Beautiful. Willful. Charming. Blunt. Grace Coddingtonrsquo;s extraordinary talent and fierce dedication to her work as creative director of Vogue have made her an international icon. Known through much of her career only to those behind the scenes; she might have remained fashionrsquo;s best-kept secret were it not for The September Issue; the acclaimed 2009 documentary that turned publicity-averse Grace into a sudden; reluctant celebrity. Gracersquo;s palpable engagement with her work brought a rare insight into the passion that produces many of the magazinersquo;s most memorable shoots. With the witty; forthright voice that has endeared her to her colleagues and peers for more than forty years; Grace now creatively directs the reader through the storied narrative of her life so far. Evoking the time when models had to tote their own bags and props to shoots; Grace describes her early career as a model; working with such world-class photographers as David Bailey and Norman Parkinson; before she stepped behind the camera to become a fashion editor at British Vogue in the late 1960s. Here she began creating the fantasy ldquo;traveloguesrdquo; that would become her trademark. In 1988 she joined American Vogue; where her breathtakingly romantic and imaginative fashion features; a sampling of which appear in this book; have become instant classics. Delightfully underscored by Gracersquo;s pen-and-ink illustrations; Grace will introduce readers to the colorful designers; hairstylists; makeup artists; photographers; models; and celebrities with whom Grace has created her signature images. Grace reveals her private world with equal candormdash;the car accident that almost derailed her modeling career; her two marriages; the untimely death of her sister; Rosemary; her friendship with Harperrsquo;s Bazaar editor-in-chief Liz Tilberis; and her thirty-year romance with Didier Malige. Finally; Grace describes her abiding relationship with Anna Wintour; and the evolving mastery by which she has come to define the height of fashion. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY FINANCIAL TIMESldquo;If Wintour is the Pope . . . Coddington is Michelangelo; trying to paint a fresh version of the Sistine Chapel twelve times a year.rdquo;mdash;TimeFrom the Hardcover edition.
#726409 in eBooks 2013-09-11 2013-09-11File Name: B008UYGU5W
Review
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful. Heavy as leadBy disciple of ImanuelThis has not been an easy book to read in any sense. Sometimes I wonder why I do it to myself: I mean. read books so dense and psychological and European that I can say Im "subjecting" myself to them. No. I wont be re-reading this one. I am glad Im now unable to enjoy the book really on its own terms. yet I can also say it was not a waste of time.Whats the angle here. you might ask? Well. its as much an extreme experiment in style as a novel. This book is almost 100% in the head of one character. and the only one who gets any dialog. He is a disgustingly rich and idle post-dandy who. having "done it all" and fed up with the coarseness of taste of his society (that being 19th century France. no less) retreats into the cloister of his own mansion to pursue the utmost refinement in all things: ideas. books. art. experiences. objects. etc. Selfish and vain to the nth degree. of course. This unholy cloistering and the attendant intense mental rumination happens to be his one true pleasure. yet increasingly a waning one. Yes. it features the full tour-de-force of cultural literacy that such a reading experience would imply. but the annotations in the back of the book lower the bar considerably for readers. Otherwise. you might be shocked by just how educated and discriminating the author can be. and moreover by how graphic.This edition is a fine. fine example of modern publishing. with annotations so useful and a translation from French so well done that its even ... decadent. If my interest as a reviewer was only in that. I would have given five stars. But I dont suffer a heavy dish of bleak cynicism gladly.This was a fairly chilling book for me to read sometimes because I saw a lot of my neurotic "old man" in the protagonist. yet the 20-years-later preface by the author J.K. Huysmans makes it clear that we are not bereft of hope in the New Man. What I mean is. Huysmans eloquently explains that this novel. while despairing. is the rock bottom from which all his later Christian literature builds up. I must say however. that Huysmans brand of literary gloom-and-doom as a foundation for the hope in Christ to follow is not nearly as compelling as that of Dostoevskys or Flannery OConners. I never felt the implicit presence of God behind the alienation and despair of this character that I felt in reading of that of Dostoevskys "Underground Man". for one. even though this books protagonist obsesses over religion much much more. In my experience. the unbendingly SENSATE indulgence of this characters alienation vis a vis that one. really tarnishes it. If Huysmans as a devout Catholic retains deep-set flaws. its because he remains snobbish and severe and detached from the gregarious aspect of most any other believers experience. Thats not a great way. either.I think I will later on read the also-famous novels by Huysmans about the Durtral character (really a skew of himself). However. the first those (The Damned) is focused on the garish debauchery of French Satanism (you read that right) and at least as adult and graphic as anything here. and nary a ray of light. And that one came out well AFTER the authors conversion to the religion of Love. Yes. even as a communing Catholic this author was still quite borked in the head. And here I am reviewing his book. Funny that a person like me born in the Near East. and living in Kentucky. USA. ever bought. read. and reviewed a book like this. Stranger than fiction.
