{"id":37925,"date":"2023-09-19T02:53:27","date_gmt":"2023-09-19T02:53:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/?p=37925"},"modified":"2023-09-19T02:53:28","modified_gmt":"2023-09-19T02:53:28","slug":"chioma-nnadi-to-replace-edward-enninful-as-head-of-british-vogue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/2023\/09\/19\/chioma-nnadi-to-replace-edward-enninful-as-head-of-british-vogue\/","title":{"rendered":"Chioma Nnadi to replace Edward Enninful as head of British Vogue"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By the time London fashion week had begun last weekend, it was already the industry\u2019s worst kept secret.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But after months of conjecture surrounding who would replace Edward Enninful, the 51-year-old outgoing editor of British\u00a0Vogue, Cond\u00e9 Nast has told the Guardian that London-born journalist Chioma Nnadi will take over the role on 9 October.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once in post, Nnadi, currently editor of the US edition\u2019s website, will be known as head of editorial content, rather than editor-in-chief. She will also become the first Black woman to edit the storied fashion magazine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIs there pressure? Yeah, there\u2019s definitely pressure \u2013 it\u2019s Vogue,\u201d Nnadi said while speaking from her home in New York.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt still means something to be in Vogue, it still has authority. [And there\u2019s pressure] because of Edward. He broke new ground. It\u2019s more than being part of a magazine \u2013 it\u2019s part of the cultural conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The announcement followed a weekend of fashion shows that were partly eclipsed by Vogue World, the successful arts\/fashion event engineered by the magazine, which was also dubbed by attendees as \u201cAnna Wintour\u2019s flex\u201d. Perhaps sensibly, Nnadi remained in New York so as not to stoke rumours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new job title is not insignificant. Nnadi said her focus will be on \u201cdigital storytelling\u201d and keeping Vogue \u201cinteractive\u201d with readers \u2013 but it is also part of a shift that has seen the starry editors of Vogue\u2019s European editions, who once filled the front rows, replaced by global heads after Cond\u00e9 Nast\u2019s 2020 company-wide restructuring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As such, Nnadi is likely to work alongside Wintour, who has described Nnadi as a \u201cbeloved colleague\u201d who will focus on \u201cmusic and culture\u201d as much as fashion. For her part, Nnadi has credited Wintour with \u201cbringing Vogue into the future\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking after Vogue World, she added: \u201cWorking under Anna, you get a sense of what\u2019s going to be next. I haven\u2019t checked my email but she\u2019s probably on to the next thing already.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Born to a Swiss-German nurse mother and a Nigerian father who came to the UK to study in the 1960s, Nnadi grew up in central London, working at indie magazines such as Trace and the Fader, with which she credits her \u201cscrappy\u201d nature, before a stint at London\u2019s Evening Standard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2010, she moved to New York to work for Vogue, where Nnadi currently runs the US site, co-hosts the podcast and is one of the magazine\u2019s star writers, and the living embodiment of Wintour\u2019s mantra: \u201cAll platforms \u2013 all the time\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said she expected comparisons to be made between her and Enninful, but offered an assessment of their differences: \u201cAs a Black woman, but also as a biracial woman, how I view the world is also how I see it \u2013 through a lens that is influenced by my background, by where I live, and by having parents from different cultures and having to move between these cultures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThings have changed a lot. When I started out, there was one other Black person working in the building, and we both went to the same college. It wasn\u2019t the same place it is now. Obviously matters of diversity and inclusion should always be on the agenda, but it feels like more of an open conversation now, and that feels to me like progress,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"New
Chioma Nnadi: \u2018When I started out, there was one other Black person working in the building, and we both went to the same college.\u2019 Photograph: Evelyn Freja\/The Guardian<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Nnadi is an editor and writer while Enninful came through styling. She said she recognises Vogue is first and foremost a fashion magazine, but felt that \u201cthe impulse is the same, regardless of whether you style or write. Edward had that instinct, even though his background is different to mine. But the question will always be, how do we capture the zeitgeist. It\u2019s important to think about who is telling the story, and whose story we are telling.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Enninful announced he would be leaving Vogue after the March 2024 issue hits newsstands. His departure came as a shock after a successful but brief six-year tenure as both its first male and first Black editor, during which he was praised for featuring people of all skin colours, body shapes and backgrounds. Enninful plans to stay on at Cond\u00e9 Nast in an advisory role, and will cross over with Nnadi in the immediate future. \u201c[The British office] <\/strong>are already my colleagues because of the way we work globally,\u201d she said, adding they already have three meetings a week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nnadi is well versed on the criticism levelled against the magazine, particularly its often out-of-touch fashion price point. \u201cWhen I started at Vogue it was about having the latest new thing,\u201d she said. \u201cNow, there\u2019s a sense of archival fashion being just as important. I grew up going to Portobello Road every single weekend looking for vintage clothing. That was before it was super cool to do it.\u201d Will this devil wear vintage? \u201cI always stop by Rellik when I\u2019m in London, and go down Ladbroke Grove on a Friday, so most of my wardrobe now is resale and vintage\u201d, she said. \u201cOf course as I progressed, I was able to afford new things too,\u201d she said. One of her most prized possessions, though, is an Edwardian dress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nnadi said she was still house hunting in London, and planned to stay with family until she found somewhere to live. Despite being abroad for over a decade, she said she is still a Londoner at heart, although since discovering her friends had moved to east London, admitted \u201cthe axis of cool has definitely changed since I was here. It\u2019s a homecoming, but clearly a moment to learn too.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By the time London fashion week had begun last weekend, it was already the industry\u2019s worst kept secret. But after months of conjecture surrounding who would replace Edward Enninful, the 51-year-old outgoing editor of British\u00a0Vogue, Cond\u00e9 Nast has told the Guardian that London-born journalist Chioma Nnadi will take over the role on 9 October. Once […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":37926,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[80],"tags":[12487,6573,7355,5268,9548,9986,8403,10669,8590,3513,12326,11538,7880,9505,5455,7807,6225,3577,6782,9657,6030,2717,3684,10423,5058,990,5549,3230,11973,12103,9713,12605,3080,6348,3578,12790,5273,10415,36,594,12347],"class_list":["post-37925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-agenda","tag-black","tag-black-woman","tag-british","tag-british-vogue","tag-central-london","tag-chioma","tag-chioma-nnadi","tag-conversation","tag-culture","tag-decade","tag-digital","tag-edward-enninful","tag-european","tag-family","tag-fashion","tag-friends","tag-future","tag-homecoming","tag-hunting","tag-journalist","tag-lgbtq","tag-london","tag-mine","tag-music","tag-new-york","tag-nigerian","tag-nurse","tag-one","tag-price","tag-swiss","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-us","tag-vogue","tag-weekend","tag-woman","tag-work","tag-world","tag-who","tag-writer"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37925"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37925\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37927,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37925\/revisions\/37927"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}