The editor of UK Vogue, Alexandra Shulman, gave an interview this weekend and revealed very candidly how people who create fashion magazines like Vogue think. In an interview on BBC Radio 2, Shulman — who has been editor of UK Vogue since 1992 — spoke about what makes for a successful magazine cover. Here she is quoted by the UK’s Telegraph:
“If I knew exactly what sold it would be like having the secret of the universe, but I’d say broadly speaking, if you’re going to talk about a model or a personality, it’s kind of a quite middle view of what beauty is. Quite conventional, probably smiling, in a pretty dress; somebody looking very ‘lovely’. The most perfect girl next door.” … People always say ‘why do you have thin models? That’s not what real people look like’ But nobody really wants to see a real person looking like a real person on the cover of Vogue. I think Vogue is a magazine that’s about fantasy to some extent and dreams, and an escape from real life. People don’t want to buy a magazine like Vogue to see what they see when they look in the mirror. They can do that for free.”
Exactly how does Shulman actually know that “nobody really wants to see a real person” on the cover of Vogue? The magazine has never actually had a “real person” on the cover. I perused a bunch of old UK Vogue covers online and surprise, surprise,
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Shulman freely admits that models are are very thin; in fact, the Telegraph notes that Shulman has said in the past that the tiny sample sizes (what models, who are often teenaged girls, wear on the runway) are “insane.” That makes me wonder what these editors think women readers truly aspire to. Can something be “aspirational” if it is impossible? At the very best, it’s