Londoner's Diary: Alexandra Shulman prepares for life after Vogue

In today's Diary: Shulman bows out of Vogue | Rachel Johnson comes out against Trump | Queenly treatment of Trump | Art gallery private view clash | Lisa Tchenguiz could ask Ivana for visa help
In Vogue: Outgoing editor Alexandra Shulman and model Alexa Chung
Dave Benett/Getty Images
1 February 2017

British Vogue editor Alexandra Shulman has made her first public appearance since announcing her decision to leave the fashion bible. So what’s next? Austerity and alcoholism, she fears.

Shulman was at The Arts Club in Mayfair last night, where model Alexa Chung - dressed in Burberry stripes - hosted a Q&A. Shulman was talking about new book Vogue — Voice of a Century. The conversation inevitably turned to her resignation, announced last week. “It’s a bit like Seinfeld,” said Chung, “leave on a high.”

Shulman replied: “I feel nervous, sort of jumping off without a parachute. A friend of mine says you should never leave your job until you have another job — you’ll turn into an alcoholic, so I’m a bit nervous of that happening.”

Shulman, who decided to step down after 25 years at the helm, is looking forward to spending more time with her family but she is also in pragmatic mood. “I’m already going around the house telling everyone to switch the lights off,” she smiled, “and we’re already looking at the Ocado order and seeing what’s not necessary there.

“But on a more optimistic note I’m really looking forward to seeing time in different way... I don’t think it’s really helpful if you’re thinking about Christmas in June.”

Shulman isn’t worried about what she’s leaving behind. “I think when you leave you leave,” she said. “And you have to be prepared for the fact that whatever you’ve done will get changed. People talk about a kind of legacy but I’m not a great believer in legacies. I think you just do it while you do it and then you move away.”

Shulman, however, will always be in Vogue.

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If Donald Trump ever does take up the invitation to conduct a state visit, the Queen doesn’t exactly have to play the dutiful hostess. The Times’s Matt Chorley today recalls the time Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu came to the palace, and HM kept the face-time to the minimum. She was walking her corgis through the gardens of Buckingham Palace when she spotted Ceausescu and his wife Elena across the way. Instead of saying hello she hid behind a bush.

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Tory MEP and Brexiteer Daniel Hannan barrels in with his thoughts on the reaction to Donald Trump’s state visit. “A lot of people on Twitter seem unable to distinguish between ‘I dislike Donald Trump’ and ‘Donald Trump shouldn’t visit the UK’.” Journalist and campaigner Ione Wells took this as an insult to the intelligence of the British people. “A lot of people seem unable to distinguish between ‘he can visit the UK’ and ‘he should be granted a state visit’,” she replied. Quite.

If in doubt, get on the phone to Ivana ...

Dave Benett/Getty Images

Some people are not exercised by the US travel ban. Lisa Tchenguiz, sister of property developers Robert and Vincent, has a dual British-Iranian passport so she is unlikely to be denied entry, but if there are any problems she can always call up Ivana Trump — Tchenguiz owned a restaurant in St Tropez with Donald Trump’s ex-wife in 2008.

Would Tchenguiz ask for special consideration if there are any issues with US border control? “I will call her and say ‘please let me in’,” she joked. “If I had to be there urgently 100 per cent, I would”.

It’s alright for some.

Rachel comes out as anti-Trump

Getty Images

The Londoner slipped a winter coat over our usual evening dress last night and joined the many thousands who marched on Downing Street to protest against Donald Trump’s travel ban — and stumbled across quite a party. We spotted Blackadder actor Tony Robinson hovering on the periphery. “I am here because I want to be counted,” he shrugged, before conceding he had to run home to do some child care. Robert Peston was there, glued to his mobile phone, and we did a double-take when we saw our pal Rachel Johnson in the melee.

“What’s she doing here?” a protester nearby muttered.

“She’s a journalist,” his friend replied.

“Hmm, don’t tell her brother.”

The Londoner checked in with her this morning. “I’m descended from Muslim and Jewish immigrants on both sides,” she told us. “It was simple — I wanted to show my support for the rights of refugees and my opposition to Mr Trump.”

Models Jack Guinness and Suki Waterhouse represented the glam squad.“We will not stand aside while bigotry is validated,” Waterhouse wrote on Instagram, while actress Rebecca Hall explained her motivation on Twitter. “My grandma was Dutch, grandpa African-American. My godfather Persian, godson Muslim, husband part-Jewish,” Hall wrote. “Me: English-born, US resident. And my father was English. And yes, it’s time I went on that TV show where they do your ancestry.”

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Could Melania Trump’s hunger for royal memorabilia be driving her husband’s state visit to the UK? When Camilla Long interviewed Mrs Trump shortly after her 2005 wedding, she was enthusiastic about one thing — her Queen’s Golden Jubilee tea set. “I love it so much, I brought it as a present for my parents.” And there are a lot of White House mantelpieces to fill.

Beware a queen wanting gifts

Print Collector/Getty Images

What should the Queen do with Donald Trump? The Londoner asked for tips from past monarchs at Intelligence Squared’s Queen Elizabeth I v Queen Victoria debate at Westminster’s Emmanuel Centre last night.

Author Philippa Gregory said Elizabeth I let Eric of Sweden buy her endless gifts until she got bored of him. “We could maybe start with that with Trump,” she mused.

“I think Victoria would have given Trump her famous scowl,” said Daisy Goodwin, writer of the ITV show Victoria. Rather than help him, “she might have pushed him down the stairs”. “She was very good at shutting down any lèse-majesté, and if he’d touched her I think she would have had the Household Cavalry onto him in seconds.”

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Clickbait of the day: from US blog Jezebel, which headlined a picture of Ed Miliband in the Commons yesterday with the question “Would You Have Sex With This Appalled British MP?”

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