“I Wanted A Magazine Where Everyone Could See Themselves”

Edward Enninful, Vogue Editor-In-Chief, Since 2017

On Sunday December 4th 2022 Sky TV Aired Francine Lacqua’s Bloomsberg News Interview With Vogue Editor Edward Enninful OBE (Photo: Rafael Pavarotti) (Photo Bloomberg Media Group/ Mikael Selassi)

It Prompted Us To Review Some of His Busy Book Tour Schedule For His Memoir ‘An Invisible Man’. Hardcopies of The Book Were Out By Mid August 2022 & Globally Available From September 6th 2022 Onwards.

On Sunday September 4th 2022 Prior To The Big Book Launch Party At Claridges That Evening, Enninful Was The Guest of Honour At The National Theatre, On London’s Southbank Where He Was In A Discussion With Award-Winning Writer & Actor Michaela Coel. The Hot Ticket Event Was Billed As ‘An Evening With Edward Enninful’.

The Next Day On Monday September 5th He Sat Down With Bloomberg’s London Based International Reporter Francine Lacqua For Her Series ‘From The Ground Up’ (Wherein She Talks To The Great And The Good In Business). The Interview Was A Captivating Modern Day Business Masterclass On Diversity, Inclusion, Setting An Example And Mixing The Traditional With Modern Day Digital.

Sky TV Channel 502 (Bloomberg News) Re-Ran It 9.30 am ~ 10.00 am Sunday December 4th 2022 .

Photo By Rowben Lantiton: Businessman François-Henri Pinault, Vanessa Kingori, Salma Hayek (Actress & Wife of Francois-Henri Pinault), Michaela Coel, Edward Enninful, Darnell Strom (Premiere Entertainment Agent) At The Claridges Launch Sunday September 4th 2022

He Describes His Fashion Filled Career Journey To The Very Top, Which He Calls A Journey “From Outsider To Insider.” With Style, Self-Awareness And Authenticity, He Gives An Excellent Revealation of His Motivations And How He Made It. (In 2018 A Year After Becoming Vogue UK Editor In Chief He Was Awarded An Honorary Degree bY Goldsmiths University, South London, Having Left His Course There As A Student, Over Three Decades Ago, To Become The Youngest Ever Editor of I-D Magazine At The Age of Just 18).

Lacqua Too Is Excellent As She Gives A Masterclass In How To Naturally Illicit The Best From A Guest By Not Making It About The Interviewer But About The Guest And Staying Focused On Them. All Too Often We Witness Some Journalists Ruining The Experience For The Audience By Trying To Hard To Show What A Tough or Clever Journalist They Are. This Is A Trap So Many Interviewers Tediously Fall Into And In So Doing Ironically They Fail To Get What Was Potentially An Informative Interview.

Here Lacqua’s Skill Is Simple. She’s Just Having A Chat With Someone She Respects, Treats As An Equal And Is Genuinely Interested In And To Whom She Takes The Time To Listen, And From There They Both Develop A Naturally Informative, Flowing, And Fun Conversation.

Stand By What You Believe In

Even Though I Was The Token Black Editor In The 90s I Knew Even Then That I Needed To Bring People Up With Me.

Maybe It Was Growing Up In A Family of 6 [Kids] I Don’t Know. [Lacqua Laughs.]

CL: When You Run A Team How Do You Instil That Work Ethic?

EE: You Set An Example You Know. If You’re An Editor Who Leaves And Has Lunches And Is Never In The Office. You Don’t Really Instil Faith. My Team Know That We Are On A Mission. We Have To Reflect The World We Live In Beauty of Multiculturalism, The Beauty In Diversity And Inclusivity. So Everyone Takes It Really Seriously. We Have Really Intense Conversations About The zeitgeist And The World. So I’m Very Lucky To Have A Team Which Is Passionate. And You Know I Can Call My Team, Somebody, At 6.00am or They Can Call Me At 6.00am And I’ll Pick Up And They’ll Pick Up. So You Know We Have Something Very Special That We’ve Built Up Over The Past Five Years.

CL: But There Have Been Difficult Times Though. Like One of Your First Issues You Thought You Could Have Been Fired For It. Right?  [Enninful Laughs]

EE: I Lived In America For A Bit. I Was Working For W Magazine And There Was Talk of Brexit And Americans Were Like “Your Country’s Really Xenophobic”. And I Came Back And I Was Like I’m Going To Welcome Everybody With Open Arms. A Baptism of Fire.  I Remember Thinking  I Wanted To Create A Magazine Where Every Woman Could See Themselves. Where Every Woman, Regardless of Their Background, Their Age, They Could See Themselves.

Now It Looks Like It’s The Norm When You Look At Other Magazines But In 2017 That Was A Radical Idea. But I Also Remember Thinking With My Background I’ve Lost So Much And Gained So Much If I’m Fired I’d Rather Be Fired For What I Believed In. I’d Rather Be Fired For Putting Out A Magazine That Reflects The World We Live In Rather Than Creating A Secondary Version of Someone Else’s Vision.

Have Your Own Vision of Success

CL: And That Continues. There’s This Idea of Always Pushing Forward. Right? What’s The End? How Do You Measure Success?

EE: Definitely Not Financial. For Me When I’m Really Exhausted, When I’m Really Tired, When I’m Really Questioning If I Can Go On, And I Walk Down The Street And I See A Little Girl, A Little Black Girl, Who’s Seen The Magazine, And It’s The Norm For Them. Or A Curvy  Woman On A Train To Paris Who Comes Up and Says “Thank You For Seeing Me”, You Know, That’s What Makes It Worth It. That For Me Means Success. Anyone Who Knows Me or Has Known Me For A While Can Witness That For Me Is Success. You Know, My Job Is Done When That Happens.

CL: Do People Come Up To You?

EE: They Do But It’s Always In A Positive Way. It’s Always Thank You For Seeing Us, You Know. But I Can Relate Because By All Accounts I Was Meant To Be Invisible. So For Me Shining A Light on People And Making Them Seen Is Natural For Me.

CL: They Say The Fashion Industry Is Changing. Are Others Around You Changing?

EE: I Mean Now You Know, If You Look At Other Magazines And See Real Women In There It’s No Longer A Radical Act. You Know People of Colour. Women of Colour On Covers Isn’t A Radical Act. So It’s Been Normalised. For Me I’m Quite Happy When I See That. When You Put Dame Judy Dench On The Cover And She’s 85 Year’s Old And The World Doesn’t Question Should She Be On The Cover or You Put A Girl In A Hijhab On The Cover It’s Not A Problem. For Me It Shows That You know We’re Advancing. We’re Progressing. Progress For Me Is Very Important.

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