Quick Review

Grace: A Memoir by Grace Coddington

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Sometimes someone who by her own admission doesn't read books, will write a good one.  The inerudite Ms. Coddington admits to having read just two books in her lifetime, and yet has lived so long, done so much -- and so many -- and lived such an interesting life that it matters hardly at all that she would seem to have done it all without reading much beyond menus and cheques.  This then is a life told in charming doodles.  There are surprisingly naïf and charming little sketches made with magic-markers throughout, all drawn by Coddington with roughly the same forgiving spirit with which she describes lovers, husbands, photographers, editors and stylists, etc.  Intentionally or no, having been transformed from the girl next door of her modelling days into the Elizabethan fury of the 2009 documentary, The September Issue, there would seem to be still a rather sweet person under all that skull and red fright-wig.  Who'd have guessed?

And she has been everywhere, and she has met nearly everyone, and she does make some very sensible points about art and fashion, and she is responsible for producing some genuinely beautiful photographs, though not a model anymore nor herself a photographer.  Don't ask how, 'cause she can't quite explain it either.  No matter.

I'm sure there must have been a whole team of people who helped to produce this book and Coddington would seem to have always been a generous collaborator, so I'm quite sure they've all been adequately thanked, one way and another.  A book like this does however make the point that if such a collaboration can't quite make art out of Grace this time, they certainly have helped to preserve some of the fun it must have been making Grace.

It's true, it took longer to look at all the pictures than to zip through the text, but what fun it all was!  I doubt I'll remember any of it by the time I've finished my drink.



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