Graceful Sketches

Yesterday, I told you about the memoir, Grace, written by Vogue's Creative Director, Grace Coddington.

One of the many things I loved about the book are her quirky personal sketches:

She has an old school approach of drawing the looks she sees on the runway instead of using a camera or depending on a look book. She says in the book, "I always sketch at fashion shows. Drawings jog my memory more than any photograph."

via Vogue.com

She also says, "Each ready-to-wear season, I usually fill on sketchbook per city -- Paris, Milan, New York -- plus one for each season's couture, resort, and cruise. So that makes 12 sketchbooks a year, and they can all get pretty full. My system at the shows is to draw, sketch, put down everything -- every single outfit -- and worry later whether I liked it or not. Occasionally, I will put a star next to a favorite. Because I don't write about fashion, I don't take notes. I find it faster and easier to draw a dolman sleeve, for example, than to describe it. It was simpler in the old days, when there weren't so many collections and most people showed a maximum of thirty outfits." 

Wouldn't it be TADA! to see and go through all these sketchbooks?

She admits to being more adept with images than words ever since she was young: "Seeing a story visually rather than in words was what I was responding to."

In fact, one of the items she values is also something very visual: "As a memento, Bruce made me a beautiful scrapbook of photographs from the shoot. It was probably my most treasures possession." {On working with photographer Bruce Weber}

Grace is also a cat lover. This part of the book shows the many cats she owned. Prior to writing her memoir, she already came out with the book The Catwalk Cats.

via Styleite

She even came out with a special edition bag and scarves with her cat drawings, a collaboration with Balenciaga! 

via Vogue.com

I was also impressed that she made this sketch, a gift to Jimmy Fallon, when she appeared on his show to talk about "Grace: A Memoir". Isn't she so nice? You can watch the segment here. 

A book with pictures! It's blah to TADA!