The fashion pack were out in force last week to hear
Alexandra Shulman, editor of British
Vogue speak in depth about her 20 year career at the acclaimed fashion bible Vogue, as well as introduce her debut novel
Can We Still Be Friends. Swathed in a vibrant floral dress, leather jacket combo and sky high heels Alexandra begun to take us through twenty carefully selected covers, adding in personal memories and anecdotes to keep her fashion hungry audience entertained and enthralled.
Alexandra begun her reign as editor at the age of 34. Fresh out of
GQ magazine, she admits that she didn't know a lot about the world of Vogue, or GQ for that matter, "what with Formula 1 and shaving etc". She was in a daze that she actually got the job but that didn't stop her from going on to become one of the most influential bodies in the global fashion industry.
Having worked previously in the music industry, of which she was subsequently fired on numerous occasions and thus realised that it maybe wasn't meant to be, her passion for music however remained and thus it seems fitting that she begins with the Christmas issue from 1992, a Rock 'n' Roll edition featuring Bono and Christy Turlington, that became the first pairing of its kind. Fresh from U2's amazing ZooTV tour, Bono was the first male musician ever to grace the covers of British Vogue (Madonna was the first female) and just one of the many 'firsts' that Alexandra spoke about and a quality that has enabled the magazine to continuously stand out as the innovator within a heavily saturated and evolving market. Shulman further brought about the first Kate Moss cover, as well as the July 2007 Ageless style issue, which has gone on to become an annual feature. And a more recent venture, the
Vogue Festival; a gathering of
photographers, writers, designers and models for two days of debates, talks and interactive experiences.
We later discover that a magazine always sells very well with Kate Moss on the cover, which goes to explain her 32 British covers. March 1993 was one of the most interesting covers as it marked the beginning of the grunge movement. The fashion culture was changing completely between the supermodels of the 1980's and what was to become the defining fashion, photography and models of the next few years. She remembers going to the Marc Jacobs for Perry Ellis show in New York in November 1992, where the models were wearing trainers and beanie hats and Kate was this new London model. It was the first cover by
Corinne Day and it really epitomised the look and illustrates perfectly Alexandra's appreciation of Kate's beauty: "Kate's face is perfectly beautiful, it has interest, her squashed nose and eyes slightly far apart." She has a freshness, an innocence and a face that moves with the times. Alexandra laughs on reading t
he tag line at the bottom of the cover “Are you leaving it too late to have a baby?” “We’ve just used that line again,” she says, although perhaps in a different form. We also learn that Vogue's readers appreciate simple straight forward advice, discussion and instruction and complicated strap lines just don't work. Preferring simply "how to do party eyes" and that a pretty girl in a pink dress always sells.
We move on to a few years later when all the logos were coming out; Louis Vuitton; Tom Ford for Gucci, it was a much more a bling style of fashion coming about. September 1994, was a very successful issue, featuring Nadia Auermann by Nick Knight using the ring flash technique - the hyper colour that you've got that's not entirely realistic. Seen here in the shine on the lips and glasses that Alexandra so loves and associates with "glam rock". Whereas the previous image of Kate was both simplistic and naturalistic this was the anecdote to that.
May 1996 was the year that saw a Marks and Spencer shirt shown on the cover of Vogue for the very first time. Shulman, always one step ahead, felt it was the right thing to do, it hadn't been done before and the high street was just becoming the very remarkable place it is now. This spurned the "More Dash Than Cash" edition highlighting how you can style looks that are inventive on very little budget. A feature that has become a mainstay for the magazine and has been well received by Vogue readers.
October 1997 was a poignant commemorative issue that marked the Diana Memorial. When the Princess of Wales died, the magazine was coming out about a week later and they obviously couldn't get a cover but remembered a shoot Patrick Demerchelier had taken but hadn't been used.
She recalls only having had a few days to put together the tribute issue and wasn’t sure that they were even going to be able to change the cover at such a late stage, so "it was a logistical triumph as well as a beautiful cover in her honour.” It was an unusual thing for a magazine to do but they felt they had a real relationship with Diana and felt strongly they wanted to do it. Diana changed people's attitudes to the royal family and brought a glamour that had been lacking for some time. She had been fantastic for the British fashion industry, wearing designers such as Catherine Walker and Bruce Oldfield and really bought them to the attention of the world during the late 80's early 90's - she was a "wonderful clothes horse".
Another iconic cover was the millennium issue; the best selling issue ever done. What she loves about it is the fact that it was a silver mirror meaning you only see your own face in the reflection rather than the model. Half the issue was about the future and half was about what had gone before. The fact people start the New Year looking at their dreadful reflection and think: "we need new clothes, we need a new me," probably helped boost sales. Vogue does very well as a commemorative issue, something that people want to keep and as Alexandra goes on to discuss, since the digital age, in order to compete Vogue has had to adapt itself by making it more collectible.
The magazine has had to evolve with the times on many levels. When Alexandra first came in, Vogue used to have big art sections at the front of the magazine and it was a subject matter that she really liked but they couldn't compete with weekly news and the Internet and so now at the front of the magazine there's much less art coverage and restaurant reviews and much more fashion, shopping and trend pages. With three month lead times Vogue is about inspiring and getting pleasure from the images and telling stories about fashion. It can't be a shopping magazine like digital apps can do, things move too fast these days. Vogue.com can be more instantaneous and up to date but their primary job is to make a wonderful print magazine. Vogue gives advice, opinion and discussion and is very much a trusted source for the entire fashion community. Vogue is particularly influential on the high street retailers whom will base their buy on the insights gained. Shulman drops the hint that dark florals will be big for Autumn, though she is dubious about jacquard - we shall have to wait and see.
Being as acclaimed as Vogue is, it is not surprising they were able to get the most famous rock star and the most famous supermodel of the time on the cover together. And what one would think to be a logistical nightmare, was actually "one of the easiest covers ever and unsurprisingly sold extremely well."
The February 2001 cover of Naomi Campbell was the only ever cover taken as a paparazzi style. Shot by Mario Testino on a street at night it's simplicity made it stand out from the rest and it sold incredibly well. The cover is very much the packaging, people aren't very concerned with complicated ideas they just like to see an attractive image.
Alexandra admits that when it comes to designing covers a "make do and mend" approach is favoured, with a calendar of covers done on a monthly basis as opposed to being planned. The decision is based on a combination of an idea about a person; the theme of an issue or a photography movement and it evolves out of that. She points out that photographers give you many less photos than they used to. It has something to do with digital photography. You're on a shoot, everyone is around a monitor and can see what is on the shoot and a certain amount of editing is done at that point, but what's bad about this is they don't step away from the shoot and go back to it. Often everyone is shouting. "that's the one that's the one," but often that isn't the one and then they have to scrabble around trying to piece together a better image before it needs to go to print. When she first arrived at Vogue they had a projector and you could click through millions of images but in an age of speed the days of leisurely flicking are long gone.
Vogue was and continues to be an excellent resource material in reflecting what was going on at the time. For the January 2002 issue, Britain had gone into the Iraq war and the cover was supposed to be a patriotic British force with all the union jack outfits worn by British models made by British designers such as Vivienne Westwood and Stella McCartney. It was their way of rallying the troops to support our country and it bought Vogue to the frontline with it.
Normally complicated covers don't work well but this beautiful dreamy cover by Tim Walker did and it's clear to see why. The enlarged beads dangling effortlessly above a relaxed Lily Cole literally transports you into another world, a world away from the hustle and bustle of city life and one of fantasy and intrigue.
Not many magazines can say they've celebrated a 90th anniversary and it's on viewing the 90th anniversary issue, filled with miniature covers (one from each year), that Alexandra lets us in on another secret. They've just produced a teddy bear where the fabric is made from the printed covers of the gatefold issue and has Christopher Kane velvet paws. It sounds divine and is sure to command a high price when it goes to auction in November for charity.
When asked if she has a particular cover she likes before her reign, she reminisces over the 60's and 70's covers from her mum saying, “I love the old illustrated covers. I would love to do an illustrated cover, but it would be difficult.” For newstands have become much more commercial now than before, you're literally fighting with 18 million other magazines that you weren't then. Most people are attracted to a magazine not by something strange like the surrealist hand they once did for a cover but by something familiar. A reasoning behind why an attractive model or a famous celebrity always outsells.
Asked the age of Vogue's readership, Shulman states: "you're a Vogue reader no matter what age you are." You start as a teenager, which is a very impressionable time and it's those images you will remember all your life. You then carry on reading and as Shulman states, an awful lot of women in their 70's and 80's still buy Vogue; "you're either a Vogue reader or you aren't." So it's not like a magazine that's about a certain stage of your life like some magazines are but more an appreciation that carries with you.
Again not one to shy away from opposition, the April 2008 saw Shulman receive a lot of criticism for putting Victoria Beckham on the cover but "I think I've had the last laugh on that now, she has turned out to be a pretty successful designer." Victoria or Posh as she was then known, was a Spice Girl and thus wasn't seen as 'right' although Shulman didn't hold that view, as Vogue is very much about celebration and contemporary culture and Victoria is a fascinating example of such and I'm sure will no doubt grace the covers again.
Shulman concludes her interview by detailing her debut novel
Can We Still Be Friends, set in the 80's before she had anything to do with Vogue. It's about her life before Vogue, as she explains it would have otherwise been too difficult to separate herself. She wanted to write a book about friendship and it became about the process of when growing up and your friends become your family and you are trying to carve out your identity; when you're in trouble and it's your friends you go to and not your family. It's about people carving out their careers. She remembers how it was then, when a woman didn't have pictures on her desk as she didn't want anyone to know she had children. If you were a successful journalist, you had to pretend you weren't a mother. She is also quite sparring with reference to clothes, much to her publisher's annoyance whom wanted more reference to fashion designers but she didn't want to write about designers, maybe when she's left Vogue she will. But she says you need to be a better writer in order to do it well. When you write contemporary references in fiction you only have to mention a brand name and it takes away from the fiction. She wrote it how she remembers being, very self obsessed and very unaware of what was going on. Writing about aids as being some weird disease that people were getting in New York, that's how it seemed to her at the time. It was she admits "a shallow way of thinking about it." But that's how it was at the time.
 |
| A stamp of approval for Charlie Trendy |
To round things up some all important questions from the floor:
- When do you think we will see the return of models to the covers of fashion magazines?
Next year more model cover shoots have been planned for British Vogue. When she inherited Vogue supermodels were at their absolute peak, every designer wanted to have these 6 girls in their shows, the power they got was impossible. However a collective decision was made that they had to be able to deal with more people as everyone was competing over the same 6 girls and it wasn't working. It was in that situation that a new generation of actresses were becoming very interested in clothes and the whole Hollywood carpet and it came out of that, building actresses more like clothes horses. You saw the actors taking over but she thinks it would now be more interesting to look again at the models. The problem being though that there are not that many recognisable models and you need a collective to achieve acknowledgement.
- How much creative control does she have over Conde Nast and how much competition is there between the Vogues?
Conde Nast have given her complete control and that's quite remarkable from a publisher. They are like a very big family where everyone is competing; sibling rivalry. With 19 other Vogues and a newly launched Thai Vogue that makes for one big family!
- Where do you see Vogue heading in the next 10 years?
Rest assured she is absolutely confident that there will still be a Vogue that you can hold. It will however be more expensive and more precious but sell fewer copies. They did their first Vogue Festival last year which was very exciting and another one is planned next year and are at present looking for a bigger venue with more space. They may do something e-commerce but there's no plans for that soon.
- What types of conversations happen between the Vogues?
She has a wall in her office which has a shelf of all the different Vogues. You can pretty much tell by looking at the cover which country they are from, as they are so defined by a broad aesthetic (apart from Italian Vogue which is primarily a trade magazine and doesn't sell many magazines to the general public). French Vogue is always very Parisian, American Vogue is always very clean, German Vogue always has someone blonde with a lot of black on the cover. She shares her conversation with the German editor Christiana about what a woman would buy herself as a treat and she said a German woman would give herself a car, in France they would buy jewellery, in England they would pay off the mortgage. This sparks a chuckle from the floor.
- How do you see the stereotypes of fashion?
Fashion has become very global so on one level it's such an international business, you've got to be able to sell internationally or you don't have a business. That has influenced how designers design but when you go to New York you still see that sportswear feel and the British designers skill with fabric and print is still very unusual and quite defining. National characteristics still exist but are not as strong as they used to be.
- Is Vogue competing with e-commerce?
They won't be going down the e-commerce route right now; not ever but the reason being they put together magazines very well but are not necessarily going to be brilliant retailers. With all due respect she feels the retail magazines aren't as good as the proper magazines and so there's a real danger they are weaker magazines. "If you are good at selling clothes why do you need to be a magazine you should just stick to selling clothes." Enough said.
 |
| I spy a print and leather trend coming on... |
