Alex Shulman’s common touch is winning plaudits. Harriet Green
investigates.
In the chic kingdom of Vogue, the editor’s throne is surrounded by
flowers. Today the floral tributes are especially plentiful. PRs across
the fashion industry have dispatched bouquets - every one in tasteful
white - to commemorate a new crown for Alexandra Shulman.
Last week, the Periodical Publishers Association voted her consumer
magazine editor of the year (Campaign, 9 May).
Shulman entered the PPA Awards this year because, she explains, the
product was right. In 1996, Vogue attracted valuable coverage in the
media with a high-street fashion issue which pictured Kate Moss dressed
by Debenhams (shock horror); and the temporary withdrawal of ads by
Omega, which felt the magazine used too many too-skinny models.
Circulation reached a new peak.
Few predicted this success when she took over in 1992. Never having
worked as a fashion editor, Shulman was regarded as an outsider. (Not
that she exactly came from a different planet. Shulman had previously
edited GQ, and been features editor of Tatler and Vogue. Her parents,
the theatre critic, Milton Shulman, and the etiquette expert, Drusilla
Beyfus, have worked for Vogue. Her husband, Paul Spike, edits
Punch.)
After five years, she’s smartened up. Former colleagues recall Shulman
dressing to these rules: 1) chuck anything together and 2) hope for the
best. Now, at 39, she sports grey and well, grey; not for Shulman the
latest see-through dresses and big knickers. In interview, she’s polite,
though not effusive. She combines the drawl of a St Paul’s girl with a
modish hint of Estuary English.
Her predecessor, Liz Tilberis, was a fashion purist, a fragrant honey
who filled the magazine with stunning pictures of outfits that sold for
ludicrous sums. Shulman has kept these, but nowadays the fashion spread
must share its home with a new and robust sibling - the Vogue
feature.
Compare this month’s issue with a Tilberis Vogue from 1992. On old
Vogue, Linda Evangelista stares coolly from below the iconic logo, with
nothing to distract the eye. New Vogue introduces coverlines that crawl
over the same model’s face (one about politics, another on marrying
millionaires).
Even the logo is defaced: a red slash proclaims ’Designer labels for
less’.
’It’s meant to be more accessible,’ Shulman says. ’Vogue’s not just a
magazine about a fashion world ’out there’. It’s about a fashion world
that relates to you. The features are down to earth - but well written
and appropriate.’
In February, Shulman took its sales beyond 200,000. But media experts
express caution. Does Shulman want aspirational C2s to read Vogue? Does
Rolls-Royce want Del Boy drivers?
Fiona Smedley, Universal McCann’s media planning director, asks: ’How do
you grow and retain your cachet in the market? People feel they work
hard to achieve the standards in Vogue. They want to see outfits that
cost pounds 5,000.’ Nigel Conway, planning director at the Media Centre,
agrees: ’They could take it to 250,000 tomorrow but they’d compromise
brand values.’ Shulman says: ’We aim to maintain our position as a
special magazine while moving the circulation slowly forward.’
Nicholas Coleridge, managing director of Vogue’s owner, Conde Nast,
supports Shulman’s less rarefied approach: ’She’s managed to take it out
of its ivory tower without losing its feel. There are a lot of editors
in London who would have loved to grow their own magazine without using
the sex card.’ Shulman too nods at rivals such as Cosmopolitan and Marie
Claire, adding with a smirk: ’You have to do a lot of trashy things to
sell 500,000 copies.’
But is Vogue so pure? Consider the infamous shots of a childlike Kate
Moss. ’I had no idea they’d be controversial - they’re still one of my
favourite fashion spreads,’ Shulman insists. ’In 20 years they’ll be in
any fashion anthology.’
So much for editorial. Shulman also scrutinises advertising. Her current
bug-bear is oddly shaped ads. ’There’s a fine balance between allowing a
kind of adventurous approach and losing what Vogue is about. We don’t
want to be fuddy-duddy - but people buy the magazine to see glamorous
ads. They don’t want a little box in the middle of a page.’
As someone who claims she could have done anything in journalism (apart
from sport) how does Shulman manage to get worked up about brown being
the new black? Only yesterday, she admits, a front-page picture in the
Daily Mail induced a trivia attack: ’It was Blair’s babes, the new women
MPs. I realised I was looking at them to see what they were wearing -
and I thought ’Help! what’s going on!’’
She needn’t worry. Whatever’s going on, readers, advertisers and the PPA
remain impressed.
The Shulman file
1982: Tatler, writer
1985: Tatler, assistant editor
1987: Sunday Telegraph, woman’s page editor
1988: Vogue, features editor
1990: GQ, editor
1992: Vogue, editor.
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