It's so last century darling. As London's Vogue House 準備するs to wave 別れの（言葉，会） to its most illustrious 居住（者）s, former editor ALEXANDRA SHULMAN celebrates the end of a bold and beautiful 時代

• e-mail

If places can ever spawn nepo babies then I am the offspring of Vogue House, a building as familiar to me as anywhere I've lived. And what a building.

Home since 1958 to some of the best magazines of the 20th and 21st centuries ? not only Vogue, but House & Garden, Tatler, Vanity Fair, World of 内部のs, GQ ? it stands, magnificent, on the southern 味方する of Mayfair's Hanover Square, hosting and ハッチング 世代s of style.

The nepotism I 利益d from （機の）カム 経由で my mother, who edited Brides, then housed there, in the 70s, turning it from a staid bridal 定期刊行物 into a magazine featuring the best photographers of the age, such as Snowdon and Barry Lategan.

But it wasn't that which impressed the 15-year-old me when I visited her at the end of the day. It was that her team looked like they were having so much fun.

They would 割れ目 open several celebratory 瓶／封じ込めるs of white ワイン, sitting at desks laden with 製品s from PRs hoping for features in the magazine: piles of 望ましい make-up, which I would be given to take home, 妨害するs of food, 調書をとる／予約するs and travel brochures. It was my introduction to magazine life.

Home since 1958 to some of the best magazines of the 20th and 21st centuries ? not only Vogue, but House & Garden, Tatler, Vanity Fair, World of 内部のs, GQ ? it stands, magnificent, on the southern 味方する of Mayfair's Hanover Square

When I first wangled a 職業 in Vogue House during my gap year (certainly an 行為／法令／行動する of nepotism) I was a 'rover' (a stand-in 長官 for holidays and sick leave). At that time only the fourth and fifth 床に打ち倒すs, a 地階 library and a studio on the sixth 床に打ち倒す were used by its publisher 反対／詐欺d? Nast.

To 接近 these you had to get through Bunny, the immaculate receptionist, seated at a 抱擁する desk …を伴ってd by a rather put-upon assistant.?

She made it her 商売／仕事 to vet, with a 怪しげな ちらりと見ること, any unfamiliar 訪問者s: Cerberus at the gate of the kingdom of glossies.

I was then 宿泊するd in the small 職員／兵員 office behind 歓迎会, kept 占領するd by typing out the 名簿（に載せる）／表（にあげる） of 拡張 numbers. In those days ? working with typewriters rather than computers, and since the staff were always changing ? keeping the 名簿（に載せる）／表（にあげる） up to date was a Sisyphean 企業, 運命にあるd never to be 完全にするd.

One day I escaped humdrum 職員／兵員 to stand in for the second assistant to the managing director, Bernie Leser, in his cigar-scented 支持を得ようと努めるd-panelled office. My 職業 was to field his calls but such was my 完全にする 無（不）能 to master transferring them from my line to his that after two days he begged for me to be 取って代わるd. It is to his endless credit that he was a 大規模な 支持者 in my 存在 given the editorships, years later, of GQ and Vogue.

Alexandra Shulman pictured during her time as Vogue editor. 'When I first wangled a 職業 in Vogue House during my gap year (certainly an 行為／法令／行動する of nepotism) I was a 'rover' (a stand-in 長官 for holidays and sick leave),' she 令状s

Each magazine in the building is the editor's fiefdom, created in the image of the boss. When Vogue was edited by the formidable Beatrix Miller [between the 60s and the 80s], David Bailey, Tony Snowdon, Sir Roy Strong and Eduardo Paolozzi would visit her in her small office at the end of the fifth 床に打ち倒す (an office I would 相続する years later). It was always 薄暗い ? with a lightbox in the corner and a 塀で囲む where slides could be 事業／計画（する）d ? and could only be 接近d through a door in the corner.

When Anna Wintour 後継するd her 結局 in the 80s she 任命する／導入するd glass doors to the 残り／休憩（する） of the office, along with her own Biedermeier-style desk and pretty collection of colourful Clarice Cliff pottery. Out went the somewhat quirky style of Bea's Vogue and staff and in （機の）カム an army of young women in Anna's image ? high heels, leggings, pearl chokers, boucl? jackets ? along with a more modern open-計画（する） office.

I was then two 床に打ち倒すs 負かす／撃墜する on Tatler, at the time regarded as the wild child of the company. The editor was 示す Boxer, who seemed to care nothing about how his office looked. It was a Spartan glass box where he would spend every afternoon on the phone to George Melly, who helped him come up with jokes for his daily Times 風刺漫画. At five o'clock, having sent it off, he would 現れる to perch on our desks and ask 熱望して for （警察などへの）密告，告訴（状）. What was happening? What were people talking about? Who was sleeping with who? I managed to position my desk to look over the square ? much of the time I was trying to have 私的な conversations with one boyfriend or another, which 必然的に led to 涙／ほころびs, so I preferred to keep my 支援する to the room.

Alexandra's leaving card in 2017. The former editor 令状s: 'By the time I arrived to edit Vogue in 1992 nearly the whole building was colonised by 反対／詐欺d? Nast'

Alexandra at home 老年の 17. She says the nepotism she 利益d from （機の）カム 経由で her mother, who edited Brides

One afternoon, 50 red heart balloons arrived from a 希望に満ちた contributor I had just met. We stuffed them out of the window and watched them float over the square. In summer lunch breaks we would こそこそ動く up the 支援する stairs to the roof, where we could sunbathe in our underwear, drenched in Hawaii an Tropic, smoking and eating 挟むs bought with our 週刊誌 配分 of 昼食 保証人／証拠物件s.

Tatler was a renegade 乗組員 of 広大な／多数の／重要な talent and often 衝突／不一致ing personalities. Two of the staff who did not enjoy each other's company were the 無所属の政治家 writer Jonathan Meades and 井戸／弁護士席-connected features editor Sarah Giles. To say they despised each other was putting it politely. One day, in a fury, Jonathan grabbed Albert, Sarah's treasured dachshund ? the only dog 許すd in the building ? and 脅すd to dangle him by the 支援する 脚s from the third-床に打ち倒す window. The shrieks could be heard by the whole office.

By the time I arrived to edit Vogue in 1992 nearly the whole building was colonised by 反対／詐欺d? Nast. I was able to bring my bespoke curved desk into that famous Vogue editor's office. I painted the 塀で囲むs turquoise and 任命する／導入するd a Matthew Hilton leather sofa. Like all editors, and some 上級の staff, I had a prized slot, with its metal 指名する plate, in the car park ? it could be the 支配する of its own 文書の considering the 出来事/事件s that took place there, 含むing a member of staff caught in 極悪の delicto with another on the bonnet of one of the directors' cars.

In the 90s, GQ, which I had edited before Vogue, 卒業生（する）d from crummy offices a few doors along to the first 床に打ち倒す of Vogue House, bringing 増加するd numbers of men. So few 以前 worked in the building that there was only one male loo for all of them, on the (n)役員／(a)執行力のある 床に打ち倒す (the bosses were all male). At one point, 正規の／正選手 sweeps of the new GQ bathrooms were made by the 職員／兵員 director, checking for コカイン.

Fashion maven in the making: Shulman (second from 権利) and family, pictured together in 1965

一方／合間 we on Vogue had our own 問題／発行するs: a staff member was discovered hoarding the booty he had been stealing from the fashion-room rails in the 天井 above his desk. Unfortunately for him, one day the 天井 tile gave way and it all （機の）カム 宙返り／暴落するing 負かす／撃墜する.

Once a year the 大統領，／社長 of 反対／詐欺d? Nast, Si Newhouse, would visit from New York. We were given a day's notice with a 厳しい 警告 to spruce up the offices and make sure everyone was in situ 早期に since Si's idea of a late start was 8am. I remember once seeing him, a Colombo-like 人物／姿／数字 in his ざん壕 coat, shuffling his way along the 回廊（地帯）s 全く lost ? ignored by the many leggy blonde girls who had no idea who he was.

There had been rumours about the company leaving Vogue House for years but, given its prime 場所, no one was ever that keen. There seemed to be some rather flimsy argument that taxi and 特使 法案s would be bigger if we moved out of W1, where most of our 即座の 網状組織 was based. At one 行う／開催する／段階 the company considered moving to the Westfield 場所／位置, in Shepherd's Bush, and a space n ow 占領するd by 逮捕する-a-Porter. But again, few of the 上級の team 手配中の，お尋ね者 to leave the plush 近郊 of Hanover Square for a new-build next to the A40. Imagine how much it would cost to get to 社債 Street ? or to the Wolseley or Claridge's for lunch.

Now, though, in a いっそう少なく sentimental and indulged 気候, the magazines are on the march to pastures new and with them go the golden years of the glossies. I am so lucky to be left with the memories.