The first time I walked into the British Vogue offices, it was spring 1959. The magazine was throwing a tea party for the runners-up of its modelling competition, of which I happened to be one. I was 18, had recently arrived in London from Anglesey in Wales, and was working in The Stockpot in Knightsbridge, my head full of fashion dreams from the copies of Vogue I’d grown up reading. Now I was here.
I remember exactly what I wore – a little cropped suit with a V-neck, three-quarter-length sleeves and a box-pleat skirt in grey wool from Kiki Byrne. The room was filled with all the editors and some of the photographers who were there to pick the winners, and I made a beeline for Norman Parkinson, of course. He’d already taken my photograph – a nude – and would not only go on to take my picture many times for Vogue but, a few years later, when I made the move from model to fashion editor, photograph the first story I oversaw. He truly was one of the greats – and I’ve been lucky enough to work with a few of those. After 10 years as a model, 19 years as an editor at British Vogue, 30 at American Vogue, and now back contributing to the British edition again, it turned out to be a six-decade affair.
Did I expect to still be working as a fashion editor at 80? Of course not. I started as a model, and back in those days – before today’s too-fast churn of many models’ careers – that gave you a good few years. I remember holding a copy of the magazine featuring my first cover shot in August 1962 and feeling tremendous pride. It was taken by Peter Carapetian and, boy, did I feel like I’d made it. When it came to career milestones, there was nothing like a Vogue cover. There still isn’t.
It was Parkinson who taught me to always be watching. In my modelling days, I was like a sponge on set, observing and learning. What made for a great idea? How to best show the clothes? What poses worked? What transformed a good fashion photograph into an exceptional one? After a car accident in my late teens, followed by a year and a half of recovery, I returned to modelling for a few more years. But with the arrival of Twiggy and co, a new mood was sweeping fashion, and I’ve always been one to get out while the going was good. I was ready for a change.
A call came from Marit Allen, one of the young editors I knew on the magazine. “You must have a meeting with Beatrix Miller!” she cried. So, over lunch with Miss Miller, then the editor, it all snowballed and I went to work at Vogue as a junior fashion editor in 1968. With the shifting social landscape and the advent of the pill, London was starting to swing. It was the arrival of The Rolling Stones and The Beatles, the rise of Mary Quant and Vidal Sassoon, and we were all part of the scene.
Though people seem to assume everything came easily to me, moving behind the camera was not a smooth transition. Suddenly, I had to make all these decisions, and my first call was a bad one. I decided that unisex was the thing of the moment – which it was – yet for reasons that still escape me, I chose to cast the artist Peter Blake and his then wife Jann Haworth. I thought I was super-educated in the arts because I was married to Michael Chow at the time, so I was showing off a bit, and opted to put them in the same shirt. But it really wasn’t easy. I can’t remember if it was her or him, but one of them refused to take the shirt off that they had on already, which of course made it look very lumpy on top. It was my first experience of dealing with a celebrity with their own opinions. I remember thinking: “Ooh, this is not for me.” It is not a coincidence that I’ve mostly worked with models in my career since.
When I first went to work at the magazine, my starting salary was £1,100 a year, which was insanely low even then. I had been earning for a few years already and I suppose most of the other girls had private means, because you couldn’t live off it. They had to give you luncheon vouchers of three shillings and sixpence (equivalent to about £5 today), which at first I turned my nose up at, but they turned out to be completely essential. The office itself was also a far cry from the glamour on the pages of the magazine – extremely cluttered and open-plan, with stuff piled everywhere, no decoration and the desks looked like they’d been found in the street. Michael came to visit me a few times, and used to say, “The office looks a real mess, you should ask to redesign it.” So I did. I can’t imagine why they listened to me, but I chose a wooden floor in pale wood, which nobody else was doing back then. Very narrow, very blonde boards so it looked almost cream. Then Michael and I chose some desks – glass held in a steel rim – and wicker and steel chairs, so that the whole thing was very uniform.
Everyone always wants to know what it’s like to work at Vogue, and of course it could be competitive. It still can be. Fashion, and especially fashion magazines, lend themselves to rivalry, and though it is mostly friendly you need to be able to stand up for yourself. You have to do the best job, so you get the best jobs. Back then, there was a respectful hierarchy that mostly kept people in check; with Sheila Wetton and Melanie Miller as the senior fashion editors, both in their sixties, then the younger editors including Mandy Clapperton and Marit, and me at the bottom of the pile.
I learnt so much in those early years. Working with Guy Bourdin, for instance. He was masterly. He used to do drawings beforehand and it seemed like they would be impossible to achieve with photography, but he always worked out how he could make the girl fly or the colour pop. He was an artist, too. He painted and he had a very intriguing mind. Could be difficult, though. Could be a lot of things. But he’s influenced a hell of a lot of people. Likewise, Irving Penn was intense. Really intense. To be with him was to be ever aware that you were working with an artist of the highest calibre, and you didn’t want to say or do anything stupid. So you basically kept your mouth shut. You presented him with something and you hoped that he liked it. In his studio, you would work in absolute silence. If you could hear anybody tittering in the background, he got mad.
I don’t think any of those brilliant image-makers were easy. There are often two kinds of photographer: the ones who are mean-spirited but, at the end of the day, are not worth it because the picture is not that great anyway; and the ones whose pictures are. Such as Helmut Newton. He had his idea, wasn’t big on surprises, and did it all in one roll of film. I’d ask, “Are you sure you got it?” and he’d reply, “I only need one frame, Grace.” He liked a certain style. He liked a certain girl. He liked a certain make-up, no matter what. And hair, no matter what. He could be very tough. He made a few models cry. And editors actually. I wasn’t one of them, fortunately.
An eveningwear shoot we did together in 1973 was a moment. I’d flown down to the south of France early, so the first three days we spent in his house outside Saint-Tropez, eating, lying in the sun and discussing what we were going to do. Helmut looked at the clothes and said, “These are really terrible f**king clothes, you know, Grace.” I was lying by his pool in my bikini and sunglasses, with my red hair and famous shocking-pink YSL heels. He said, “I know what we’re going to do, we’re going to put you in all the pictures dressed just the way you are now.” My first instinct was to say “No!” But then I thought for a second and replied, “Oh, yes actually. That’s a good idea.” Once a model, always a model. Working with Helmut Newton? How fabulous. It turned out to be one of those rare, magical fashion stories that stands the test of time.
Another memorable trip was in 1974, when I went to Corsica with David Bailey to photograph Anjelica Huston and Manolo Blahnik for one of Vogue’s first fold-out covers. Bailey was so funny and outspoken, Anjelica brilliant and beautiful, and Manolo took up all my time figuring out his wardrobe. The mood was great, the clothes were right, the light was perfect. You can sort of feel when something is becoming iconic, I think, even as you’re doing it.
It is an instinct that has served me well. The sense when everything fits and nothing feels uncomfortable or out of place. I’m sure the reason some of those Vogue shoots from the 1970s and ’80s still have something modern about them is that, despite the romance or fantasy in them, they are all rooted in human reality. It is as if the photographer has come along and found this amazing, once-in-a-lifetime scene unfolding. It’s the details that make it so. My first thought is always: what are the shoes going to be? Because the shoes literally root you and dictate the rest. I’ve worked with photographers who, when presented with a girl in an evening dress and high heels, want to stand her on the beach. “Don’t worry,” they say. “I’ll put a board under the sand and she won’t sink in.” “Yes,” I reply, “but she’s gonna look f**king stupid.”
I’ve always loved redheads. Hair is my thing. I like it big. Very big and very red. (Never underestimate how much an editor loves to see herself in her photographs.) Hair is where I think you can make reality a little more enhanced, because people should look to the pictures to dream, too. Everything has to be slightly exaggerated, but not to the point of insanity. On set, that’s my mission, though once the model is dressed I actually don’t go in and style very often. If I do go in to push up a sleeve, it’s so I have a chance to say to the model, “You know, you’re doing really well,” or, “Try to stay on this side because the dress looks better.” I can’t shout it out because that would be rude to the photographer, so I like to pop in and pretend to be just, you know, adjusting something.
Later, in the 1980s, I moved to New York to work for American Vogue, where I stayed for many happy years. The teams definitely got bigger. Instead of having one assistant, everyone had six or seven, from the photographer to the hair to the make-up. Unlike many fashion editors, I never take very many clothes on set. If I have 10 pictures, I take 10 outfits and maybe one alternate. Though I can’t deny it was fun to have huge budgets, like the one for my Alice in Wonderland-themed shoot with Annie Leibovitz in 2003. That took an awful lot of preparation, a week to shoot, and a lot of money, with everyone flying in from all over the world to Paris. Funny to think I used to work out the back of a car.
Recently, I’ve been shooting for British Vogue again. During the ongoing pandemic, I ventured on to the streets of New York City with the photographer Craig McDean for a story called Living for the City that appeared in last month’s issue. We took the model Binx Walton on to the freezing sidewalks to record a moment in time, to capture the spirit of this crazy past year through the fashion, a model and those eerie, empty streets. It feels like a million words are written every day about Covid, but sometimes you need the imagery to take you there.
I really do believe this past year is a time that must always be remembered. Because it would amaze you what can be forgotten.
You know, it might surprise you to hear that there’s not much demand for 80-year-old fashion editors these days. It’s more about the young ones who are fearless and think they know it all. At home in Long Island, I do find my thoughts turning to legacy, and I suppose it is true that I have learnt a fair few things over the years. What advice would I like to give? To be patient, to be tolerant and to not fritter away your creativity by looking at a screen. A screen can open your eyes to a lot of wonderful things that you wouldn’t normally have access to, but mostly it’s not real. Look out of your window, because that is reality. When it comes to making an important photograph, reality is the greatest place to start.
