Letter: Vogue editor seems to have missed the point

Sir: Is Alexandra Shulman (letter, 27 May) being deliberately obtuse, or has she honestly missed the point? Women in this country want to look like women - not 14-year- old waifs dressed in their mother's underwear.

The fact that she apparently has received only two letters and five telephone calls of complaint either indicates that her postroom and switchboard are inefficient - which I very much doubt - or that readers are too shocked to have yet put pen to paper, or picked up the telephone. I, for one, have been spurred to respond.

Ms Shulman claims that women complain when the female form in lingerie spreads is portrayed in too perfect a style. The forms depicted in the current shots bear no resemblance to the adult British female - 60 per cent of women in this country are a size 14 or over - but show an essentially pre-pubescent form in what are essentially pornographic poses.

Every day, the media is awash with stories of children and teenagers suffering from eating disorders - and in some horrendous cases, committing suicide - due to attempts to make their bodies conform to the media 'ideal' conveyed by opinion-forming titles such as Vogue. And, of course, we are all aware of the ever-increasing problems of child molestation, pornography and the like.

Would Ms Shulman be adopting the high moral ground - claiming the photographs are an artistic portrayal of the Nineties - if it were her daughter in the shots?

Yours faithfully,

RONA HUNNISETT

Croydon, London

27 May