Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Editor of Vogue known for being normal, refusing superstars' approvals, and increasing circulation.
On the island
Eight records
Well, I think anybody of my generation really has to have a David Bowie going with them to any desert island and drive in Saturday. Reminds me really of being about 15 and just starting to know boys in London and it was kind of the soundtrack really to that summer.
I first heard on holiday when my son was young and just the second we heard it we were like dancing up and down and it's always been a song that I've associated with Sam who is my most precious thing and I'm very very pleased that he still likes it now even though he's a totally cool and very music savvy 18 year old.
We had a gramophone in the sitting room at home, and my sister and I... used to play it all the time and Nicky and I are... I should think literally the only two people probably in the whole world that can sing every word and I haven't heard it for at least 45 years.
Sad-Eyed Lady of the LowlandsFavourite
This song I first heard in southern Italy. It was one of the first holidays I went on where we were kind of children and adults and everyone was all kind of meshed together. Every time I listen to it, it reminds me of the feeling of future, I think.
I love this one because, as he says, it's about the workers in song and it kind of always makes me think of that still slight desire to be part of the music industry.
This song I like because I've become a runner and there's nothing I enjoy more than plugging you know the headphones in and running. This track always does you know it's a bit of a kind of power surge when it comes on.
I wrote a novel which is called Can We Still Be Friends, but my working title for it was We Three, and there's a line in this which is the dice rolls so deceptively for We Three. The song isn't about three friends, but it was sort of what was going on in my head when I was writing it, and it's a great song.
It very much follows on from A Desert Island because to my mind this song is all about what it feels like to be alone. I've spent quite a lot of time on my own, for which I'm grateful for and I sort of know what it feels like to be alone.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:52Do you subscribe to that notion that when [a woman] getting dressed in the morning [is] sending subtle signals to people who understand the language about who she is and what she stands for?
Oh, completely. I mean, I had a lot of thinking about what I was going to wear today, even though I'm on the radio. I think that people make very conscious decisions about the way they want to portray themselves. And even if that's to say I don't care about my clothes, you're still saying something.
Presenter asks
2:41What do you tell your advertisers the typical reader is like?
Well, I think one of the great things about Vogue and a lovely aspect of editing it is there isn't a typical reader. And we are kind of an industry newsletter. We're a magazine that a girl of fourteen will buy and a woman of eighty will buy who want to feel that they know what's in fashion, that they know what contemporary style is.
Presenter asks
6:30What do you make of that dark underbelly [of the fashion industry] — sweatshops, models dying from anorexia, rumours that drug taking is rife?
I think everybody is really very aware of trying to look at these issues and to improve the situation. I mean it's something that I don't see. I've never been on a shoot and seen millions of drugs or indeed any drugs there actually. … But I also think that fashion is a very easy target because as soon as somebody wants to talk about eating disorders, what will they do but put a picture of a model on a catwalk show on their front page? Because a beautiful girl in fashion sells papers.
The keepsakes
The book
The Penguin Book of Love Poetry
Editor unknown (given by her father)
It's a book that my dad gave me with the inscription to my darling Alexandra on her 17th birthday with as much love as is inside Daddy. So I think that would make me happy.
The luxury
I'd like to take an endless supply of Miss Dior Eau de Toilette because I've been wearing it since since a holiday when I fell madly in love, and I just love it, and it always reminds me of that wonderful exhilaration when you fall madly in love.
Presenter asks
11:23[Did you even notice that mummy went out to work] and that was different from other girls' mummies, or was it just that was just life?
Oh, I completely noticed that my mum went out to work and not only did I notice, but I actually said to her endlessly, which I now see must have been so annoying. You know, I'd always say, I can't understand why you've created this life for yourself that's sort of so difficult. … And now, of course, I do exactly the same thing.
Presenter asks
15:26How did [your English teacher's comment that you might just about get a job in a kindergarten] fit with what was your kind of psychology?
I think I'm somebody who flourishes on success, but if I feel that I'm a non-starter, then I'll just give up and move on. I'm also probably intensely competitive and therefore won't compete at things that I don't think I stand at least a chance of winning.
Presenter asks
25:06How have you managed to work [being a mum] in with such a high profile and high powered job as being editor of Vogue?
Well, I think you just are a mum, aren't you? As soon as you have a child, you're a mum. … Moment I had Sam, everything in my life became better actually. Certainly work, because you were able to have this other thing that was just more important. Always, you know, I'd have a terrible day at work … and then I'd come home and, you know, and there would be my child, and he wasn't interested in that. And I was able to immerse myself in him.
“I think people make very conscious decisions about the way they want to portray themselves. And even if that's to say I don't care about my clothes, you're still saying something.”
“It's hard if you're if you're running the show, you don't really know what the atmosphere is like, you have to talk to the interns really.”
“I'm somebody who flourishes on success, but if I feel that I'm a non-starter, then I'll just give up and move on. I'm also probably intensely competitive and therefore won't compete at things that I don't think I stand at least a chance of winning.”
“I do remember that I was one of the few people that I sort of hung with at that moment, the few women who actually had a job to go to the next morning and I do remember always being one of the first people to leave.”
“Maybe I'll write a book called Would Anna Do This when I'm sort of doing something like feeding the cat or something.”
“I said [to my mother], 'Imagine now, you know, you're on a ship and over there in the distance, you're standing there, you can see there's a desert island. And there's a sign on the desert island. What does that sign say?' And I said, 'No buried treasure here.'”