Why I put Wayne's girl in the pages of Vogue
By Alexandra Shulman, Editor of Vogue
(Filed: 30/04/2005)
Rarely has so much rubbish been published as there has been about Coleen McLoughlin's forthcoming appearance in Vogue.
According to numerous newspaper reports, Coleen paid for the shoots herself, was flown by Vogue to Cyprus, was spotted by me in a restaurant and instantly anointed this year's style icon, and is about to be featured on Vogue's cover. The facts are, of course, somewhat different.
Ever since I arrived at Vogue 13 years ago, I have been keen for the magazine to feature contemporary culture alongside its more purist fashion ingredients.
I see it as a magazine of record in the world for glamour, style and fashion - if it's out there, we should reflect it.
In 1994 we published the now infamous pictures of the waif model Kate Moss in a pair of knickers in a council flat, which prompted an outcry.
Three years back, I placed the television girls Tamzin Outhwaite and Ulrika Jonsson on our cover for a special issue on TV amid cries of dumbing down. And now, heavens above, we have the 18-year-old fiancée of a footballer spread over six pages of the magazine. What's the world coming to?
The real story of the shoot is as follows. We had been thinking about who was intriguing at the moment and Wayne Rooney and Coleen McLoughlin's names came up as a couple who were constantly in the news.
Wayne is indisputably a footballer of momentous talent, whose skills had impressed even the 90 per cent female staff of Vogue, while Coleen was, nearly single-handedly, keeping the luxury goods business going.
One of my staff, Fiona Golfar, volunteered that she had seen them the previous weekend having Valentine's Day dinner in the Wolseley restaurant on Piccadilly.
She had gone over to ask Wayne for his autograph for her son and Coleen had apparently looked sweetly encouraging of this action - he less so.
Coleen had impressed her as looking prettier and fresher in the flesh than she did in the paparazzi shots we were all familiar with.
Added to that, everybody was interested to hear what Coleen, a previously mute figure, had to say about her portrayal as public enemy number one.
That afternoon, the PR team she shares with Wayne were approached - they immediately said there was no chance of Wayne being featured. I can't remember at that point quite what loutish thing he was said to have done but they were definitely keen for him to keep his head down. They would, however, talk to Coleen.
The answer, amazingly, came back "No". Coleen, although "flattered", didn't want to do any publicity either, and she had been "incredibly hurt" by all the press comment about her.
A fashion-star-struck teenager who didn't want to be in Vogue didn't really ring true, so I got on the phone to say that, although we understood Coleen might be wary, it was not going to be a hatchet job we were planning in Vogue. And where would she ever have better pictures taken?
We went backwards and forwards over a few days and eventually a deal was struck.
Coleen would be photographed for Vogue, but wouldn't talk about Wayne. She would, however, be happy to talk about fashion. She didn't pay us, we didn't pay her.
Now, for many publications, an interview and photo shoot with an unemployed 18-year-old with an outrageous shopping habit might not seem to be that riveting, but I felt it had a relevancy for us.
Girls such as Coleen (and it has to be said that there aren't many who have quite the credit card flexibility she appears to possess) are a relatively recent fashion phenomenon.
Twenty years ago, they simply didn't exist, but more awareness of fashion, an increasing interest in designer brands and the massive growth of the "must-have" item have changed the shopping landscape.
Britain, once a country whose style - at least in the eyes of the outside world - was totally rooted in the tweeds and pearls of the landed aristocracy, is now famous for its democratic street style and has become one of the great shopping destinations of the world.
Fashion nowadays is dependent upon sales not only to the few but to a mass market. The Coleens of this world, with their obsessive interest in the new handbag, or that pair of boots, are an essential part of the fashion industry.
I was surprised to read a diary story in The Telegraph the day after we agreed the shoot that quoted me as saying that I had spotted Coleen and was struck by how beautiful and stylish she was, since I still have never seen her.
But I was even more surprised by how many follow-up stories there were to these few lines and the ensuing feeding frenzy of snobbery and vitriol.
Arriving at a London studio to be photographed, she impressed our assembled fashion team with her un-made up, pony-tailed look. Naturally, she was carrying a Chloé Paddington bag, this spring's wannahave item. Her jeans and pink jacket were given the thumbs-up, but the team were more dubious about the hair extensions and white-tipped manicure.
Immediately, it became clear that she was a normal 18-year-old with a normal 18-year-old's taste. Like my stepdaughter and her friends, she prefers her hair to be a bit too flash blonde, she likes pink to an inadvisable degree, lives in jeans and is a bit nervous about wearing anything that seems too grown-up.
We had decided to style her for our pictures against type - no track suits or denim; instead, an Alexander McQueen black cocktail dress, an Yves Saint Laurent jacket, a Prada dress.
Throughout the day, Wayne was constantly on the phone to her, although neither he nor Coleen demanded that we interrupt the photography to put him through. She wanted to buy the Saint Laurent outfit to wear to Ascot for Ladies' Day.
The pictures arrived in the office a couple of days later and we all felt that the mission was accomplished. A few days after, several newspapers, trumpeting the first view of the Vogue shoot, were filled with pictures of Coleen looking pensive on a beach in Cyprus.
A week on, despite her management's protestations to us of her unwillingness to be splashed all over the media, more details of the Cyprus shoot (incidentally, organised by them for their own placement) appeared in weekly magazines. Our pictures are published next week.
Do I think she is a style icon? Absolutely not, but I also feel that "style icon" is one of the most ridiculous and over-used phrases of our time.
Do I think she is a role model for young girls? No, but neither do I think that the more conventional glossy magazine content of upper-class girls and models are necessarily lifestyle role models.
Do I think she's interesting? Yes, because she has become famous entirely through the filter of the paparazzi and tabloid press and that, in itself, makes her a phenomenon of our time.
All she has done is hang out with her family and friends and go shopping. Her fame until now has been entirely the creation of others, although it appears that after this Vogue shoot, her marketing potential has become apparent.
She hasn't asked for it and she actually pays good money for her shopping, unlike a lot of people in similar positions who expect to be given outfits for free.
Last week I had lunch with the British managing director of a world-famous brand. She had been visiting the company's shops in the north of England, where its current range of bags had been a touch slow out of the starting gate.
A few days previously, Coleen had been photographed with one of the aforesaid bags, which was credited in the paper as being sold for £3,500, approximately six times more than its real price.
Nonetheless, even thinking that the bags were £3,500 a pop, people rang the Manchester store non-stop with orders in the first days after it was shown dangling from Coleen's arm.
Doesn't it make Footballers' Wives look a bit low-key?
) in the paper the other day, on the cover she's wearing a red dress and although it was a small picture she looked airbrushed to make her both taller and thinner 
