Mackey also has to put up with Grand's ever-encroaching wardrobe, about which she feels 'very guilty'. A week before we meet, her assistant left, handing her a floorplan of their house so that Grand would be able to locate all her clothes.
Her bedroom and the entire second floor are taken up with an alphabetised archive, including 'a few' couture suits and coats from the 1950s and 1960s, shoes, bags, many pairs of jeans and 'a quite good collection' of army surplus and 'stuff from when I started shopping. I started buying Prada when I worked for them but I mean huge quantities.' A museum has requested to view parts of the archive, so at some point Mackey might be able to hang up his trousers.
It is the last week of July and we are in Love 's quiet offices in London. The rain is beating a torrent outside but the floor underneath Grand's desk is in full bloom with two huge bouquets of flowers. Grand is just back from a financial meeting with Condé Nast, the publisher of the magazine. 'We were very close to the bone with the budget on this issue and I just thought it better to tell people right before they go on holiday,' she says with a smile.
The publishers might have been expecting worse. At 432 pages the autumn/winter 2011 magazine is a humdinger. A paean to 'discipline, obsession & desire', it has, with typical Love perversity, come out twice: first in August with a set of covers featuring teenage actresses; and again this month (in time for the new round of fashion weeks) with a whole new set of supermodel cover stars - including Lara Stone and Kristen McMenamy - wearing nothing on their faces except moisturiser and their own tears. 'Kristen was like, "Oh God, really? I'm 47,"' says Grand. 'But, well, they're all quite good-looking women, aren't they?'
Other glossy editors might reel in horror at the idea of a make-up-free cover star, but controversy has almost become a covenant at Love . 'People say we do things for attention. But I didn't want a big story for this cover,' she explains. 'I just don't think you can have Beth Ditto naked or Kate Moss snogging a ****** in every issue.'
In photographs of her at fashion shows or at parties, Grand toys with an iconoclastic look, dressing in directional straight-off-the-catwalk pieces, fluorescent knitwear by Giles, or oversized bows planted amid untidy brown curls, her gappy teeth dissecting a cheeky grin.
Today, in ankle boots by Junya Watanabe, a navy dress (and socks) by Comme des Garçons and a blue buttoned-up Marc Jacobs shirt, with her hair scraped back in a ponytail, she is headgirl neat. It's a look reminiscent of Prada's current collection but it also nicely reinforces her description of herself as a swot.
'Properly a swot,' she adds in case I don't believe her, but of course I do. She is a former Blue Peter badge-winner, after all, and you don't get courted by swanky publishing companies or hired by the likes of Miuccia Prada, Giorgio Armani and Gucci simply by rocking your wacky headgear in the right places.
Apart from a big pink plastic bobble keeping her hair back, a collection of girly rings are her only accessories. 'Nanny-gran's engagement, great-granny's engagement ring,' she says pointing to the stones on her right hand. 'Nanny-gran died last year but I asked for her jewellery when I was seven so I'd waited a long time…'
Confident, considered in her answers, Grand is also matey and more than ready to laugh at herself or exaggerate her Brummie accent for comic effect. Although her magazine is a forum for, among other things, intellectualising fashion, there's no pretentiousness about Grand. When I ask her how the season begins for her and Jacobs, expecting some extravagant response, she says laconically, 'Well, Marc and I will sort of BBM each other… He'll say, "What are you thinking?" And I'll say, "Dunno. But I quite like white..."'
Grand was born in Leeds and grew up in Birmingham, raised by her father after her mother left. It was he who bought her the magazines that opened up a whole new world of style to her. She wanted to be a fashion editor from the off. 'Your Diana Vreelands, your Polly Mellens, your Grace Coddingtons, I was aware of all of them.'
After school she went to Central Saint Martins in London but dropped out in her second year to start the magazine Dazed & Confused with her then boyfriend, the photographer Rankin. 'You get to the point with education when you realise you could be doing this for real rather than pretending to do it,' she says. 'It's probably much worse now. You know, nine grand tuition fees?'
Dazed & Confused became one of the most authoritative style magazines of the 1990s and brought her to the attention of the big fashion houses. She moved on to The Face and in 1998 she and her great friend Giles Deacon made it to the big-time when they were asked to head up the Italian fashion house Bottega Veneta. 'We couldn't believe they were paying us to do it,' she says.
She has worked closely with designers ever since. Surprisingly, she says what she mostly offers them is 'sympathy'. 'There's a very big team of people and a lot of money being spent on getting those collections together. If you're working with a new client you can't just come in and rip it apart. As a stylist or a consultant you're just there to help. It's the designer who has to come out at the end of the catwalk and take responsibility.'
That responsibility is not a light one. 'Fashion is an art and it's the only art where you have to produce something to a schedule that isn't your schedule,' she says. 'Much as record companies would like Adele to put out another record next year, that's up to her.'
She points out that the workload of designers has doubled recently with the introduction of two extra collections - pre-fall and resort - between those of spring and autumn. 'That's a phenomenal amount of work even with the best teams in the world. You're still looking at everything and you're still involved in every part. You're still checking whether you like the heel on a shoe or should it be a platform? Those decisions come down to you. Also, it's not your money, so ultimately you're beholden to a company that needs to keep its profits up.'
The pressure this puts on designers is obvious, she says. 'I don't know John Galliano but when he started out it was all completely different. He probably didn't ever think he'd be dealing with handbags or jewellery. I mean, his college collection was a load of twigs in the hair; that was as far as it got.
'I'm not saying what happened was right,' she continues, referring to the alleged anti-Semitic remarks that saw Galliano fired from both Christian Dior and his own label. 'That obviously is a separate issue. I'm just saying it can't have been easy being him. It's taken Marc [Jacobs] quite a long time to… enjoy it, almost. He's got his head in a place where he can deal with the pressure and [knows] how to get through it. Lee [McQueen] obviously didn't, which is a great shame. You just end up thinking if things had been different maybe that wouldn't have happened.'
Consequently she says her job is to remind designers that what they do is 'supposed to be fun'. The night before a show you'll find her making sure shoes fit, handing Carmen Kass a glass of champagne when she comes in, playing the right song at 3am when everyone's flagging. 'They've all been working a lot harder than you have and this has gone on for months,' she says. 'I just come in and out. I have the nice bit.'
