By Barbara Walshe

Vogue House is not intimidating. I say this because, if you're into fashion, Vogue is an institution. As Alexandra Shulman, editor of British Vogue, says: "You either define yourself as a Vogue reader or you don't." And I do. So, actually, going behind its doors is the stuff of dreams. It's like entering a magical world, going inside the pages of its magazine. Well, that's what I thought.

I arrive early for my interview with Shulman at Vogue House. I want to take in everything . Here's what I'm expecting - everyone to be six foot tall, painfully thin and look me up-and-down in a disgusted 'You don't have the latest Chloe' kind of way. That doesn't happen. The majority of women passing through the reception are not much taller than my 5 ft 4 (and a half!) inches, wearing summer dresses and pumps.

The receptionist is also not the door Nazi you'd expect. He's actually a friendly, cheeky chappy who keeps offering me the latest Condé Nast magazines to read. In fact, I'm just starting to feel vaguely disappointed when I glimpse a pile of glossy bags lined up behind his desk. The only name I can squint to see is Jaeger - and I'm filled with anticipation again. There they are. The beautiful bags full of beautiful clothes that adorn the beautiful pages of Vogue.

Eventually I'm summoned to the fifth floor and greeted by Alexandra Shulman's assistant (Alex to everyone else). My first impression is how squashed everything is. What seems like 50 desks are shunted into an impossibly small area, though this feeling is probably amplified by the rails of clothes and shoes cluttering the hallway. A short walk and I'm in the editor's office - a conservative sized, white office with views over Hanover square.

If Vogue House is not intimidating, then my first impression is that Shulman is. A busy woman renowned for her frankness, there's no air kissing or small talk, just a brief introduction in her straightforward manner before she sits and waits for my questions.

In fact, she's not entirely unlike editor Miranda Priestley in The Devil Wears Prada in how, without even uttering a word, her stare has the unnerving ability to say everything. I'm trying to figure out what it's saying to me when she opens her mouth and truly shocks me. Out comes the first of many searingly honest, often self-deprecating answers punctuated by laughter. Nothing at all like Priestley.

"I thought The Devil Wears Prada was a very funny film but it was a very fictionalised and exaggerated version of my existence," she laughs. "Though I was saying the other day to my assistant that the only time I really felt 'God, I see that in me' is when Priestly walks in and she's just throwing directions at her poor team of assistants and they're ranging from get this, do that, book a table. A total stream of consciousness. And I thought 'Yeah, I've done that'."

"The Devil Wears Prada was a very funny film but it was a very fictionalised and exaggerated version of my existence."

This, according to Shulman, is where the similarities between film and reality end. "I think fashion is very badly and inaccurately depicted in fiction. There are so many really interesting, creative and unusual individuals in fashion that, in itself, it is larger than life. And every time people try to fictionalise it, they actually make it almost less interesting and extraordinary than it is."

Her day-to-day duties as editor in this 'extraordinary' industry are, somewhat disappointingly, lots of mundane things like writing letters, making appointments and answering questions. "It's quite a business, Vogue. Editing the magazine is very specific, but it's not just looking at what's going into it. We get involved in events and charities, and there's the relationship with retailers."

This straight forward approach extends to her editing style. "Getting the balance right in the magazine is quite a big thing. I've got a big team and everybody suggests ideas. Then I'll have a look at whether I think things are going to work with whatever else I've decided I want in the issue. Maybe there's some kind of trend that's happening. I think about what the gaps are in the magazine, if it's looking a bit bleak, I'll say we need something light hearted. If it's looking too dark or too frivolous or too young or old, I'm constantly looking at that. And it's constantly changing."

But surely there's a glamorous side to being editor of Britain's style bible? The shows, the parties, the clothes? "A lot of my evenings are spent going to events that, by most people's definition, would be glamorous. And most of my days are spent in nice places with relatively interesting people. So, it is quite glamorous," she admits.

Then back she comes to the honesty. "It's also quite hard work. A lot of my job is seeing collections, and there are a lot of shows where you've got to be very focused on what you're seeing. There are also a lot of people to meet at them, like photographers or advertisers or possibly potential staff. So there's a lot of chat and very long days. But it's mainly interesting."

So, what does she love about her job? "As an editor, you can put in what you want. Life is all material and you can find a way of using almost anything. I really love that because it keeps your mind engaged and having the opportunity to put in a magazine what interests you to show to other people is a great luxury and a treat."

To balance her time editing, Shulman also writes a weekly column in The Mail. "At Vogue, I think of myself as the editor, not Alexandra Shulman. I don't sit on judgement or personally say 'I like this' or 'I don't like this'. In my column, I get to give my opinion. So it's a really nice thing to have that."

Alexandra Shulman didn't grow up wanting to be the editor of a fashion magazine. The daughter of theatre critic Milton Shulman and writer Drusilla Beyfus, author of Modern Manners , grew up aspiring to be a photographer. "But then I went to university and studied anthropology and when came out, I realised that I wanted to earn more money than I would do if I started trying to be a photographer." So she went into the recording industry to start off with and then fell into magazines by default.

Success came relatively fast. After two years as a secretary at Over 21 magazine, she joined Tatler in 1982 and left as features editor in 1988 to join The Sunday Telegraph. A year later, she moved to Vogue as features editor, became the editor of GQ magazine in 1990 and then moved back to Vogue where she produced her first edition as editor in 1992 - at the age of 35.

"It is like a business and becoming more and more so. So the idea of fashion as a totally kind of frivolous, frothy, female thing isn't a reality in which I work."

In her characteristically frank way, she admits: "I didn't find it terribly difficult working my way up. When I started out in the eighties, in some ways it was more relaxed and not quite as much a business as it is now. I look at my juniors and think they really do work hard and it's really competitive and hard to get jobs. And it's so expensive to live in London. But then I hear about what they're doing and they just adapt. People find a different way of doing things."

On becoming Vogue editor, Shulman had some important decisions to make about her own lifestyle. Would she bow to the pressure of public scrutiny or live life regardless of it? She chose the latter.

"I don't dress up all the time. I'll probably wear jeans and a t-shirt or maybe a little vintage dress on weekends. I don't ever think about whether I'm being scrutinised or not, it's something that I've just very early on decided not to think about." Bringing up her son also helps with this. "I'm mother of one twelve year old boy, which is not particularly glamorous and I do a lot of things that aren't to do with fashion. So I've got a life outside it all."

Shulman takes the same approach to shopping. She could easily have any clothing item at her disposal within hours or days, but it's not her style. "I love clothes but am rather haphazard in my approach. I tend to shop in rather a hit-and-run kind of way. I'll suddenly just think I feel like buying something and I'll just go out and buy whatever I want. It's the best way of doing it I've found because they're things you really like and you want them as opposed to buying what you think you need, wearing it once and then never again."

She says she is delighted by the growing awareness of fashion amongst British women - whether down to fashion magazines or TV programmes like 'What not to wear' and 'How to look good naked'. "Women are hugely more aware of fashion now and much more interested in trends. It's fantastic for us and all good news.

"Most people just didn't know who most designers were 20 years ago. There weren't so many designers and you didn't have diffusion lines like D&G or Emporio Armani. Now people buy into it all the time even if it's sunglasses, knickers or tights."

But for these fashion-obsessed women dreaming of leaving their day job for it, Shulman has a stark warning: "It is an absolutely wonderful area in which to work but you'll probably make more money where you are! It is like a business and becoming more and more so. So, the idea of fashion as a totally kind of frivolous, frothy, female thing isn't a reality in which I work."

And, yet, Shulman couldn't look happier. Turning 50 this year and in her fifteenth year editing Vogue, she says: "It's the best time of my life now. Definitely." And who could argue? On top of her game and at the elite end of the fashion industry, she has the job millions of women only dream of. But what's best about Shulman is that she doesn't strike a pose. She's realistic, relatively unaffected by the industry's strong focus on the external and, best of all, she's laughing.