Grace'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 who work behind the scenes, she might have remained fashion's best-kept secret were it not for The September Issue, the acclaimed 2009 documentary by R. J. Cutler that turned the publicity-averse Grace into a sudden celebrity.
The daughter of an hotelier in Wales, as a teenager Grace won a modeling competition and moved to London. She enjoyed a lucrative career as one of London's leading models on the 1960s scene. In 1968, following a car accident, she took a job as a junior fashion editor at British Vogue. She quickly established herself as a master stylist and creative director for fashion photography, whether she was transforming studio portraiture into beguiling tableaux, reinterpreting fashion photography classics, or by introducing a sweeping narrative epic style-story telling with clothing that is the hallmark of Grace Coddington's work.