Edward Enninful, the Ghanaian-born editor who led British Vogue until 2023, warned that fashion risks sliding back to a narrow beauty standard. In an interview with BBC Radio 4's Radical with Amol Rajan during London Fashion Week, he said anti-woke rhetoric is having "a moment" and that being European or super-thin is too often treated as the norm again.
Enninful, who this week launched EE72, described the platform as inclusive and aimed at broadening representation. The first quarterly print edition focuses on the beauty of women over 50 and features Julia Roberts on the cover, a deliberate pivot from conventional fashion-world age norms.
Describing the industry as "an industry in flux at the moment," Enninful said he is excited to be returning at what feels like "the perfect time" because "there's a lot of work to be done". He left Vogue in 2023 to pursue his own projects, stressing that his departure was his decision, not a forced exit, and noting that Anna Wintour asked for a year's notice to find a replacement, who turned out to be Chioma Nnadi. "Anna and I, we text each other all the time," he said, adding that the two remain in touch and that people will likely see them together again.
On the Sydney Sweeney jeans advert controversy, Enninful said he thought people read into it deeper than he would have, acknowledging Sweeney is enjoying a high moment in her career, and that a blonde actress promoting jeans could trigger some viewers. "But then also on the other hand, I guess if you have a blonde woman sitting there talking about her jeans, it will trigger some people. So I feel like the population is quite divided really, isn't it?" he said.
In the same interview, Enninful addressed broader industry dynamics, including recent reporting of high-street fashion ads being banned for featuring models deemed "unhealthily thin" and other signs of a renewed reckoning with body image and representation. He framed the moment as part of a broader cultural conversation about what fashion stands for and whom it represents.
The comments come as Enninful continues to build EE72, a multimedia platform he describes as inclusive and necessary in a climate where visual culture increasingly shapes notions of beauty and worth. The inaugural print issue, centered on aging and real-human representation, signals a shift in emphasis from the often narrow samplings of beauty that have dominated the runway and glossy pages for decades.
The history between Enninful and Wintour, and their respective tenures shaping major fashion media, has long been a focal point for observers of the industry. Enninful noted that his exit from Vogue in 2023 was his decision, and he emphasized that Wintour remained supportive, recognizing the need for him to pursue projects outside the masthead. He indicated that a public split or acrimony was not his experience, and he hinted that audiences could expect to see him and Wintour in public together again in the future.
The broader debate about whether fashion should remain rooted in a singular idea of glamour or reflect a plural global audience shows no quick resolution. Enninful’s call for the industry to decide what it stands for—what it wants to celebrate and what it rejects—adds a high-profile voice to a conversation that shows no sign of abating as London Fashion Week unfolds and EE72 plots its next moves. He has framed his new platform not merely as a reaction to current trends but as a commitment to reshaping the industry’s narrative about who gets to be seen as beautiful.
All episodes of Radical with Amol Rajan are available to listen to on BBC Sounds.