grace coddington

Anna Wintour's townhouse in the West Village lost power during Hurricane Sandy, so she — and a number of other industry types who live in lower Manhattan — headed uptown for safety at one of two upscale hotels.

Wintour reportedly ended up at The Mark, a five-star hotel on 77th Street at Madison Avenue. Carine Roitfeld and her son Vladimir Restoin-Roitfeld are also there, as are Marc Jacobs and Helena Christensen. Hotelier André Balazs was spotted dining at the hotel's restaurant.

The Carlyle hotel, just a block away at 76th and Madison, is the temporary home of Grace Coddington, Mary-Kate Olsen, and Olsen's boyfriend Olivier Sarkozy. According to Derek Blasberg, he's also holed up at The Carlyle with Karlie Kloss, Lily Donaldson, and Poppy Delevingne.

While the close proximity of some of the most influential people in the industry might simply be a matter of coincidence, the hotels they're staying in do have places in fashion history. Vera Wang's first boutique, opened in 1990, is located on the ground floor of The Carlyle. Meanwhile, The Mark is a popular place for celebrities to get ready for the Met Gala, as it's conveniently located not far from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Other industry names who are staying at uptown hotels include Prabal Gurung — who's been tweeting from the Andaz — Georgina Chapman at The Lowell, and Sarah Jessica Parker at the Plaza Athenee.

And what of those who didn't head to hotels? Mickey Boardman is staying with his friend Marjorie Gubelmann and Garance Doré headed to an unspecified "uptown camp" so she could keep her site running. Nicola Formichetti bucked the trend and traveled south to Williamsburg, where he found "power, lights, food and Internet!"

Those stories and more in our daily news roundup.

• Grace Coddington's new autobiography doesn't just reveal facts about her life; it also exposes a hidden talent for illustration. A few of her hand-drawn and often comical images will be included in Grace: A Memoir when it goes on sale Nov. 20. [Vogue]
  

• Karl Lagerfeld and Kanye West reportedly had lunch together at New York's Mercer Hotel this week, where they appeared to be discussing the business of fashion. "They were in a deep conversation, then later appeared to be getting devices out to discuss design ideas," a source said. [Page Six]
  

• Valerie Steele will interview Donna Karan about her life and career in fashion on Saturday during the Designers and Books Fair in New York City. The event, which brings together the design, literary, and architecture communities, will be held at the Fashion Institute of Technology. [Designers & Books]
  

• Courtney Love has unveiled the first designs for her new clothing line, Never the Bride. "This is the stuff that I would wear if I was young enough to not look like Bette Davis in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane," Love explained. [Vogue UK]
  

• Stuart Weitzman today released the full version of its short film Walking After Midnight, starring Petra Nemcova and directed by James Franco, after a month of unveiling previews of it online. [YouTube]

Grace Coddington will release her autobiography, Grace: A Memoir, in November, and in it she recounts her introduction to modeling: posing in the buff for photographer Norman Parkinson.

In an excerpt of the book on Vogue.com, Coddington writes that a boyfriend introduced her to Parkinson, known by his friends as Parks. The first time they met, Parkinson said, "I have this little job at the weekend on my farm in Pishill. It's a nude photograph, if you don't mind."

"Well, I only registered the word photograph," Coddington writes. "I don't recollect why, but I guess it didn't occur to me that he meant I should take off all my clothes. Later on I did wonder whether it was the proper way to behave . . . To Parks, however, all I said at the time was 'OK,' and off we went to take pictures of me running through the woods naked. He demonstrated what I should do. 'This is what I want!' he shouted, mustache twitching as he leaped through the air from behind a tree, a tall, gentlemanly figure wearing one of his lucky little woven Ethiopian skullcaps. And that was that. I had a lovely time. It was my first modeling job. And afterward we all went home for tea."

Grace: A Memoir will make its debut on Nov. 20.

Photo: Grace Coddington photographed by Norman Parkinson, courtesy of Norman Parkinson Archive.

>> Today's stories and more — here, in our daily news roundup.

>> Grace Coddington has been working on a memoir since last year, and now it sounds like it's guaranteed to get published: she's sold it to Random House for a rumored $1.2 million. The book is said to cover Coddington's early life in Wales, her time as a model in '60s London, the car accident that changed her career path, and the subsequent years spent as a stylist and editor at both British and American Vogue. Although she was originally collaborating with Jay Fielden, he left the project after becoming editor-in-chief of Town & Country; Coddington is now said to be co-writing the book with former Vanity Fair fashion and style director Michael Roberts. Random House declined comment. [NYO]

>> Karl Lagerfeld has put his face on dolls, bags, and even a Diet Coke bottle — there's no doubt about it, he loves the attention. Grace Coddington, recalling how she once saw Lagerfeld mobbed at Grand Central Station in New York (he took a second lap around the place instead of escaping), confirms: “Karl plays the celebrity game. I always make this mistake and think it must be really unpleasant for him, but he actually enjoys it — it’s very rock ’n’ roll.” [More Intelligent Life]

>> The skeleton details of Grace Coddington's CV are pretty well-established at this point: a long and lustrous tenure as Vogue creative director was achieved after a terrible car accident turned her modeling career into that of a stylist and fashion editor. But a profile of Coddington in The Economist's quarterly supplement More Intelligent Life — by one of Coddington's former assistants — gives us a few less-reported details.

Coddington says of her mentor, the photographer Norman Parkinson, in the '70s: “He taught me the art of travelling, which means never closing your eyes in case you miss something. We’d get up at five and drive round on recces to see what inspired us. The approach is so different now. Photographers don’t look out the window: they want to see a location book, and everything is done on computers.”

She turns 70 in April, and admits that she, too, has changed her approach: “I got really sick last time in Paris [during Fashion Week], and I was on antibiotics for two months. I push my body too hard, and do have to stop myself now from jumping on a plane. It used to be me who got sent to Russia and China while the older editors stayed behind, but I’m one of those older ones now.”

A few more things we learned:

She's lived with Didier Malige since the '80s, but she's also been married twice: The first time was in 1969 to Michael Chow, the owner of the Mr Chow restaurant chain. It lasted six months ("I was useless at being a restaurateur’s wife — much too shy to table-hop," Coddington says). And the second time was in 1976 to a "rangy, rock'n'roll" photographer, Willie Christie, who she mentored at British Vogue. They divorced in 1980 because, Coddington says, “It’s difficult to be employed by your wife.” In between the two marriages she dated Duc, a young, Paris-based Vietnamese photographer, with whom she was in love before, during, and after her first marriage.

Coddington — known for her long, red hair — was once a blonde: In 1980, after her second divorce, Coddington turned herself into "a business-suited, short-haired blonde — what she calls a 'Calvin person.'"

She once quit while working for Anna Wintour: Coddington had been at British Vogue since 1968, but after Anna Wintour joined as editor-in-chief in March 1986, Coddington resigned in December of that year: “Anna was much more into ‘sexy’ than I was.” She rejoined Wintour at Vogue two years later because she missed working at magazines (she had been working as Calvin Klein design director in the interim: "Excitement on 7th Avenue ends with the show. The next day it’s all marketing.").

• Versace gives us a Spring bag with a pop art sensibility — Purse Blog
• Matalan causes an outrage with padded bras geared toward young girls — FabSugarUK
• See Penelope and Monica Cruz's second collection for Charles Vogele — InStyle
• Stella McCartney and Lily Cole join the student protesters' rebel rally — Vogue UK Daily
• Four questions with Erin Fetherston — Lucky
• Fall 2011 trend: fabrics will be hard and shiny — The Cut
• Grace Coddington on what's inspiring her now — Vogue Daily
• Tribal necklaces make a hardware-heavy statement — The Inside Source
• How to dress your best for Austin's SXSW festival — Refinery29