VOGUE LEGEND GRACE CODDINGTON STEPS DOWN AS CREATIVE DIRECTOR AFTER 30 YEARS AT THE FASHION MAGAZINE - BUT INSISTS SHE HAS NO PLANS TO 'SIT AROUND' AND RETIRE

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Vogue confirmed that the 74-year-old will be taking on the role of creative director-at-large while she works on other projects

Grace will still have an office and an assistant at Vogue headquarters 

This will be the first time since 1988 that the fashion icon will be able allowed to take on external projects 

Grace said Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour is supportive of her decision to branch out 

By ERICA TEMPESTA FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

Vogue's legendary creative director Grace Coddington has revealed that she is stepping down from her position after almost 30 years, effective immediately.

A spokesperson for Vogue confirmed that the 74-year-old fashion legend will be stepping back from her day-to-day position at the publication, instead taking on the role of creative director-at-large, while working on other projects outside the publication as she has no plans to retire.

'I really love Vogue, it’s been in my life always, they discovered me as a model at 19,' she told Business of Fashion. 'I’m not running away from Vogue, because it has opened so many doors.'

 Vogue is not currently looking for someone to take on the role of creative director as Grace is still contracted to produce at least four editorial spreads a year for the magazine. She will continue to have an office and an assistant at Vogue's headquarters at One World Trade Center in New York City. 

However, Grace has hit the ground running in terms of her other projects and is already planning on developing a fragrance with Comme des Garçons. 

'It will be nice to collaborate, and nice to go out [and] give talks to people,' she said. 'It’s just another approach. I’m certainly not going into retirement. I don’t want to sit around.'

And there is certainly no bad blood between Grace and famed Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour.

The fashion star revealed that she and Anna discussed her desire to pursue other avenues in her career in great deal before she decided to step down from her position.  

Grace, who was born in Wales and began her career as a model, worked with the Anna at British Vogue in the '70s. She has stuck by the 66-year-old's side for 28 years after she was hired by the newly-appointed editor-in-chief in 1988. 

While planning her next moves, Grace approached the agency Great Bowery about representing her and signed with them after she realized she 'needed some help from the outside'. 

 'I didn’t want to be pigeonholed into just styling a shoot, I wanted to do something beyond,' she explained. 

However, the icon has done far more than just style shoots in her illustrious career. She appeared in the 2009 documentary The September Issue and became somewhat the star of the film, which chronicled Anna and her staff's production of the September 2007 issue of Vogue. 

Three years later she published her memoir, Grace, which is being adapted into a film by the A24, the company behind The Bling Ring and Ex Machina. 

Meanwhile, a follow-up to the 2002 coffee-table book Grace: Thirty Years of Fashion at Vogue is expected to be published this year.  

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