British Vogue's Alexandra Shulman for Black Coffee and Red Lipstick

Alexandra Shulman is a writer and commentator. She was British Vogue's Editor-in-Chief from 1992 to 2017 and was awarded the CBE in the 2018 New Year's Honours list.

She is currently a columnist for the Mail on Sunday, a contributor to a variety of newspapers and magazines, and a Vice President of the London Library.

Black Coffee and Red Lipstick is a collection of essays that weave ideas about our domestic and daily life – hence the black coffee – 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 behaviour that make us who we are?

The essays are 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.