has a more gentle approach. That Grace can successfully mix these two styles and wear them at the same time without looking extraordinary gives a clue to her deft touch.

There have been moments in her career when she has come in for criticism for failing to give British designers the coverage they expect, and need, from “Vogue.” “There are still too few who compete on an international level,” she counters. So now Grace Coddington has packed up her wardrobe of white shirts and gone West. “It is all quite scary,” she admits. “I feel I’m duty-bound to be a success, to myself as much as anyone else.”