We kid you not.
Alexandra Shulman was the editor-in-chief of British Vogue for 25 years.
During the summer, she left her position, but still writes about fashion in the elite digital website, Business of Fashion.
With Vogue being one of the most prestigious fashion publications there is out there, you’d think Alexandra picked up a thing or two, right?
Well, this man didn’t seem to think so, and actually mansplained fashion to her while on a chat show.
The former editor appeared on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4, and was geared up to talk about how fashion changed and empowered women over the years, such as “the emergence of nylon, acrylic and polyester, and how they helped to release women from the drudgery of the kitchen sink and ironing board”.
However, instead she was confronted with the topic of women being too skinny, and how fashion was bad for girl’s self-esteem.
In a Mail Online column, Alexandra writes: “Suddenly I was confronted by a grey-haired guy in chinos hectoring me on the business I had worked in for a quarter of a century and which he neither knew, nor cared, much about.”
“Having shown a polite interest in my views on youth culture, he interjected – without warning – that ‘hourglass’ figures had once been in fashion but that ‘now you have to be skinny as a rake’.
“Back, in other words, to the same old, same old limited, repetitious and banal conversation.
She continued: “I was swept relentlessly into an attack on the size of models and their appearance in British Vogue, the magazine I left in June after more than 25 years at the helm.
“After a difficult eight minutes I left the studio, wondering, not for the first time what it is about fashion that makes so many people unable to react to it with the serious attention it deserves?.”
Alexandra concluded: “Fashion is fun. It makes us feel good and adds to the whole richness and beauty of the world we live in. And I for one say hurrah for that.”
