Black Coffee and Red Lipstick: Notes on living

A new collection of thought-provoking and engaging memoir-based essays from columnist, commentator and Sunday Times-bestselling author, Alexandra Shulman, the longest serving Editor-in-Chief of British Vogue.

Praise for Alexandra Shulman:

“Self-deprecating and stylish, this is sure to become a classic.” - Vanity Fair

“Alexandra Shulman's style is unaffected, immediate and hilariously dry. She's brilliant at observing everyday feelings in a joy-sparking turn of phrase.” - Helena Bonham Carter

Roast Chicken and Red Lipstick is a collection of essays that weave ideas about our domestic and daily life - hence the roast chicken - with thoughts on style and the way we present ourselves - hence the red lipstick.

It combines anecdotes and observations from Alexandra Shulman's 25 years spent editing British Vogue and her current life as a freelance writer and commentator.  She draws on her experiences as a magazine editor but also a mother, daughter, sibling, girlfriend, housekeeper and lover of shopping.

Alexandra left her job at Vogue in 2017 to embark on a different way of life and while this is in no way a book of self-discovery it does touch on the question of things or patterns of behavior that make us who we are?

The essays will be a mixture of ideas from her quest for the perfect eyeliner, to why picnics are so delightful.  How it is that men and women see different things in the home - is there male pattern blindness? - to why our hair matters so much to us. Friendship, siblings, gardening and grey hair will also be explored with Alexandra's characteristic wit and incisiveness.

Alexandra Shulman was brought up in London.  She attended St. Paul's Girls' School and gained a BA in Social Anthropology from Sussex University. She started her career working in the music industry and then moved into magazines as a secretary on Over21 magazine.  She began working as a journalist on Tatler magazine in 1980, leaving in 1986 to become Women's Editor on The Sunday Telegraph.  She returned to magazines as Features Editor of Vogue in 1988, becoming the first female editor of a monthly men's magazine when GQ launched in the UK in 1990.  In 1992 she became Editor-in-Chief of British Vogue where she stayed for 25 years leaving in June 2017.

During that time she launched an annual Vogue Festival, oversaw the launch of Vogue's digital programme including Vogue.co.uk and Vogue Video and took the sales of the magazine both domestically and internationally to a record high.

In 2007 she was awarded an OBE for services to fashion journalism and in 2018 a CBE for services to magazines. She has also written two novels, Can We Still Be Friends, and The Parrots both published by Fig Tree/Penguin, and a memoir of the Centenary year preparations for British Vogue, Inside Vogue: A diary of my 100th year. Her book Clothes....and other things that matter was published in spring 2020 was a Sunday Times Bestseller.  
She writes a weekly Notebook for the Mail on Sunday  and regular features for the Daily Mail as well as contributing to other papers and magazines. She is known as a commentator on female leadership, fashion, and contemporary style frequently appearing on news stories in this arena on the radio and television.