Her face has launched a thousand magazines and sold even more, but Jennifer Aniston will not be appearing on the cover of Vogue in Britain any time soon.In an interview with the Observer Magazine, Shulman said: "Somebody like Jennifer Aniston will only do an interview with copy approval and picture approval. I've never had anybody on the cover, ever, who's had copy approval and picture approval. I just don't think it's a proper thing if you do."
The practice of demanding to read and amend an article and to choose which photos will be used before publication has become increasingly commonplace among celebrities anxious to protect their public image.
Shulman's stand is all the more surprising given that Aniston, who made her name in the 1990s sitcom Friends before starring in hit films including Marley & Me and Horrible Bosses, is one of the bestselling celebrities on the newsstands. When she appeared dressed in a tuxedo jacket on the front of Marie Claire in the US last July, the issue was their top seller of the year. In 2010, when Aniston was on the cover of Harper's Bazaar, sales went up 22%.
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However, Shulman, 54, who has been editing British Vogue since 1990, said that she felt some PR people and celebrities now exerted too much influence.She said: "It's this thing of people just basically treating you… as if you're bound to be doing something that is in some way going to be insulting to their client. I just find that so offensive."
In a wide-ranging interview, Shulman, whose first novel, Can We Still Be Friends, is published this month, also talked openly about her panic attacks – a recurring problem ever since she fell ill with glandular fever in her second year at Sussex University.
"When I first got them, I thought I was going to die," she said. "I literally thought I was dying. And then you've got this odd thing where half of your brain is going: 'This is a panic attack, it's fine, keep calm, it'll pass' and half of you is saying: 'I am going to die.' And it's so frightening that your body and your brain are out of sync with each other."
Shulman added: "I think if you have a susceptibility to it, it isn't something that you can eradicate completely so I'm sort of aware of a vulnerability to it."
Shulman was similarly candid when asked about her part in perpetuating a fashion culture where extreme thinness is equated with beauty.
She said: "I think it's one of the real blinkered aspects of the fashion industry, and I find it very frustrating and I don't know quite where it comes from but I think if I had to absolutely nail it, [it's] probably the designers, because they're the ones that are cutting the clothes so small. And if the girl can't fit into the clothes, then they won't get booked. So then you've got the model agent saying: 'You've got to lose weight.' And then, when it comes down the wire, the photographers – and to some extent the fashion editors – want to use the girls that they think are the cool girls, and the cool girls are the ones who have got to be working with the designers, so it kind of feeds itself."
In June 2009, Shulman wrote a letter to major international fashion houses including Karl Lagerfeld, John Galliano, Prada and Versace, complaining that their "minuscule" sample sizes were forcing fashion editors to use models with "jutting bones" and "no breasts or hips". But, three years on, she admitted that the letter did not have any great impact.
"I'm pleased I wrote it. Did it make any difference? I don't think so. But at least I tried to do something."
As a single mother – Shulman has a teenage son with her former husband, the US writer Paul Spike – she also had forthright views about maternity leave. "The reality is, if you take time out and have children, it does damage your trajectory in some way," she said. "You can't pretend it doesn't."
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media 2012
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