2017 Lifetime Achievement Award Recipient: Grace Coddington

(Image by Fabien Baron)

Grace Coddington’s talent and dedication to her work as Creative Director of Vogue has made her internationally recognized. Known only to those behind the scenes for much of her career, she might have remained anonymous were it not for The September Issue, the acclaimed 2009 documentary that turned publicity-averse Grace into a sudden, reluctant celebrity.

Grace grew up in a small hotel in North Wales, run by her parents. In 1959, as a mere teenager she won Vogue’s model competition and moved to London to become a part of the cities swinging 60’s scene. In 1968 she was asked to join British Vogue as a junior fashion editor and was promoted to Fashion Director under Beatrix Miller and later Anna Wintour. In 1987, She moved to New York to join Calvin Klein as Design Director. When Anna Wintour was made Editor in Chief of American Vogue in 1988, Grace rejoined her at the magazine where she was made Creative Director in 1995.

Grace has worked with some of the greatest photographers of our time, including Norman Parkinson, David Bailey, Helmut Newton, Guy Bourdin, Bruce Weber, Annie Leibovitz, Steven Meisel,Craig McDean, David Sims, Paolo Roversi,Peter Lindbergh, Patrick Demarchelier, Steven Klein,Ellen Von Unwerth, Inez & Vinoodh, Tim Walker, and Jamie Hawkesworth amongst others.

Books by Grace include, Grace:Thirty Years of Fashion at Vogue ( 2002 ), a book of her illustrations, The Catwalk Cats ( 2006 ), A New York Times bestselling autobiography Grace: A Memoir (2012) and Grace: The American Vogue Years ( 2016 ). Her first fragrance, Grace by Grace Coddington in collaboration with CDG was released in 2016. In 2002 Grace was given the CFDA Lifetime Achievement Award and in 2009 BFA’s Isabella Blow Award.

Since changing her role at Vogue to Creative Director at Large, Grace has appeared in Calvin Klein advertising and partnered with Tiffany & Co. to create groundbreaking campaigns featuring Elle Fanning & Lupita Nyong’o as well as their 2017 Super Bowl commercial with Lady Gaga. Grace is currently working on an animated feature film based on her book The Catwalk Cats as well as an adaptation of her memoir. Her public appearances have included talks with Jay Fielden at the New York Public Library, with Phyllis Posnick and Paola Antonelli at MoMA and with Gregory Crewdson at Yale University. Grace lives in New York City with her partner Didier Malige and her two cats Pumpkin and Blanket.

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