From my outsider perspective, Anna Wintour and Edward Enninful seemed to get along well. Maybe they were never super-close, but they respected each other and Wintour made a point of supporting Enninful throughout his tenure as editor-in-chief of British Vogue. So much of the reported drama around Wintour misses the fact that Wintour has largely consolidated her power at Conde Nast, and she acts as kingmaker or queenmaker for many of Conde Nast’s publications and their EICs. Enninful always served at Wintour’s pleasure, basically. Which makes the news of Enninful’s departure interesting.
Edward Enninful will step away from his post as editor-in-chief of the fashion bible’s UK edition next year, Vogue Business reported Friday. But Enninful’s continuing to move up at Condé Nast, and will transition into a new role as an editorial advisor for British Vogue and a global creative and cultural adviser for Vogue.
In an internal memo to the heads of editorial content at Vogue France, Vogue Italia, Vogue Spain and Vogue Germany (who all report to him), Enninful said he and Anna Wintour “have been discussing how I can play a broader role in enhancing Vogue globally.”
“I am excited to share that from next year I will be stepping into the newly appointed position of editorial advisor of British Vogue and global creative and cultural advisor of Vogue,” Enninful continued.
Enninful explained the new position will give him “the freedom to take on broader creative projects.” The Ghanaian-British creative — who has worked at Condé for more than 25 years — also shared plans to hire a head of editorial content for British Vogue.
So far, the Telegraph is the only major publication running this story as something potentially scandalous, like there’s some kind of “rift” and “power struggle” between Enninful and Wintour. Again, from where I sit, it seems like Enninful is being promoted though, and he’s probably going to be something like Wintour’s second in command when it comes to her global vision for Conde Nast’s publications.
Now, do I also think this “promotion” was designed to get him out of EIC position at British Vogue? Perhaps. While Enninful has gotten a lot of praise for modernizing one of the stuffiest Vogues, his modernizations have not been overwhelmingly supported or welcome, especially by those in the British Vogue community and British fashion community. I also wonder if Wintour was kind of mad that Enninful landed some big exclusives, like that Beyonce cover last year.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
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- Director British Vogue Edward Enninful at photocall of 10 edition Vogue Who On Next in Madrid on Monday, 25 October 2021. Cordon Press ** England Rights ONLY **,Image: 639860642, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: 797/DAVID/CORDONPRESS / Cordon Press / Cordon Press / Avalon
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- Edward Enninful on the red carpet for the ‘Eternals’ UK Gala Screening at BFI IMAX Waterloo in London, United Kingdom.,Image: 640321802, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: To licence this image, email info@sidetrack.london for more information., Model Release: no, Credit line: Cat Morley / Avalon
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- Anna Wintour and Edward Enninful attend The Fashion Awards 2019 at The Royal Albert Hall. London, UK. 02/12/2019 | usage worldwide
He’s going to end up leaving this new position when he realizes he’s been sidelined.
That’s what I’m thinking, this isn’t a promotion, he’s being shoved aside with a new fake title for a new fake position. They’ll let him hang around the office & collect a paycheck, and eventually he’ll leave for something more fulfilling.
100% This.
This is a tried and true “manage you out” technique.
Fancier title and less prominence.
I’ve also noticed that now most countries are moving into recession or economic slowdown that equity and inclusion is taking a hit. Companies need to woo advertisers etc and moving Eddie along is just part of that refit.
A promotion on paper, next one will be him leaving, boot licking can only take you so far.
Exactly. He’s being phased out. They can’t outright fire him without looking racist. So they will fake promote him and hamstring his every move until he gets fed up and quits.
I don’t work in publishing or fashion BUT I do work in a major corporation.
This reads like: extremely talented person that we like and do not want to fire may not be in a perfect role. We are going to “promote” him into this new role that takes advantage of all his talents. However, he is losing some of his control/direct authority in the process and will be an advisor/lead with influence instead of having the high level of authority.
So broader scope, less depth of control? perhaps a sign that they love his work, style, influence, etc, but maybe recognize that he’s not universally beloved in his current role. He’s progressive and innovative, two things that can ruffle feathers that need to be ruffled.
ETA: I am not super up on Edward Enniful’s current work/strategy so if I’ve missed something awful he’s done, don’t hold it against me.
In my corporate world this role was “ Director of Strategic Planning” aka, “we like you, you have significant dirt on many of the players here, therefore you get six very well paid months to a year to find a new gig and we won’t say anything bad about you but don’t waste your time trying to do any actual strategic planning”
Didn’t Wintour also push Andre Leon Talley into a meaningless advisory role? Enninful has gone from a fixed (and high) place in the publishing hierarchy to a word-salad position that seems to have been invented to keep him quiet.
A few years back, I read a profile about the ex-EIC of British Vogue before Enniful and she seemed like a very cliquish gate-keeper. He felt like a such a progressive upgrade compared to the woman I read about in that profile. So who’s going to be EIC now? Not sure I understand why he’s been moved.
Neither do I since he was able to resurrect the British Vogue publication. I do wonder if Wintour had a hand in his new position as he seems to have eclipsed Wintour and what she has been doing with Vogue in America.
And Wintour did Talley wrong!! Talley had been at Vogue as long as she had and was the one that made the Vogue what it was in the day. Vogue was once a beloved magazine that I enjoyed but I don’t subscribe to it anymore as it has lost its relevance.
This reads like a promotion with a wider span of influence, This also looks like Conde Nast succession planning for life after Anna
Wintour is 73. Will Enninfor win the Game of Thrones here? Is she actually pushing him out or clearing the way for him to be well placed to step into her role?
What’s fascinating here is that only time can tell. This move could go either way.
Devil Wears Prada-esque!
This popcorn is delicious 🍿
I guess there will be a return to lily whiteness. I expect a Keen cover soon.
US vogue has been pushing Kate hard on Insta.
Once you attend that coronation, you no longer cool, edgy and changing fashion. That is how I see it from where I am looking.🤔
I agree to a certain extent with this.
I think there is a lot of check-mating going on in the background.
AW can be tone deaf sometimes i.e. REPEATEDLY hiring photogs like Anne Leibowitz to poorly photograph and fetishise black women like Serena Williams etc.
But other times I feel she really does have her fingers on the pulse i.e. her management of the met gala and diversifying the readership and editorial of US Vogue. I truly believe that she thought Edward was initially a good hire or ‘fit’ for UK Vogue, but honestly I think they were expecting him to perform miracles. The UK is horribly class divided and right wing hence why we have magazines like Tatler etc. I understand her frustration with Eddie’s often at times pro-establishment bias and bootlicking, but the UK is a tough place to be an edgy Magazine Editor (which is why they stole him from I-D), whilst also securing advertising revenue. Our media is owned by 5 very rich and powerful white men so Eddie was always going to be in a tough spot.
By the way this is not me showing bias for EE, rather just stating fact and acknowledging that you can’t bootlick your way out of the situation and it’s often better to just edit yourself out of that offensive conversation. In any case he has reached the pinnacle of any editorial career – he was the Editor of UK Vogue….
Also the cracks were always there to see and EE complained about the racism at CondeNast a few times i.e. get profiled entering the building etc etc. If I remember correctly even Naomi Campbell had beef with EE’s predecessor Alexandra Schulman and was also profiled at the CondeNast building early in her career.
EE & AW’s vision and to some extent values never aligned and they never seemingly got on so this ‘promotion out of the door’ was always inevitable. This is cheaper than getting sued and having to pay him millions. It’s effectively a slow dance to see how long he can take it. If I were Eddie I would enjoy my very weird gardening leave where Vogue get to spy on me in my gilded cage and then move to another magazine geared towards a younger crowd – so not far off his I-D Magazine roots. Traditional print media is dying in the UK and Vogue will go down with it as there just isn’t the readership. When I was younger I bought print magazines religiously now I get them for free as Condenast give them to financial institutions like my company to increase their circulation numbers so I have no incentive to pay the £5.
I do not see the UK arm of CondeNast being profitable for much longer – especially after the pandemic where people now consume a lot of their fashion content on line or via Instagram. Why pay for something which is out there for free?
The only reason I hadn’t cancelled my (at that point c.20 year) subscription when Shulman left was inertia and Enninful taking over kept me on board as it made SUCH a difference to the magazine. I’m interested but cautious to see where they go next. I can absolutely see the changes he made making him enemies
I’m really sad about this. He has done wonders for the magazine. His memoir is fantastic. Love ya, Edward!
As a complete outsider, I read this as a forced step up to step out. Is Anna jealous of the praise he’s received?
I think it has more to do with the fact that it’s an open secret that he wants her job, and she’s not having it.
I’m hoping against hope he actually stays with the organization because I don’t believe there’s much of a future without him….
I don’t love that he made nasty comments about Meghan soon after she delivered the best selling edition in the entire history of the magazine (something about how she should have known better than to run afoul of the sacred etiquette of the RF blah blah blah).
Still, he did great work and its tough seeing him put out to pasture so early into his tenure. I guess he didn’t manage to appease the right folks with those comments after all.
EE also was the one to leak/spoil Meghan’s 40×40 project for her 40th birthday.
When he was called out, he acted blasé and shrugged it off.
And he’s good friends with Emma Thynn Weymouth, Marchioness of Bath, someone who will go to the opening of an envelope and who is most definitely not Team Sussex.
“Anna Wintour and Edward Enninful seemed to get along well. Maybe they were never super-close, but they respected each other and Wintour made a point of supporting Enninful….”
I am not sure this is the case. Remember when Wintour secretly collaborated with AK-47 and the Queen attended a fashion show in London while Enninful, unaware, was attending a show on the Continent? It was made very clear in the Press that Enninful was big mad and upset. That suck-up Royalist Enninful felt that Wintour undercut him and he should have been present as the Editor of British Vogue.
While I am so not a fan of an Enninful after his comments downplaying racism in the mistreatment of Meghan and how she should have played along with the “rules,” and his downplaying of Meghan’s role in British Vogue’s bestselling issue (only to copy it later), Wintour did do him dirty!
Edward is featured in the Vogue doc “The September Issue” and she was not kind to him at all. Lots of dressing him down and she ended up pulling a full spread he styled and had Grace Coddington re-shoot it. He seemed super stressed out all the time. Frankly I was surprised when she hired him for British Vogue because I didn’t think they connected. Anna is basically the boss of all the EICs at Conde so she made the call to fire Alexandra and put him in her place. It will be interesting to see what this means long term.
I don’t feel a particular way about Enninful. I don’t really like him, don’t hate him, he does good work but has to compromise himself a lot to succeed. I know some don’t like how he seemed to distance himself from Duchess Meghan and she was the one who made his magazine a global bestseller and style leader. His recent sycophantic fawning over King Charles was just embarrassing and tone deaf, and so unnecessary. This seems like a promotion but let’s see if it has any teeth to it. I think he’s rubbed a lot of people the wrong way making British Vogue too “woke” and they probably want it more society/ aristocratic and white again. I haven’t read American Vogue in years. Wintour treats people as very disposable. She did it with Andre Leon Talley, Joan Juliet Buck and lots of very good editors who go from full time staffers to “contributors”, which is basically gently pushing them out. Best of luck to Enninful and may he survive the Hunger Games.
Either she is promoting him, gentle firing him, or will try to prop him up as an Andre Leon Talley replacement. If everyone thinks back Anna covers really started to tank when she pushed out Andre.
I think she hired enniful as a diversity hire and he surprised her by hitting home runs. She has always undercut the british editors -,probably because she is british. Edward going to the coronation I assumed sealed his fate.
I Wish him luck.
Trust me – this is 1000% not a promotion.