February 9, 2024 | 1:42pm
MANILA, Philippines — The editor-in-chief of British Vogue Edward Enninful finished his spell at the magazine with a cover featuring fashion icons including the likes of Gigi Hadid, Naomi Campbell, Serena Williams, Victoria Beckham, and Oprah Winfrey.
British Vogue tapped 40 celebrity women from different tracks and trajectories for its March 2024 cover, apt for the upcoming Women’s History Month, which is Enninful’s final issue after six-and-a-half years.
The cover line, under a gold Vogue masthead that was largely covered by the huge ensemble, read: “Legendary! 40 Vogue icons. 1 epic shoot… The ultimate fashion issue.”
In a writeup for the magazine, Enninful shared his team’s realization the need for a group of women rather than a singular individual to encapsulate what he calls “a daring, disruptive and evolutionary period” for British Vogue.
“They also — by dint of extraordinary impact, force of personality, style and influence — needed to have reached beyond fashion and culture to change the fabric of society in the 2020s, in ways small and large and always positive,” Enninful added.
Each of the invited stars had featured on British Vogue during Enninful’s tenure, which made it easier to contact them, but the biggest worry was could all 40 be gathered in one studio to take a picture together?
Enninful noted that mother and daughter Cindy Crawford and Kaia Gerber rode together as did Salma Hayek Pinault and Linda Evangelista because the former stayed over at Evangelista’s house.
Even pop stars Miley Cyrus and Dua Lipa found time during their busy schedules, while Hadid managed to go home in time to attend to her three-year-old daughter Khai.
In the group were women who in some ways marked milestones for Enninful and British Vogue like activist black model and Adwoa Aboah (Enninful’s first cover star), Laverne Cox (the first trans person to appear on the magazine’s cover), and plus-size models Paloma Elsesser and Precious Lee.
“Simultaneously readying 40 of the world’s busiest women… is no mean feat. Everyone was in the highest of spirits, and it was fun to witness even the most worldly of stars’ jaws hit the floor at a never-before-seen gathering,” continued Enninful, noting that Cyrus said, “To get one of these women on a cover takes months. To get 40? Unheard of.”
Despite being surrounded by numerous iconic women, Enninful found himself thinking about his late mother, the women he’d worked with in other magazines, women, fashion designers, and even model debutants.
Enninful became the magazine’s first male and black editor when he joined in late 2017, and upon finishing his editorial stint — his successor Chioma Nnadi will be the magazine’s first black woman editor — will be Vogue’s global creative and cultural adviser.
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