Naomi and Kate adore him. So can the new Vogue editor, who killed off the posh girls, live up to the hype?
DEEP inside the offices of Vogue magazine, the cover of next month’s edition is being guarded with the kind of paranoid secrecy usually reserved for a royal wedding dress.
The December issue, due out in early November, is the first to be published since the much- trumpeted arrival of Edward Enninful, British Vogue’s first male and black editor-in-chief in its 101-year history.
Brought in as a replacement to long-standing editor Alexandra Shulman earlier this year, 45- year- old Enninful’s appointment has sparked some high-profile departures from the glossy mag — and the appointment of a new team to help ‘diversify’ a publication which, for the past century, has been a bastion of the well-heeled, the wealthy and, say critics, the predominantly white.
But with first impressions being everything, Enninful is apparently sparing no expense when it comes to making his debut in the editor’s chair.
For while the details of next month’s maiden cover remain a tightly guarded secret, a wellplaced source told the Mail this week that the Ghanaian-born former model and fashion stylist has blown most of his entire December budget on producing the cover alone.
His aim, no doubt, is to live up to claims that he will be a modernising influence at the magazine while diverting attention away from the bloody drama that has been unfolding at Vogue House in London’s Hanover Square over the past few months.
More clues as to the famous face Enninful may be sticking on his maiden cover in a moment. But given the way he is said to have been splashing cash around, expectations are high from a man awarded an OBE in 2016 for services to diversity in fashion.
It was always going to be a messy affair — the end of a regime which, in the words of one unkind commentator, had become synonymous with ‘sloaney sloths’, and the arrival of a man said to be determined to ‘remove the posh girls’.
Since news of Enninful’s appointment last April, there has been a fast-flowing stream of high-profile departures from the fashion bible. Deputy editor Emily Sheffield, a baronet’s daughter and the sister- in- law of former prime minister David Cameron, was one of the first to leave, despite once being tipped as a future editor.
SO, TOO, was fashion director Lucinda Chambers who had been at the magazine for 36 years, as well as Frances Bentley, managing editor for 24 years.
The lower ranks are being pruned, too, with a voluntary redundancy package said to be aimed at losing a substantial number of staff.
So far, only a handful of employees are believed to have put up their hands to go, leaving the rest of the staff quivering in their redsoled Louboutins about where the axe might fall next.
As a magazine source told me this week: ‘No one is sure what’s going to happen next. There’s a lot of angst and some sobbing in the ladies’ loos.’
Indeed, while Enninful’s appointment has been celebrated by huge swathes of the fashion world, especially by his supermodel pals Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss, who have both been given roles at Vogue as contributing editors, Edward Enninful’s rise to the top has been met with less enthusiasm in some quarters.
Aside from critics who point out that he has no journalistic experience, there are those opposed to dabbling with the traditional image of a magazine which has been a firm fashion staple for more than a century.
Among them, it seems, is former editor Alexandra Shulman.
Last week, in a column that was seen by many as a thinly veiled attack on the new editor and his penchant for celebrities, Shulman — who edited Vogue for 25 years before she left in June — wrote of the qualities required by a good magazine editor.
‘It’s certainly not a job for some- one who doesn’t wish to put in the hours and thinks that the main part of their job is being photographed in a series of designer clothes with a roster of friends,’ she wrote in the piece for the Business of Fashion website.
She also appeared to criticise Enninful’s decision to appoint high-profile ‘contributing editors’ such as Moss and Campbell, questioning whether they would really be prepared to do any hard work.
She wrote: ‘It has been interesting and educative to see over the years which of the more dilettante or famous contributors really put some effort into their contributions and which liked the idea of an association to the magazine without the tedious business of actually doing any work.’
However, sources told me this week that an enthusiastic Campbell has been seen beavering away on her laptop in the Vogue offices, penning her piece for Enninful’s first issue.
‘She’s taking her role as contributing editor very seriously,’ said one. As one of Enninful’s dearest friends, Campbell — along with fellow supermodel Kate Moss — is rarely far from his side.
During fashion week season in Milan, London and Paris, Enninful was seen in the front row in the company of Moss and Campbell.
‘He doesn’t seem to go anywhere in public without them draped over him,’ says one fashion commentator who spoke to the Mail.
Certainly, his bond to both women is close. He has known Moss since they were teenagers when Enninful was also a model, and the pair have holidayed together. Campbell, likewise, is one of his greatest supporters and affectionately known as ‘Aunty Omi’ on the Instagram social media account of Enninful’s beloved Boston terrier, Ru.
It was Campbell who, as Enninful arrived at Vogue House in August, ripped into Alexandra Shulman’s former regime, posting a photo- graph on Instagram of the magazine’s staff taken to mark the outgoing editor’s final edition.
Pointing out that there were no people of colour in the photo, she didn’t mince her words: ‘Looking forward to an inclusive and diverse staff now that @edward_enninful is the editor.’
Enninful’s appointment has been applauded by many in the fashion world. For years, Vogue has laboured under criticisms that it has become too staid and out of touch in a world that is increasingly about celebrity, big brands and the internet.
CRITICS argue that an over-entitled and privileged culture had infiltrated the magazine. But given the amount of money Enninful has been getting through in recent weeks — not to mention the hugely luxurious hotels in which he has been staying during fashion weeks, is he in danger of facing similar accusations?
Aside from staying in a suite at
the Four Seasons, one of Milan’s most expensive hotels, during fashion week, he also took up residence at the ruinously pricey Hotel de Crillon in Paris, posting a photograph on Instagram of his sumptuous, flower-filled suite.
One industry source says: ‘It’s rather ironic that compared with Alex, who was always somewhat understated, Edward comes across as much grander.’
Those who have met the new editor describe him as charming, softly spoken and mild-mannered. But he clearly enjoys the good life. During Milan Fashion Week, tensions were observed between Enninful and his driver.
He was said to have been furious after the Vogue boss kept him waiting for hours while he attended an event outside the city, only for Enninful to climb into his friend Naomi Campbell’s car instead.
It was in Milan, too, that Enninful was spotted having a very cosy dinner with Cindy Crawford and her 16-year- old daughter Kaia Gerber, who is being feted as the model of the moment.
The sighting at Bice, a historic restaurant in the heart of the city, has fuelled speculation that Enninful has chosen the teenager to be his first Vogue cover-girl.
It certainly wasn’t the only time he was seen with the mother and daughter. He also posted personal snaps of both women on his Instagram account, describing Kaia as ‘breakout star of Fashion Week’.
But there are other contenders. One such is hot new model Adwoa Aboah, 25. The daughter of a British mother and a Ghanaian father who are both in the fashion business, she has already appeared on the cover of American Vogue. She is a mental health campaigner who has talked openly about her own battle with depression, and Enninful has made her one of his contributing editors.
The man behind his appointment is Jonathan Newhouse — whose family has shown genius in appointing brilliant editors in the past and has owned Conde Nast — one of America’s great publishing houses and Vogue’s owner — since 1959.
Jonathan describes his new editor glowingly as ‘an influential figure in the communities of fashion, Hollywood and music which shape the cultural zeitgeist’.
NEWHOuSE and his wife, Ronnie Cooke Newhouse, owner of luxury fashion advertising agency House & Holme, are widely regarded as one of the most influential couples in fashion and are said to dote on Enninful.
At a time when Conde Nast is cutting budgets at other magazines, including Tatler where a third of the staff were laid off last week, Enninful, whose long-term partner is American film-maker Alec Maxwell, appears to have been given free rein to spend.
This is in contrast to the announcement earlier this month that the company’s uK version of Glamour magazine will become a predominantly online operation.
As one magazine industry insider explains: ‘ The problem is that internet sites such as Instagram are killing advertising revenue for glossy magazines. It’s cheaper to give someone like Cara Delevingne a handbag and reach millions of targeted followers than to buy a double-page spread.’
But when it comes to conquering the internet, Enninful’s vast circle of celebrity friends and his powerful social media following — he has more than half a million followers on Instagram alone — give him a huge advantage.
Recent posts on his Instagram feed include his own behind-thescenes snaps of famous models such as Irina Shayk and Jourdan Dunn, as well as shots of him cuddling actress Nicole Kidman and designer Marc Jacobs.
There are also personal photos of Claudia Schiffer, Helena Christensen and several of Campbell and Moss.
As a hugely successful fashion stylist, Enninful is said to have a clear understanding of the power of social media.
It was to this, perhaps, that Alexandra Shulman was referring when she wrote in her column that ‘the new guard of editors, who will take the reins going forward, will be less magazine journalists and more celebrities or fashion personalities with substantial social media followings’.
One of the first things Enninful did after arriving at Vogue was to launch the magazine on Snapchat, the social media app that is adored by millennials.
HIS ROOTS, in the Enyan Denkyira region of central Ghana, are certainly a world away from those of his privately educated predecessor. When Shulman was appointed editor in 1992, it was said that ‘Vogue is almost in her blood’.
Enninful, on the other hand, is the son of an Army officer and a seamstress who came to live in London in the Seventies.
He and his five siblings were raised in a working- class household in Ladbroke Grove, West London. His mother had hoped her son would become a lawyer, but when he was just 16 he was spotted by a modelling scout while travelling on the Hammersmith and City Tube line.
From modelling he turned to styling, and by the age of 18 he was style director for i-D magazine. Later he became a contributing editor at Italian Vogue before moving to American Vogue as a freelance stylist. He has also been fashion director at W Magazine.
He took up his position as editorin-chief at British Vogue in August and promptly got to work on his mission to ‘diversify’ the magazine’s staff. But aside from the swathe of celebrity chums he has hired as ‘contributing editors’ — as well as Campbell and Moss, there’s film director Steve McQueen and celebrity make- up artist Charlotte Tilbury — several of the plum senior jobs appear to have been given to men.
Among them are former Sunday Times journalist Giles Hattersley — who wrote a glowing article about Enninful when his appointment was announced — who has been made Features Director, as well as GQ’s former managing editor Mark Russell, who has taken over as managing editor from Frances Bentley, a stalwart for more than two decades.
Inevitably, the greater problem facing Enninful is whether he will be able to live up to all this hype.
In certain fashion quarters, no doubt, pencils — not to mention stilettos — are being sharpened in readiness to critique his debut.
Whatever happens, you can be sure that the efforts of this brilliant son of a Ghanaian-born Ladbroke Grove seamstress will mark a fashion milestone.