‘Fashion has to be more inclusive, it has to speak to people outside the normal demographic’
BBC presenter Amol Rajan speaks to Ghanaian-born Edward Enninful, who rose to the pinnacle of fashion in Britain as the editor-in-chief of British Vogue.
Enninful has dedicated his career to making fashion representative and relevant to all, ignoring the accepted conventions on which type of models will make magazines and clothes sell. Even before I knew what inclusivity was, he says, I knew something wasn’t right. But now Enninful warns fashion is at risk of returning to a narrow definition of beauty, where being thin, European and young is the ideal.
In this interview, he sets out an alternative vision of fashion where diversity is welcomed, and the beauty of older women is recognised - inspired by the ‘bodacious’ African women dressed by his seamstress mother throughout his childhood.
Enninful arrived in London from Ghana as a boy, and was fashion director of the influential i-D magazine by the age of 18. After being appointed editor of British Vogue in 2017, he spent six years at the helm before stepping down. He is now launching a new fashion and media platform EE72.
Thank you to the Radical podcast team for their help in making this programme. The Interview brings you conversations with people shaping our world, from all over the world. The best interviews from the BBC. You can listen on the BBC World Service, Mondays and Wednesdays at 0700 GMT. Or you can listen to The Interview as a podcast, out twice a week on BBC Sounds or wherever you get your podcasts.
Presenter: Amol Rajan Producers: Lucy Sheppard and Grace Reeve Editor: Justine Lang
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(Photo: Edward Enninful. Credit: Mike Coppola/Getty Images)