British Vogue editor-in-chief talks fashion and China
- By Tom Cunliffe
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E-mail China.org.cn, June 25, 2015
On June 23, 2015, Alexandra Shulman gave an informal talk to a large crowd of budding designers and those interested in fashion at one of China Exchange's on-running events held in the heart of London's Chinatown. The key theme of how fashion plays a large part in our daily lives started the discussion, before moving on to China's growing influence in the international fashion world.
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British Vogue editor-in-chief Alexandra Shulman discusses fashion and China's developing role in the international fashion world at China Exchange in London with host Sir David Tang on June 23, 2015. [Photo/China.org.cn] |
As host, Sir David Tang thanked Alexandra Shulman for carving out a space in her "obese" diary to give China Exchange an hour of her precious time. She was very down-to-earth and fairly casually dressed, being nothing like the archetypal frightening fashion editor such as the one played by Meryl Streep in "The Devil Wears Prada".
Shulman opened her talk entitled "Why Fashion Matters" by saying that she's been the editor of Vogue since 1992, so as far as she is concerned fashion is incredibly important since otherwise she would have been out of a job for the past twenty-three years. In Britain, Vogue magazine sells approximately two hundred thousand copies per month, while their website has almost two million individual users. They make their vast profits from a combination of circulation and advertising.
Aside from personal interests, the fashion industry contributes 26 billion pounds to the UK annually, and provides 797,000 jobs, although Shulman was stumped as to how that figure was determined.
Another reason why we ought to be grateful that fashion does matter is that without it, according to Shulman, women would not be able to wear trousers now and men would still be wearing doublets (a close-fitting padded jacket commonly worn from the 14th - 17th century). In fact, fashion became a big deal many centuries ago since as soon as covering yourself became an issue, fashion was born. She explained how fashion is a part of our culture, just as behaviour, the arts, sport and many other things are. This explains why Vogue has twenty different international editions, because each territory has its own needs. As an example, the British cover of Vogue tends to be glamorous but not over-the-top sexy whilst the French edition is more overtly sexy.
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