Fashion Reverie looks back at editor-in-chief extraordinaire Grace Mirabella. Grace Mirabella served as editor-in-chief at American Vogue from 1971 to 1988. From 1989 to 2000 she spearheaded her own publication, Mirabella. Mirabella was a lifestyle publication that targeted women in their 30s and 40s.
Grace Mirabella stared as an assistant at Vogue in the early 50s and quickly worked her way up the ranks to assistant editor-in-chief under the legendary Diana Vreeland. Under the aegis of Mirabella, Vogue increased its readership from 400,000 to 1.2 million with advertising revenue upwards of $79.5 million.
With a style that was different from Diana Vreeland, Grace Mirabella directed Vogue toward a casual style with affordable, yet fashionable clothes. Mirabella during her tenure also helped introduce Halston, Ralph Lauren, Geoffrey Beene, Saint Laurent, and Stephen Burrows to an international audience. This group of designers made clothes for the lives that women were living. When fashion became more opulent and flamboyant in the 1980s, Grace Mirabella felt out of place with this new direction in fashion.
In her autobiography, In and Out of Vogue, Mirabella discussed her dismissal from Vogue by S.I. Newhouse for a younger consumer. With her own publication, Mirabella, Grace Mirabella recaptured her former Vogue demographic with a circulation of 400,000. When advertising revenue started to plummet in the late 90s, Mirabella went out of circulation.
—William S. Gooch
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