Clockwise from left: Grace with Jessica Diehl, Yvonne Bannigan, Anne Christensen, Brooke Williams, Michal Saad, Lauren Bellamy, Stella Greenspan, and Tina Chai.
For September, our theme was #ForGirlsByGirls, which focused on female creatives and empowerment. For the first time in our brand's 13-year history, our magazine was photographed exclusively by women. To check out our September issue cover story, starring Tavi Gevinson and written and styled by Grace Coddington, go here. And as always, don't forget to pick up your own copy of the magazine, on newsstands August 16th. (But PS — you can subscribe here!)
If you’ve ever come across a Vogue fashion spread that was so fantastical you had to rip it out and tape it to your bedroom wall (and you have), chances are it was styled by Grace Coddington. Vogue’s creative director for nearly 30 years, Grace has become one of the most recognizable fashion-world icons, beloved for her feverish imagination, fire-red hair, and fondness for cats. Lesser known is her role as an extraordinary mentor. To hear her former assistants tell it, Grace is less a boss than older sister, life compass, and brilliant collaborator rolled in one. She is Vogue’s dreamer-in-chief, and landing an assistantship with her is the fashion-world equivalent of finding a gold-wrapped Wonka Bar. Those who work alongside Grace learn not only about how she concocts images that are like silent, two-dimensional operas, but how to draw inspiration from sources where nobody else thought to look.
“It’s like an endless first date,” recalls Mical Saad, who worked for Grace for five years. “You’re sitting across a table from somebody who you’re in awe of and wanting to please.” The table she is talking about is a literal one — Grace and her assistant sit in the same room where they eat lunch together and talk with one another hour after hour.
The job entails ironing out shoot logistics, helping edit clothes, and building storyboards. Her assistant might also find herself scouring the East Village for motorcycles to borrow for a shoot of supermodels in pastel-colored Chanel ball gowns and leather jackets — or helping paint the sheep on Madonna’s English estate. Perhaps the greatest perk of the job is traveling with Grace to exotic locations, and acting as an extra pair of hands and feet — and catastrophe-averter. “You’re setting up a dinner party and you have to make sure everybody is happy and the principal guest is Grace,” Mical recalls.
“There was a lot of contact,” recalls Anne Christensen, who worked for Grace for four years in the early nineties and has gone on to style Vanity Fair covers. “She taught me everything. I owe her my career. We’re still really close, and there’s a camaraderie and mutual respect among everyone who has served Grace.”
“You feel like it’s this little family,” says Brooke Williams, a musician and photographer. “Every once in a while she has a party and she’s very inclusive of the people she has worked with. The fashion world can be a very shallow one and people are quick to turn on a dime and change allegiances. Grace is super steady.” Brooke recalls answering phones, steaming wrinkles out of couture dresses, and packing trunks for overseas shoots, but it is Grace’s work ethic that she thinks back to most often. “She’s all in. Grace is so single-minded and it takes that kind of focus to be able to create things that are that sublime. I’m not in the fashion world, but I work harder because of her.”
Grace’s assistants all bear witness to a passion and determination that undergird her one-of-a-kind imagination and creativity. “She used to tell everybody in the office if they complained about anything, just fight for it!,” says Elle fashion director Samira Nasr, who spent nearly three years with Grace. “Being confrontational doesn’t come naturally to me, but I think about her all the time I’m marching into somebody’s office and arguing for what I believe in. She’s forever my mentor, forever my hero.” Earlier this year, Grace stepped down to become the magazine’s creative director at large. She still works out of Vogue, in an airy office with feline flourishes and a Hudson River view, and she still has an assistant. Actually, now there are two.
