Grace Coddington on How Fashion Has Changed and ‘The September Issue’

Grace Coddington has been working in fashion for longer than most of us have been alive. She started working as a junior editor at British Vogue back in 1968 and before that, she was modeling. Grace served as the Creative Director at American Vogue for nearly three decades and since stepping back from that role, has continued to work on shoots across many major publications. Grace, now in her late eighties, joined Chloe in the studio for a conversation about her latest work Grace: Now, a massive yellow art book that compiles her favorite fashion shoots from the last decade. The spreads come from thirteen photographers, many of whom are Vogue regulars including Rafael Pavarotti, Annie Leibovitz, and Steven Meisel. In order to narrow down her selection, she printed out hundreds of images, laid them out on boards, and made a dummy book a la Vogue way: “I learned from the best.” When asked if her favorite shoots regularly fluctuate, Grace replied “One always loves the last one one did.” In the opening pages of the book, there is a handwritten tribute to her late friend, the fashion journalist Michael Roberts, noting this is her first major project without him in her career. “Michael was someone who could complete my sentences,” she told Chloe, “I'd known him since the early '70s, so he knew my life very well. He could write and he was a visual person too. I wanted to do it in my handwriting because I felt that I was talking to him. I adored him.” Reflecting on the 2009 ‘The S