The editor of Vogue has claimed her readers do not want to see a “real person” on the cover and said she was “bored” with the debate over skinny models.
Interviewed on BBC Radio 2 by singer Lily Allen, Alexandra Shulman said of her favourite covers: “The ones I really like are the creative, arty ones.
But they don’t sell as well… Broadly speaking, if you’re going to talk about a model or a personality, it’s kind of a 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.”
When asked if it was tiring having to defend the magazine and the fashion industry, Shulman, who has edited British Vogue since 1992, said: “I get fed up with… the question of why models are thin — that sort of bores me.”
