Former US Vogue editor-in-chief, Grace Mirabella, has died

Grace Mirabella, an American fashion journalist who helmed American Vogue from 1971 to 1988, has died at the age of 91.

Mirabella, the predecessor to Anna Wintour, created a more modern magazine, reflective of the 70s, after she was promoted to editor-in-chief after the flamboyant years of Diana Vreeland. The seventies were a time of economic recession and growing women’s rights movements. The laid-back feel of the decade directed her style, and she added a more casual and affordable feel that contrasted with flamboyant way the magazine had been defined in its earlier years.

In her obituary in The Guardian Mirabella is described as a “non-nonsense champion of practical fashion”. Current Vogue editor Anna Wintour said: “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. She always exemplified the best of America in her vision and values, and she changed Vogue in ways which still resonate, and which we are profoundly thankful for, today,” Wintour said.

The editor launched her own magazine in 1989 after an unceremonious Vogue exit, which she continued to helm until 1996. She later said, “the 80s were just not my decade.”