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British Vogue publishes "model-free" edition

Lauretta Roberts
03 October 2016

The next edition of British Vogue which hits newsstands this Thursday will feature no models; instead all the clothes will be modelled by "real women" from an historian to a charity worker and an ice-cream entrepreneur. Its cover however has been devoted to actress Emily Blunt.

Editor in chief Alexandra Shulman told The Telegraph she felt strongly that she wanted to show the clothes on real women and also to demonstrate that it is possible for professional women to "indulge their interest in clothes and fashion without it seeming frivolous or that they don't care about their jobs enough".

"In this country there is still a stigma attached to clearly enjoying how you look and experimenting with it if you are a woman in the public eye and not in the fashion or entertainment business," Shulman told the newspaper.

Among the women featured in the "Real Issue" are architectural historian Shumi Bose, charity director Brita Fernandez Schmidt, creative director of the Hello Love Studio and the founder of the Hello Beautiful Foundation Jane Hutchison and ice-cream brand creator Kitty Travers among others.

Shulman defended using actress Blunt on the cover (her Vogue debut) saying that she played a "flawed everywoman" in her latest role in The Girl on the Train.

British Vogue is celebrating its 100-year anniversary this year and Shulman 25 years in her role. Events to mark the occasion have included an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, a two-part BBC documentary, the publication of a limited-edition book and a special birthday issue featuring the Duchess of Cambridge on the cover.

Shulman has long been a campaigner for greater diversity in fashion. In 2009 she wrote an open letter asking designers to stop producing samples in tiny sizes as it was leading to models becoming unhealthily thin and she has famously never published a feature on dieting during the quarter-century she has led the publication.

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