British Vogue Editor Is 'Bored' With the Thin Model Debate

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Speaking with songstress Lily Allen on BBC Radio, British Vogue editor Alexandra Shulman expressed that she's "bored" with the debate about models' weight. Her explanation is one we've heard before as well: "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."

She spoke to the "balancing act" between creativity and sales that editing a magazine requires, and if she's bored with the thinness debate, she also sounds bored with the what cover art sells. She describes the successful cover girl as "kind of a quite middle view of what beauty is." Typically, she's "quite conventional, probably smiling, in a pretty dress; somebody looking very kind of 'lovely'. The most perfect girl next door. Better than yourself. 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."

Shulman is optimistic, however, that she won't have to defend the magazine as much soon. "I do think the designers should cut bigger and use bigger models on the catwalk. I've said it again and again. But there is much more diversity than there used to be, it is changing [...] A lot of people do find the fact that models are thin extremely annoying and I don't understand why designer don't get a bit more real about it."
· Lily Allen Sits In [BBC Radio]
· This Adele Cover Was One of the Worst-Selling Vogue UK Covers of All Time [Racked]