Katie Grand: the super-stylist
Art-school dropout turned super-stylist Katie Grand talks about her work with Marc Jacobs, Giles Deacon, Azzedine Alaïa, Emanuel Ungaro…
BY
Kate Finnigan | 04 September 2011
Katie Grand, the magazine editor and stylist -or super-stylist as she is now described, perhaps in reference to the many fashion superbrands for which she has helped create defining images - has the sort of non-stop life that sounds just too fabulous and utterly exhausting.
The day before we meet - after a weekend in Madrid working with the leather brand Loewe, a day in Paris with Marc Jacobs, the creative director of Louis Vuitton, an evening in London with her husband, the musician Steve Mackey (currently on tour with his band Pulp), and a return trip to Paris with the designer Giles Deacon to work at Emanuel Ungaro, where he is creative director - she popped into Azzedine Alaïa's boutique. He happened to be hanging out, naturellement, with Grace Jones and Grand ended up ensconced in Alaïa's apartment watching footage of his couture show, with Jones drinking red wine and rising to her feet in applause now and again to exclaim, 'I die! I die!'
To her credit, Grand is not too cool to have remained unimpressed by this. 'I had, quite by accident, a fabulous afternoon,' she says, grinning. 'And I did think, "Yes, this is what I'm supposed to be doing."'
Grand, who turned 40 this year, has never strayed too far from what as a teenager she believed she was supposed to do. Her adolescent self, she tells me, wouldn't be at all surprised about the position in which she finds herself. 'Weirdly, I kind of always thought I would [do this],' she says. 'I just didn't know how I'd get here.'
'Here' is currently one of the most influential places in fashion. She is the editor of Love , a biannual glossy fashion magazine that actually makes money (this alone makes her pretty special in the world of publishing), and her decade-long working relationship with Jacobs - the most significant designer of his generation - at Vuitton is a very big deal.
The Vuitton catwalk show, coming right at the end of each season's month-long run of presentations, is the one that will leave a lasting impression on editors as they set off back to their desks. Creating almost as much excitement as the clothes are its advertising campaigns, some from the past 10 years - starring the likes of Jennifer Lopez, Scarlett Johansson and Uma Thurman - now as familiar as old family snapshots.
It doesn't end there. Grand currently also works on the catwalk shows for Emanuel Ungaro, Giles, Jonathan Saunders, Loewe and Topshop. For most of these collections she'll be involved in everything from themes to fabrics to fit. This season she has styled advertising campaigns for six major fashion brands, including the madcap Marc Jacobs one featuring Helena Bonham Carter pulling faces and wearing mismatched spotty gloves.
Was it her idea to cast Bonham Carter? 'No, it was all Marc,' Grand says. 'He became obsessed with her after she wore two different shoes to the Oscars last February. Even before the clothes were finished he knew he wanted to use her. Before the shoot he just sent me a BBM [BlackBerry Message] to remind me to use odd shoes. And then I used the odd gloves. And then Helena wanted to wear them backwards…'
I wonder how her private life stands up to all this work. 'Yeah, in one way you're really obliged to be there for [the clients],' she says. 'But, of course, it's amazing to be working for all these people. I'm not doing it for charity - you get paid a lot of money. It's been quite challenging with Steve being on tour, trying to work our schedules together. But we've been doing it for a long time - 14 years. You just have to make sure everyone's taken care of.'
from style.com
