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FormerVogueeditor-in-chief Grace Mirabella has died at age 91.
Mirabella started her career in publishing working under Diana Vreeland atVoguein the 1960s before succeeding the editor-in-chief and taking the helm of fashion glossy from 1971 to 1988. After leavingVogue(Anna Wintour took on her role and is still at the brand to this day), Mirabella went on to launch her eponymous women’s magazineMirabella, which stayed in circulation until 2000.
Born the daughter of a Maplewood, N.J. liquor importer (her mother emigrated here from Sorrento), Mirabella developed an interest in fashion while working summers at local dress shops. After graduating from Skidmore College, she landed jobs at Macy’s and Saks Fifth Avenue before moving on toVogue. Starting in the credit department, she climbed the masthead, working, in the words of a former staffer, “just a little harder and longer than anyone else,” PEOPLE reported in a 1977 feature.
When Vreeland retired as editor in 1971, Mirabella became the clear choice. “She’s perfect for the ’70s,” co-worker and writer Leo Lerman told PEOPLE in 1977 of her more realistic approach to women’s fashion. “I don’t get a pollution count on her. She’s remarkably pure in this very crazy business.”
Under Mirabella’s leadership,Vogueflourished as she set a much more practical tone for the magazine. At the time, with more women entering the workforce and focused on their careers, Mirabella wanted the clothing inVogueto reflect what they needed to succeed.
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“Grace is a businesswoman really,” her friend Dawn Mello, president of Bergdorf Goodman, said, according toVogue. “She’s not ethereal. She always has the reader in mind.”
During her time atVogue, circulation tripled to more than 1.2 million in 1988 from 400,000 in 1971,theNYTreports.
“Grace guided Vogue through a momentous time in American history — emancipation, sexual freedom, and vital and hard-won rights for women — and she made that time come alive on the magazine’s pages,” said Wintour, the current chief content officer and global editorial director ofVogue.
“She eschewed fantasy and escapism in favor of a style that was chicly minimalist and which spoke clearly and directly to the newly liberated ways we wanted to live,” Wintour continued. “Grace showcased Helmut Newton at his most daring and championed so many American designers: Ralph [Lauren], Calvin [Klein], Donna [Karan], and Mr. Beene. She always exemplified the best of America in her vision and values, and she changedVoguein ways which still resonate — and which we are profoundly thankful for — today.”
source: people.com
