Grace Coddington’s New Homewares Collection Is A Must For Fashion (And Cat) Lovers

Highly recognisable – thanks to a shock of orange hair against porcelain skin – Grace Coddington has been central to the fashion industry since the 1960s, first as a model, then as an editor. The first person to put a model wearing no make-up on the cover of Vogue in the late ’70s, she’s had Jerry Hall pose in a red swimsuit atop a Soviet monument in the USSR, recreated Alice In Wonderland miniature sets with Annie Leibovitz and worked with everyone from Helmut Newton to Guy Bourdin; in short, she’s produced some of fashion’s most memorable imagery – all for one of the most famous fashion magazines in the world, American Vogue. Where Anna Wintour semaphores power, order and money, Coddington represents creativity, spirit and personality – The New York Times called her the yin to Wintour’s yang, a dynamic widely recognised in 2009’s hit documentary The September Issue, where Coddington’s distinct unwillingness to participate in the fashion circus only cemented her status as an accidental celebrity.

Since ‘retiring’ from US Vogue in 2016 (she is still its creative director-at-large), Coddington has flexed her own personal brand of being Grace – designing a perfume with Comme des Garçons, writing her autobiography, fronting a talk show Face To Grace and dabbling in curating art auctions. A life-long artist – she famously sketched pictures from the front row while those around her took snaps on their iPhones – she recently designed murals for the San Vicente Bungalows in West Hollywood and appeared as the newest face of the cult beauty brand Merit last year. Coddington might represent a golden era of old-guard magazine editors, but she is proof you’re never too old to influence. As for her latest side-hustle? A collaboration with French ceramic workshop Astier de Villatte on a line of china featuring her drawings. ‘I had always admired their cups and plates and I’d seen them at John Derian – so I asked him how I might contact them,’ she recalls of the initial intro. ‘I do collect a lot of bowls and jugs, but not necessarily to collect them – I just like bowls, jugs and pretty plates.’

The collection, which includes two tea-pots, six mugs, one saucer, one sugar bowl, plus postcards, features Coddington’s illustrations of her Persian cats, Blondie, Jimi and Blanket. A self-confessed cat lady, she reckons she’s had around 20 cats over the past 40 years. ‘I’m very compulsive and I’ll put my cats wherever I can find a place for them, so it felt natural to put them on the cups.’ At the bottom of every cup there is a fictitious mouse, Gus – only to be discovered once you’ve finished your drink. (‘I don’t drink tea, I just have coffee for breakfast’, she says.)

A Brit living in America for the past 30-odd years, Coddington grew up on the Welsh island of Anglesey. Home was the Trearddur Bay Hotel, which was run by her parents. ‘The interiors were pretty simple, basic whitewashed walls. Cosy sofas and chairs and some furniture from my grandmother’s house: a grand piano and ping-pong table,’ she recalls. ‘I was quite good and I really enjoyed playing with and beating all the guests.’

She moved to London aged 18, where she worked as a model before joining British Vogue as a fashion editor. After 19 years, New York called, and US Vogue became her home. With houses in New York and the Hamptons, her own interiors are an eclectic mix of memories and personal artefacts. ‘I’ve carried a lot of things from apartment to apartment – particularly a lot of cat paraphernalia, and pictures,’ she says. ‘I’ve got to love everything that’s in my home, otherwise it finds a place out in the garbage.’ Despite a signature style uniform of navy and black (with the sometime addition of a white shirt), her approach to interior design is distinctly less rigid. ‘I’m certainly not a minimalist in my home, though I might be quite simple in my dressing,’ she says.

Her foray into tabletop accessories comes at a time when fashion and interiors are more intertwined than ever; the most successful entrepreneurs are multitasking both. ‘I want to add jugs, plates, bowls to the collection. I hope it’s an ongoing collaboration,’ she says.

Shop: Grace Coddington's Collection For Astier De Villatte

Jane McFarland is Grazia’s associate editor, overseeing fashion, beauty and luxury content. A fashion journalist for over ten years and previously The Sunday Times Style’s Wardrobe Mistress, Jane loves dissecting trends, discovering new brands and writing about personal style. Follow Jane on Instagram here @Jane_McFarland.