Grace Coddington Steps Down as Vogue Creative Director

Magazine veteran has held her title alongside Anna Wintour since 1988

Grace Coddington
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Grace Coddington has announced that she will step down from her position as American Vogue’s Creative Director, a title that she has held since 1988.

“After more than 25 years at American VogueGrace Coddington will assume the role of Creative Director at Large and take on additional projects outside the magazine,” a Vogue spokesperson told TheWrap. “She will work on several Vogue fashion shoots throughout the year.”

She will remain on the masthead and keep an office at One World Trade Center in Manhattan. No replacement has been named as of yet, and Coddington has a contractual obligation to do at least four shoots a year for American Vogue.

Coddington became the accidental subject of the 2009 documentary “The September Issue.” The film explored the dynamic between her and American Vogue editor Anna Wintour, who stepped into her role in 1988, as well.

“I really love Vogue, it’s been in my life always, they discovered me as a model at 19,” Coddington told Business of Fashion. “I’m not running away from Vogue, because it has opened so many doors. But it will be nice to collaborate, and nice to go out [and] give talks to people. It’s just another approach. I’m certainly not going into retirement. I don’t want to sit around.”

Coddington will now focus on external projects, which include creating a perfume with Comme des Garcons, out in April. After her successful 2002 book, “Grace: Thirty Years of Fashion at Vogue,” which weighs 10 pounds and sells for more than $2,000 on eBay for a signed copy, she is working on another book about her work at Vogue. There is also a film about her 2012 autobiography, “Grace,” in the works.

Now 74, Coddington began her modeling career when she was 17 and joined British Vogue during her mid-20s. She spent 20 years at the publication before moving to New York to work for Calvin Klein. But Wintour quickly grabbed her to become the fashion director of American Vogue.

Vogue is currently investing more time and resources into making the magazine more digitally present, a side of the business Coddington had no interest in, as she completely dismissed the use of computers and email.

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