Grace Coddington Redefines Her Role at Vogue

It’s a testament to her enormous influence and still-rising profile that Grace Coddington tweaked her role at Vogue and people are losing their chic with end-of-an-era proclamations. Announced today, Vogue’s 28-year Creative Director will now be its Creative Editor at Large.

Essentially it means she’ll realize fewer fashion stories for the behemoth to pursue more outside projects, for example a fragrance collab with Comme des Garçons and, more intensively, a film adaptation of her 2012 biography Grace — a must-read, by the way.


But as Conde Nast has stated it has no immediate plans to find a successor, and as Coddington told Business of Fashion she’s certainly not retiring, it doesn’t appear very much will change, at least for now. It is not as strong a statement as Andre Leon Talley’s departure as Editor at Large in 2013, after three decades at Vogue, citing a glass ceiling and lack of racial diversity in the industry.

While not earth-shaking, Coddington’s move does potentially signal a further shift toward a commercial and accessible (read online) vision of fashion publishing, one that Anna Wintour favors, and away from the fantastical, over-the-top, expensive productions Coddington advocates. That very tension is what made Coddington the crowd favorite in The September Issue.

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