The longest serving editor in the history of British Vogue told students the fashion magazine is ‘a bastion of female power’ at an exclusive Newnham event.
Alexandra Shulman OBE has been editor-in-chief of Vogue for 25 years and on Monday she was joined at one of Newnham’s popular Career Women Seminars by Felicia Brocklebank, Director of Papouelli.
Shulman, pictured, was born in London in 1957, and after studying social anthropology at the University of Sussex and a short stint in the music industry, she started working at Tatler in 1982. She was appointed editor of GQ in 1990 before accepting the role as editor-in-chief of Vogue.
At the sold-out event in the Principal’s Lodge at Newnham, the women’s college at the heart of the University of Cambridge, Shulman gave an inspiring, frank and witty account of her career.
She said: “I think of myself of living a life, I don’t think of it as a career. My life hasn’t always been a straight line from A to B, there were moments when the road forked and I had to make decisions. But the unknown should be an opportunity, not a threat. Change is part of life.”
The influential editor gave the audience a revealing description of her school days.
She said: “I was a relentlessly low flier from about the age of 13 onwards. I moved to a very academic school where I was never going to be top so I stopped trying to be. It was suggested to my mother that I would make a good kindergarten teacher but that definitely would not have been a good idea.”
She talked about how she took it upon herself to read all kinds of contemporary literature and she talked about her love of poetry, photography and clothes as a teenager.
Shulman, who has written two novels, has published a third book this year, Inside Vogue: A Diary Of My 100th Year, to mark the centenary celebrations of the fashion magazine.
Curiosity is one of the key attributes she looks for when she is recruiting new members of staff and she advised students to ‘be interested in the world outside of yourself’. But she warned aspiring journalists not to ask her to direct message them on social media.
She explained: “Do not ask me to DM you so you can send me a pitch, find out my address and send me a letter or an email. If you want to be a writer you have to be a reader. It is better to try something and fail than not to try at all. I have written two novels and the first isn’t good, but the second, I think, is.”
Shulman, who has been praised for being an innovator in print and digital media, talked about the challenges facing journalism today.
She said: “Everything was much smaller and niche back when I started, the general public was much less fashion literate but the advent of digital media has had an enormous impact on knowledge and it has changed all of our lives. People can entertain themselves for free on their phones and no longer buy newspapers which to me, is a bad thing.”
Shulman, who took the time to be interviewed by student journalists during her visit to Cambridge, explained how she and her team work to ensure that Vogue which is ‘time-consuming and expensive to produce’ is complemented by the content that is offered for free on their website.
She praised her team for their work and, when asked, she described how few men there were in her team and she quipped: “Vogue is a bastion of female power!”
She added: “One of the most important talents an editor can have is to spot the talent of the people in your team and to keep them. I make decisions all day long and it can be from how much budget we can allocate to the Mario Testino shoot, to whether someone can move desk in the office because they don’t like the person next to them! Sometimes you just have to get on with it and make a decision, you can always change your mind if you make the wrong one.”
And because ‘people always like tips’ she told the audience to ‘just do it’.
She added: “Nurture everything outside that you enjoy doing; family, lovers and hobbies. Work can always go wrong, but it is so important to have friends and to have fun things to do.”
And finally, she said: “Remain true to yourself, don’t change yourself too much. I’m always being told, ‘you are the normal Vogue editor’, but perhaps normality is my shield.”
Felicia Brocklebank (NC 1989) talked about the power of having Cambridge University on her CV, she said: “When I was applying for jobs during a recession, having Cambridge on my CV really opened the door to opportunities.”
Brocklebank talked about her career in the financial sector and how being assertive can help women get ahead in male dominated industries.
She also described how being a working mother-of-three affected her outlook.
She said: “You always feel like you are not doing things well but I have learnt that you can’t do everything perfectly.”
Brocklebank, who read History at Newnham, talked about her love of her role as a director of Papouelli, home of ‘beautiful British shoes designed for children’ and the rise of e-commerce and how the business has grown and embraced challenges.
The Career Seminars are a series of free talks organised by Dame Carol Black, Newnham’s Principal, for students. They cover everything from engineering, to law and fashion. The Seminar on Career Women: Business, journalism and fashion featuring Shulman and Brocklebank took place on Monday, November 21, 2016.
Felicia Brocklebank and Alexandra Shulman talking about their careers
The sold-out audience at the Principal’s Lodge
Felicia Brocklebank and Alexandra Shulman
Alexandra Shulman gave the audience an insight into her life as editor-in-chief of British Vogue
Felicia Brocklebank with Dame Carol Black, Principal of Newnham, and Alexandra Shulman