EDITOR’S LETTER

This isn’t the letter I thought I’d be writing. I had planned to run you through the great contents of our Fashion Edition, from Julia Fox and all things bedlamcore to Rick Owens and Edward Enninful’s My London. But it’s 12.36pm on the day after the news broke.

To all intents and purposes London is still London, and yet it’s somehow changed forever. As I type this, outside the traffic jostles along Kensington High Street as always, pedestrians on their usual lunch-break dash; nothing out of place, nothing out of the ordinary except hanging over it all is the slow, sombre tolling of the bells at St Mary Abbots Church. Ninety-six times they ring to remember 96 years filled with loyal, unwavering service. Life is heavy with history today, and it’s a strange feeling.

We knew this moment was coming, of course, but that doesn’t diminish the sense of collective loss. In the immediate hours after first hearing, my thoughts turned to my late grandparents; I guess the Queen’s passing felt similar to when they died. No visceral moment of shock and disbelief, just a sad absence — a lessening. On page 10 you’ll find a wonderful photograph of Her Majesty, accompanied by some beautiful and moving words by Paul Flynn. Shot by David Montgomery, we see the Queen sitting on the floor in front of an electric heater, two of her beloved corgis curled up at her feet; no crown, no pomp and circumstance, just a woman relaxing with her pets. In my mind, death momentarily stripped the Queen of all the fanfare and regalia, revealing her, if only for a minute, as one of us. That’s who I see in that picture.

The bells have stopped now and, out of my office window, I watch a wedding party arrive at St Mary Abbots. Pink and yellow fascinators on top of flowery gowns dart around the pavement below like a menagerie of birds: against the solemn backdrop of the day, it’s a slightly jarring scene but one that seems to be messaging, ‘Life goes on’. And so it does.