Smythson celebrates Grace Coddington’s fantastical animals
The renowned stylist has created a collector’s edition, featuring animals, to mark the 30th anniversary of the British brand’s Fashion Agenda
According to many, Grace Coddington is the greatest stylist of all time. She has certainly been a mainstay (and fashion editor) at American *Vogue* for decades, a magazine with which she still collaborates: among her most recent work is the styling for the April feature and cover, which featured Anna Wintour and Meryl Streep, the journalist’s alter ego in The Devil Wears Prada 2.
The career Grace Coddington has chosen is perhaps one of those that doesn’t ‘allow’ you to retire, because it is, at least in part, a form of art. ‘Stylist’ is a term that cannot be translated into Italian and should not be confused with ‘designer’ (stilista in Italian): stylists play a vital role in fashion editorial teams and style departments, as well as acting as consultants to celebrities keen to seek advice on how to dress and accessorise. They choose what the subjects of a feature or report will wear, put together the pages dedicated to products and, ahead of a fashion show, suggest (to put it mildly) how to put together the looks that will be seen on the catwalk.
Grace Coddington, born in the United Kingdom in 1941, has lived in New York for many, many years. She began her career in fashion as a model, before moving ‘behind the scenes’, and her work is universally recognised and admired in the fashion world.
As she also recounts in her fascinating biography, *i* *A Memoir* , she loves drawing and writing by hand and… she loves cats. It comes as no surprise that these little felines feature prominently in the Fashion Diary that Smythson asked her to illustrate (not just on the cover) to celebrate the 30th anniversary of this special diary from the historic stationery brand, designed for those working in the fashion industry.
Cats also took centre stage in the two collections created in collaboration with Louis Vuitton (small leather goods, bags and clothing) and in the collection with Astier de Villatte, a Parisian artisan ceramics brand for which Grace Coddington designed the cats (and mice) that adorn six cups, two teapots and a number of postcards. Alongside those for the diary, Smythson also commissioned a design to be printed on a set of cards and envelopes: the two items went on sale yesterday on the Smythson website and were sold out within a few hours. Unless they are reprinted (we hope they will be), both the diary and the cards will become cult items, much like the Catogram capsules for Louis Vuitton (the first of which even featured Nicholas Ghesquière’s dogs) and the Astier de Villatte tea sets.
