Vogue editor: Readers don't want 'real person' on magazine cover

LONDON, March 17 (UPI) -- The editor of the British edition of Vogue said readers do not want to see a "real person" on the cover of the fashion magazine.

Alexandra Shulman, editor of the British edition of Vogue since 1992, said during a BBC Radio 2 interview with singer and guest host Lily Allen she likes doing "creative, arty" covers, "but they don't sell as well," the Daily Telegraph reported.

"It's a real balancing act doing a magazine, between creativity and sales," she said. "If I knew exactly what sold it would be like having the secret of the universe, but I'd say broadly speaking, if you're going to talk about a model or a personality, it's kind of a quite middle view of what beauty is."

Shulman said she is "fed up" with complaints about the size of cover models.

"People always say 'why do you have thin models? That's not what real people look like.' But nobody really wants to see a real person looking like a real person on the cover of Vogue," she said. "I think Vogue is a magazine that's about fantasy to some extent and dreams, and an escape from real life. People don't want to buy a magazine like Vogue to see what they see when they look in the mirror. They can do that for free."