Alexandra Shulman

Alexandra Shulman (born 1957 or 1958) is the editor of the British edition of "Vogue". She was a regular columnist for the "Daily Telegraph" newspaper but has recently started writing a column every Saturday for the "Daily Mail". She is one of the country's most oft-quoted voices on fashion trends. She took the helm of "Vogue" in 1992, presiding over a circulation increase to 200,000 and a higher profile for the publication.

Shulman received an OBE in 2004, which Janet Street-Porter wrote in "The Independent" was "proof that the honours system is an embarrassment." She also was named "Editors' Editor of the Year" by the British Society of Magazine Editors and is a trustee of the National Portrait Gallery.

Her tenure at "Vogue" is known for the "Gold Issue," a December 2000 edition with Kate Moss on the cover in silhouette. The magazine drew criticism in the early 1990s for photos of an Moss that were dubbed heroin chic, part of a larger ongoing debate over whether fashion magazines present an unhealthy image for girls and contribute to the anorexia problem. In 1997, the watchmaker Omega pulled an ad campaign from "Vogue" over this issue.

Shulman dismissed these concerns in a 1998 interview with the PBS public affairs television program "Frontline", stating glibly, "Not many people have actually said to me that they have looked at my magazine and decided to become anorexic." [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/fat/etc/script.html]

She has become more sensitive to the issue in recent years, acknowledging that anorexia is a "huge problem" in a January 2005 interview with "The Scotsman": "I really wish that models were a bit bigger because then I wouldn't have to deal with this the whole time. There is pressure on them to stay thin, and I'm always talking to the designers about it, asking why they can't just be a bit closer to a real woman's physique in terms of their ideal, but they're not going to do it. Clothes look better to all of our eyes on people who are thinner."

Contrary to expectations, Shulman describes her own life as work-dominated and not particularly glamourous. In an October 2004 newspaper column on her "Telegraph" portrait, she said:

"Leaving aside the obvious but unlikely criteria of beautiful and thin, I realised that there was no look that was achievable which was going to make me happy. In my mind I am a free spirit of about 25 wafting around in second-hand cocktail dresses; in reality I am a 47-year-old businesswoman and journalist. The pictures unfortunately, tell the whole story."

Background

Alexandra Shulman was educated at St Paul's Girls' School and Sussex University. She began her fashion journalism career in 1982 at Tatler, working subsequently for "The Sunday Telegraph", Vogue and the "British GQ", where she became editor in 1990.

Her parents are the London drama critic Milton Shulman and writer Drusilla Beyfus. She has a son, "Sam" (born 1995)who is a lovely lad, and a daughter with the writer Paul Spike, from whom she is divorced. She lives in the Queen's Park area of London.

Trivia

Shulman's hobbies include music, tennis and reading fiction. Her favorite author is Rosamond Lehmann and she's an avid fan of the Inspector Wallander novels by Henning Mankell. She critiqued the Wikipedia entry on haute couture for a newspaper in October 2005, rating it a 0 out of 10. She plays the guitar and owns a "Nissan Figaro" and a "Toyota Corolla Verso".

References

* [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/fat/etc/script.html "Fat"] FrontLine (PBS), November 24, 1998
* [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/fashion/main.jhtml?xml=/fashion/2005/10/18/efshulman18.xml "Telegraph" column about her portrait] , 18 October 2003
* [http://news.scotsman.com/features.cfm?id=46522005 "The Scotsman" interview on anorexia] , 14 January 2005
* [http://technology.guardian.co.uk/opinion/story/0,16541,1599325,00.html Shulman's critique of Wikipedia] , 24 October 2005