Grace: A Memoir [Hardcover]

I've given this review two stars (instead of the one I considered) because of the charming pen and ink drawings by Grace that populate many of the pages in this book. The narrative, however, leaves just about everything to be desired. Like so many others, my introduction to Grace was The September Issue. Without effort, simply being herself, she walked away with the film. Sadly, the same cannot be said for this book. Grace is not someone who writes and she isn't someone who reads; that's a pretty lethal combo when it comes to creating an autobiography. Even a co-writer can't create magic with an absence of material. Mostly, this is a book of lists - of models, of photographers, of shoots. But there's very little meat and almost nothing of the woman. One comes away with no real insight into Grace; she's a cipher - a recording secretary, in a way. There's just one notable bit of bitchiness when she takes a page to slam the iconic Polly Mellen in a fashion that is surprising in a book where the comments about almost everyone else are basically bland. The only time she really sparks to life is in the last bit of the book when she launches into a detailed discussion of her cats and her abiding love for felines. The rest of the time, there's plenty of words about traveling here and there, and some small insight into the difference between modeling then (in the late 50s/early 60s when she embarked upon her modeling career and much of the time it was a one-on-one situation with just a photographer and a model, possibly an assistant, too) versus the cumbersome group effort it has become today. One yearns for more in the early sections but it's just not there. Grace's reluctance to reveal herself is palpable. And she succeeds. At the end of the book we know precious little more about her than we do at the beginning. Her secrets remain intact, and what the reader gets is a scattering of drawings and some great photos to study. Grace is, by and large, AWOL.

I'd recommend anyone buying "Grace", by Grace Coddington to first watch the documentary, "The September Issue". If you haven't seen it in the theater or rented it, you can view it for pay on Amazon. The movie is about the process of putting together the much storied September issue of "Vogue". It features editor Anna Wintour and is seconded by Grace Coddington - the fashion editor of the magazine.

Grace Coddington, who recently turned 70, is one of the most important people in fashion today. Beginning as a model in the swinging London of the 1960's, she moved into the production side of the industry as she aged. After stints with British "Vogue" and Calvin Klein in New York City, she went to work American "Vogue" in 1988 with Anna Wintour as editor. The two have set the pace for fashion ever since; Wintour who says "decisiveness" is her best virtue in editing the magazine and Coddington whose instinctive feel for both photography and fashion gives Wintour the pictures to be "decisive" about. In her book - sort of half memoir/half autobiography - Coddington looks at her life both in her professional and private worlds.

Coddington is fairly open - as far as I can tell - about the people she worked with in fashion. She's perhaps a little "nicer" in the book about her relationship with Wintour than she was in the documentary, but since they've worked hand-in-glove since 1988, they must get along pretty well. Coddington takes the reader behind the scenes of both the designer fashion shows reported on in "Vogue", as well as the fashion shoots she creates for the magazine. She uses both photographs and sweet pen-and-ink drawings to illustrate both her private and public lives. Since I was reading a pre-pub copy of the book due out in November, 2012, I couldn't get an exact sense of the "artiness" of the book. It SEEMED like it would be issued as a small coffee-table book with shiny paper. It'll be a beautiful book, in any case. The pictures are of her family and friends and some of the famous "shoots" she's set up for Vogue. Also interesting are the pictures of Coddington's modeling career. She's not a conventional beauty, but had one of the most unique looks in the business.

I really cannot recommend the book to general interest readers. I can, however, heartily recommend it to any reader even tangentially interested the world of fashion. Coddington has produced, with the help of writer Michael Roberts, a fascinating look at fashion today.

I know of Grace Coddington from the September Issue, the movie about American Vogue. The iconic scenes for me were her interactions with famous editor Anna Wintour. In this book she discusses her years as a fashion model and her life with the celebrities and fashion innovators of her day.
I found the book interesting. She has been so many places and has been a part of the fashion industry for over fifty years. It is a foreign world to me, but fascinating nonetheless. The pictures are beautiful and it is fun to compare them to her descriptions of their conceptions.
For me the most interesting parts are her perceptions of beauty. She prefers the quirky to the symmetric and the unadorned when possible. She ages as she ages, and that is a fresh perspective. I always enjoy a retrospective from someone at the top tier of their sphere of influence, and this is such a book.