A fashion love story, on both sides of the camera

British fashion photographer Willie Christie’s new book includes rock ‘n’ roll history, iconic Vogue fashion shoots and unseen photos of muse Grace Coddington.

It’s a simple but elegant black and white portrait of a women in a vintage nightgown — long, white and frilly — standing in a field of tall grass, as a gust of wind sweeps the dress behind her. The model, looking off camera, and leaving the viewer to wonder at who or what, is former American Vogue creative director Grace Coddington; behind the camera was fashion photographer and film director Willie Christie. The photo is just one of many of Christie’s previously-unseen shots of Coddington, images largely taken in the 1970s when she was working as a fashion editor at British Vogue. This was a time that marked the beginning of Christie’s career, and the height of their romance. It’s memorialized in Christie’s new book, “A Very Distinctive Style: Then & Now,” a dynamic collection of work mining his personal archives as well as editorial work, campaigns and collaborations with rock ‘n’ roll stars like David Bowie, The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd and more. “At that moment, I was very into vintage clothes and things like that, and the dress had a romance about it, which I love. That was also something that (Christie) really was very good at capturing,” Coddington told CNN in a phone interview. “Our lives were very intertwined with each other in terms of his career and my career… and that picture reminds me of that. It was a beautiful period of my life,” she said. Christie and Coddington first met in the early 1970s on an assignment for British Vogue. Christie was then an assistant to Clive Arrowsmith, the most “sought-after fashion photographer at the time,” and Coddington a junior fashion editor for the publication, Coddington wrote in the foreword of Christie’s book.