Former British Vogue editor Alexandra Shulman has a new memoir

by Holly O'Neill
29th Apr 2020

A new fashion memoir to get lost in during isolation

Six months after she left her job as editor of British Vogue, a role she had held for 25 years as the longest-serving editor, Alexandra Shulman found that she had 549 items in her wardrobe. Like most of us, each bikini, high heel and hat had a story behind it, represented a moment in her career, a snapshot into her life, a memory. Except unlike most of us, her hat went to a royal wedding.

These pieces and the stories behind them make up Clothes… and other things that matter, the second memoir by Alexandra Shulman, out now. The book is part memoir, part fashion history and part social narrative, told through her own wardrobe. “Clothes… and other things that matter is a book not only about clothes but about the way we live our lives, ” says Alexandra Shulman. “From childhood onwards, the way we dress is a result of our personal history. I am writing about the person our clothes allows us to be and sometimes the person they turn us into.”

This chance to step inside the wardrobe of a former Vogue editor brings us stories about velour tracksuits (“at Vogue, we talked about how we slobbed out in them when we got home after work…”), when her bikini selfie was splashed all over the news and her signature, custom-made white Manolo Blahniks.

Stylish and clever, it makes for great isolation reading, but like her previous book Inside Vogue: My Diary of Vogue’s 100th Year, it’s still not quite the juicy, unguarded tell-all you want it to be.