Alexandra Shulman
Encyclopedia
Alexandra Shulman, OBE (born 1958), is the editor of the British edition of Vogue
. 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. She has also written for The Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail.
and the writer Drusilla Beyfus. She was educated at St Paul's Girls' School
and Sussex University where she studied social anthropology
. She began her fashion journalism career in 1982 at The Tatler
, working subsequently for The Sunday Telegraph, Vogue
and the British edition of GQ, where she became editor in 1990.
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 emaciated 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: "Not many people have actually said to me that they have looked at my magazine and decided to become anorexic."
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 glamorous. In an October 2004 newspaper column on her Telegraph portrait, she said:
She was a regular columnist for The Daily Telegraph
newspaper, but started writing a column for the Daily Mail
in 2006, which ran until 2009, when she was replaced by Liz Jones
.
In 2009 Shulman spoke out over the sample sizes leading designers were producing - some were so small they restricted Vogue using the models they wished in the magazine, resulting in some models being airbrushed to look bigger. Alex Shulman wrote to designers to draw their attention to the situation calling for larger sized samples to be produced. http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/fashion/article6489243.ece
, whom she married on 26 May 1994 and from whom she is divorced. She lives in the Queen's Park area of London
.
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.
Shulman's hobbies include music, tennis and reading fiction. Her favourite 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 The Guardian
in October 2005, rating it a 0 out of 10. She plays the guitar and owns a Nissan Figaro
and a Toyota Corolla Verso.
Vogue (magazine)
Vogue is a fashion and lifestyle magazine that is published monthly in 18 national and one regional edition by Condé Nast.-History:In 1892 Arthur Turnure founded Vogue as a weekly publication in the United States. When he died in 1909, Condé Montrose Nast picked up the magazine and slowly began...
. 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. She has also written for The Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail.
Life and career
Alexandra Shulman's parents are the late drama critic Milton ShulmanMilton Shulman
Milton Shulman was a Canadian author, film and theatre critic.-Early life:He was born in Toronto, Ontario, the son of a successful shopkeeper. His parents were born in Ukraine and were driven out of the Russian Empire by poverty and the pogroms against the Jews...
and the writer Drusilla Beyfus. She was educated at St Paul's Girls' School
St Paul's Girls' School
St Paul's Girls' School is a senior independent school, located in Brook Green, Hammersmith, in West London, England.-History:In 1904 a new day school for girls was established by the trustees of the Dean Colet Foundation , which had run St Paul's School for boys since the sixteenth century...
and Sussex University where she studied social anthropology
Social anthropology
Social Anthropology is one of the four or five branches of anthropology that studies how contemporary human beings behave in social groups. Practitioners of social anthropology investigate, often through long-term, intensive field studies , the social organization of a particular person: customs,...
. She began her fashion journalism career in 1982 at The Tatler
Tatler
Tatler has been the name of several British journals and magazines, each of which has viewed itself as the successor of the original literary and society journal founded by Richard Steele in 1709. The current incarnation, founded in 1901, is a glossy magazine published by Condé Nast Publications...
, working subsequently for The Sunday Telegraph, Vogue
Vogue (magazine)
Vogue is a fashion and lifestyle magazine that is published monthly in 18 national and one regional edition by Condé Nast.-History:In 1892 Arthur Turnure founded Vogue as a weekly publication in the United States. When he died in 1909, Condé Montrose Nast picked up the magazine and slowly began...
and the British edition of GQ, where she became editor in 1990.
Her tenure at Vogue is known for the "Gold Issue," a December 2000 edition with Kate Moss
Kate Moss
Kate Moss is an English model. Moss is known for her waifish figure and popularising the heroin chic look in the 1990s. She is also known for her controversial private life, high profile relationships, party lifestyle, and drug use. Moss changed the look of modelling and started a global debate on...
on the cover in silhouette. The magazine drew criticism in the early 1990s for photos of an emaciated Moss that were dubbed heroin chic
Heroin chic
Heroin chic was a look popularized in mid-1990s fashion and characterized by pale skin, dark circles underneath the eyes, and jutting bones.The look, which promoted emaciated features and androgyny, was an alternative that stood in direct contradiction to the "healthy" and vibrant look of models...
, part of a larger ongoing debate over whether fashion magazines present an unhealthy image for girls and contribute to the anorexia
Anorexia nervosa
Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder characterized by refusal to maintain a healthy body weight and an obsessive fear of gaining weight. Although commonly called "anorexia", that term on its own denotes any symptomatic loss of appetite and is not strictly accurate...
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 Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
public affairs television program Frontline
Frontline (TV series)
FRONTLINE is a public affairs television program that produces and broadcasts in-depth documentaries about various subjects. Produced at WGBH-TV in Boston, Massachusetts and distributed through the Public Broadcasting Service in the United States, the program has been critically acclaimed and...
, stating: "Not many people have actually said to me that they have looked at my magazine and decided to become anorexic."
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
The Scotsman
The Scotsman is a British newspaper, published in Edinburgh.As of August 2011 it had an audited circulation of 38,423, down from about 100,000 in the 1980s....
: "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 glamorous. 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."
She was a regular columnist for The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
newspaper, but started writing a column for the Daily Mail
Daily Mail
The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...
in 2006, which ran until 2009, when she was replaced by Liz Jones
Liz Jones
Elizabeth Ann Jones, known as Liz Jones , is a British journalist and writer.She originally followed a career in fashion journalism, but her work has broadened into confessional writing. Jones divides opinion...
.
In 2009 Shulman spoke out over the sample sizes leading designers were producing - some were so small they restricted Vogue using the models they wished in the magazine, resulting in some models being airbrushed to look bigger. Alex Shulman wrote to designers to draw their attention to the situation calling for larger sized samples to be produced. http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/fashion/article6489243.ece
Personal life
She has a son, Samuel Robert (born 6 April 1995), by the writer Paul SpikePaul Spike
Paul Robert Spike is an American author, editor and journalist. He is best known as the author of the 1973 memoir Photographs of My Father.-Education and background:...
, whom she married on 26 May 1994 and from whom she is divorced. She lives in the Queen's Park area of London
Queen's Park (London)
Queen's Park, managed by the City of London Corporation, is an area of northwest London, England, located on the boundary between the London Borough of Brent and the City of Westminster.-Toponymy:...
.
Shulman received an OBE
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
in 2004, which Janet Street-Porter
Janet Street-Porter
Janet Street-Porter is a British media personality, journalist and television presenter. She was editor for two years of The Independent on Sunday. She relinquished the job to become editor-at-large in 2002...
wrote in The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
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.
Shulman's hobbies include music, tennis and reading fiction. Her favourite author is Rosamond Lehmann
Rosamond Lehmann
Rosamond Nina Lehmann, CBE , was a British novelist. Her first novel, Dusty Answer , was a succès de scandale; she subsequently became established in the literary world and intimate with members of the Bloomsbury set...
and she's an avid fan of the Inspector Wallander
Kurt Wallander
Kurt Wallander is a fictional character created by Swedish crime writer Henning Mankell. The protagonist of several mystery novels, set in and around the town of Ystad, 60 km south-east of the city of Malmö, in the southern province of Skåne...
novels by Henning Mankell
Henning Mankell
Henning Mankell is a Swedish crime writer, children's author, leftist activist and dramatist, best known for a series of mystery novels starring his most famous creation, Inspector Kurt Wallander.-Life and career:...
. She critiqued the Wikipedia
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...
entry on haute couture
Haute couture
Haute couture refers to the creation of exclusive custom-fitted clothing. Haute couture is made to order for a specific customer, and it is usually made from high-quality, expensive fabric and sewn with extreme attention to detail and finished by the most experienced and capable seamstresses,...
for The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
in October 2005, rating it a 0 out of 10. She plays the guitar and owns a Nissan Figaro
Nissan Figaro
The Nissan Figaro is a small retro car manufactured by Nissan. The car was originally sold only in Japan. Despite this, the Nissan Figaro has become popular with owners in the UK and Ireland, given the popularity of second-hand Japanese import cars...
and a Toyota Corolla Verso.