THE new SEASON
The September issue of ELLE is all about celebrating the new and the next. It is where we share the latest looks from the catwalk in our mammoth trend report (p81), updating you on the seismic shifts (as well as teeny tweaks) heading your wardrobe’s way. It is also the issue where we explore two hot travel destinations (we are nothing if not optimistic), as well as the bold new trends in wellness and beauty. But it has also become something else: a showcase for this country’s next generation of media stars. Why? Because, once again, we have invited 10 young women to join us as we worked on this very special September issue.
Readers with good memories will recall that last year my team and I embarked on an ambitious new project called The ELLE Social Mobility Mentoring Programme.
As part of that scheme, we opened up the magazine to a handful of young women from some of the country’s most forgotten areas: places where employment opportunities for those coming out of education were at their very lowest and where jobs in the media don’t appear on many career advisors’ radars.
Over the past 12 months, the ELLE team and this brilliant band of young women embarked on a journey of discovery. They were exposed to the inner workings of a fashion magazine (as well as what it takes to make it in the wider creative industries), while we were exposed to what it feels like to be young, caught in the midst of Covid-19 and growing up in a place that feels a long way from the corridors of a glossy magazine brand.
Undoubtedly the British media is one of the best in the world, but it is also one of the hardest, most impenetrable industries to break into. There are many reasons why this is, not least a pooling of jobs in the capital and a long history of free internships (now thankfully largely outlawed), as well as an overproduction of, and over-reliance on, elite-educated candidates for an ever-decreasing number of jobs. But at the heart of this industry are networks. Big, sprawling networks where job opportunities are whispered on the wind, friends of friends extend gilded hands and favours are repaid and replayed within the same circles.
We wanted to change that, which is why we have once again joined forces with the Social Mobility Commission, as well as Cartier, to find a new group of 10 women from across the country to work with us on this issue and for the coming year. (And yes, they are paid for their time.)
Speaking of new, I’m delighted to introduce you to this month’s cover star, British-Somali boxer and model Ramla Ali, an individual who has literally fought her way to the top. This month, she will step into the ring at the Tokyo Olympics, where she will fight on behalf of her birth country Somalia. Though there may be no cheering allowed at this year’s tournament, we will be cheering from afar.
This is the September issue of ELLE, for those who believe that change is always worth fighting for.
“British media is one of the best in the world, but it’s also one of the HARDEST to break into”