VOGUE A PIONEER OF SIZE DIVERSITY? WHAT FLANNEL!

JOHN Humphrys has been accused of being a patronising boor and mansplaining fashion to Alexandra Shulman. The former editor-in-chief of British Vogue was a guest on Radio 4’s Today programme yesterday to discuss the changing face of fashion.

‘Sixty years ago the hourglass figure was desirable. Now you’ve got to be as skinny as a rake,’ harrumphed Humphrys, suggesting Vogue was part of the process that promulgated the zero-size problem.

He then wondered aloud why women insisted on wearing high heels that crippled them. How very dare he?

Twitter users were quick to label the 74-year-old Welshman sexist and crashingly offensive. Is that really true?

With good humour, Shulman argued that skinny was ‘not what people wanted to be now’; that fashion was more about style than body shape; and that she’d featured Kim Kardashian, the Duchess of Cambridge, Adele and a plus-sized model on the cover of Vogue.

As for high heels, she argued that they make women feel empowered.

All disingenuous, of course. Verging on ostrich-trimmed poppycock, hemmed with standard fashion flannel.

For the truth is, you DO have to be as skinny as a rake to be a model like Vogue favourite Stella Tennant, right.

Fashion’s dirty secret is that top designers still make clothes that are meant to be displayed on either perfectly proportioned bodies or beanpole creatures with coat-hanger cheekbones who look as if they haven’t eaten a carb since primary school.

In the July issue of Vogue, which Shulman edited, the only person who didn’t conform to whippety body fascism was a model with a hint of belly in an M&S advert for tummy-slimming swimwear.

One plus-sized model cover and Adele with a face full of contouring make-up in a quarter of a century hardly makes Vogue a pioneer of size diversity.

So no, I don’t join in the chorus of disapproval because Humphrys challenged Shulman’s ‘expertise’. One of them sure is a fraud, but it isn’t him.