Grace Coddington: Scarlet Woman

Innovatively lit and offering a cinematic edge, Willie Christie shares his experimental photos of former wife Grace Coddington, taken at the home they shared through the 70s and 80s when the flame-haired beauty cut short her modeling career to become Fashion Editor of British Vogue. The couple collaborated on Christie's radical first cover for the fashion bible, a lipsticked jelly-eating mouth––an image so arresting that the issue on which it featured was the biggest selling to date. Today a director and screenwriter, Christie had a boyhood passion for Hollywood sets and film noir that remains palpable throughout his work (notably in a belle époque-style image of Coddington draped across their sofa and spot lit). "She simplified things,” Christie says of her influence on his work. “Sometimes you need only a metaphor of a set, a hint of what it might be. A story going on just out of frame.” The images are part of Limited Edition Collection at London’s Eight Club, which exhibits Christie’s groundbreaking work across fashion, music and film during his decade as a photographer. A tribute to polished 70s romanticism and emboldened 80s glamour, the show includes shots of style icons like Catherine Deneuve, David Bowie and Jerry Hall, and haunting stills for Pink Floyd’s album The Final Cut. "I would love to work with Grace again on a mutual artistic project,” says Christie. “She's just so brilliantly talented, an intuitive visionary."

Willie Christie’s Limited Edition Collection is on show at the Eight Club, London EC3 until 24th February.