Grace Coddington and Michael Roberts Bring the Whimsy to Fashion

“I did three little drawings and sent them to this friend and to my surprise, they came back and said, ‘Grace would be highly offended by this!’ explained author and illustrator Michael Roberts of his latest book, GingerNutz, a whimsical reimagining of Grace Coddington’s iconic memoir told through the eyes of a flame-haired orangutan. The drawings in question were originally commissioned for a birthday party for Coddington—“A surprise birthday party!” said Coddington—and were never used until Roberts revisited them. And what was Coddington’s reaction? “[He sent] just an email with these three drawings out of nowhere. Not signed.” But the red-haired editor was enamored with the results and prompted Roberts to expand upon his illustrations using Coddington’s memoir as the basis of the story. “We just had to translate it into jungle language,” added Coddington. “Replace Wales with Borneo,” said Roberts, who, along with Coddington, greeted a fashionable crowd at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s store.