Jay Fielden

>> Grace Coddington has been working on a memoir since last year, and now it sounds like it's guaranteed to get published: she's sold it to Random House for a rumored $1.2 million. The book is said to cover Coddington's early life in Wales, her time as a model in '60s London, the car accident that changed her career path, and the subsequent years spent as a stylist and editor at both British and American Vogue. Although she was originally collaborating with Jay Fielden, he left the project after becoming editor-in-chief of Town & Country; Coddington is now said to be co-writing the book with former Vanity Fair fashion and style director Michael Roberts. Random House declined comment. [NYO]

>> With the influx of one Vogue alum at Town & Country — former style director Alexandra Kotur, who recently joined the magazine as creative director — out goes another. Billy Norwich, who left Vogue to join T&C a year ago as special correspondent, has exited his position in the wake of the Town & Country's January editor-in-chief changeover.

Norwich was told he would now be working exclusively as a writer by new editor Jay Fielden, who added, "We thank Billy for his contributions to the magazine during his tenure and look forward to publishing his freelance work if the opportunity presents itself.” Norwich for his part, noted, “Alas, there isn’t a web site yet to satisfy the urge to write more in real time so I think it is really time for me to do something out of the box."

Speaking of Kotur, her successor at Vogue has been named. 25-year-old Chloe Malle (left), daughter of Candice Bergen and the late French film director Louis Malle, will take the title of social editor. Malle previously spent a year as the residential real estate columnist at The New York Observer and has been freelancing for The New York Times for the past six months.

>> Grace Coddington has confirmed that she is working with former Men's Vogue editor-in-chief Jay Fielden (who she previously collaborated with on Grace: Thirty Years of Fashion at Vogue) on a memoir.

“We’re just starting, and I think it’s going to be a really fun project,” she told WWD. “I’m hoping it’s going to be very rich in fashion history. It’s more than just about me.” The book will cover her early life in Wales, her time as a model in '60s London, the car accident that changed her career path, and the subsequent years spent as a stylist and editor at both British and American Vogue. Fielden and Coddington have reportedly signed with literary agent Elyse Cheney (who has worked with the likes of Dave Eggers and Benjamin Kunkel) and plan to shop the finished book proposal to publishers this Fall. Fielden has already accompanied Coddington to the July couture shows in Paris and started conducting interviews with her network of friends and colleagues.

>> All those rumors last year of T editor Stefano Tonchi jumping ship to Conde Nast were apparently not for naught: just a day after it was announced that longtime W editor Patrick McCarthy would be stepping down, Fashion Week Daily reports that an announcement of Tonchi as W's new editor-in-chief is expected imminently.

As launch editor of T, Tonchi has propelled the magazine "into the ad-rev stratosphere," as The Daily puts it; he was previously fashion creative director at Esquire.

WWD, meanwhile, says it also expects a new editor-in-chief to be named quickly, and cites Tonchi, Carine Roitfeld, Katie Grand, New York's Adam Moss, and former Men's Vogue editor Jay Fielden as frontrunners, although none would comment.