01 / Career record
Early life
Edward Kobina Enninful was born on 22 February 1972 in Takoradi, Ghana, the fifth of six children of a Ghana Army officer. In 1985, after a coup removed President Ignatius Kutu Acheampong, the family relocated to London’s Ladbroke Grove; his mother worked as a seamstress, and her work with vibrant textiles for British-Ghanaian clients shaped his early aesthetic sense.
02 / Career record
A fast start at i-D
Enninful was discovered on a train at sixteen by the stylist Simon Foxton and soon began working on shoots alongside the photographer Nick Knight. At seventeen he began assisting i-D’s fashion director, Beth Summers, after briefly attending Goldsmiths, University of London; when Summers left, i-D co-founder Terry Jones offered Enninful the role. At eighteen, he became fashion director of i-D — the youngest fashion director of an international publication at the time — a post he held for more than two decades.
03 / Career record
Vogue Italia and W
From 1998, Enninful was a contributing editor at Vogue Italia under Franca Sozzani, working closely with photographer Steven Meisel; he has said "when I worked with Steven, I became a proper stylist." His "Black Issue," featuring only Black models and talent, sold out across the US and UK within 72 hours, prompting Condé Nast to print 40,000 additional copies. As style director of W magazine from 2011 to 2017, he grew advertising pages 16.7% year-on-year by May 2012 — the largest gain of any fashion title that period — and produced widely discussed covers including Kate Moss as a nun, photographed by Steven Klein.
04 / Career record
British Vogue
On 10 April 2017, Enninful was appointed editor-in-chief of British Vogue, becoming the first Black editor-in-chief in the title’s history. His tenure grew digital traffic 51% and brought in 140 new advertisers, maintained a full twelve-issue schedule through the 2020 pandemic while competitors cut back, and diversified the magazine’s staff to 25% people of colour. Notable covers included his first, Adwoa Aboah; Judi Dench at 85, the oldest cover star in the magazine’s history; and a September 2020 cover shot by Misan Harriman, the first Black male photographer to shoot a British Vogue cover in its 104-year history.
05 / Career record
Recent record
Enninful moved to a global advisory role across international Vogue editions in June 2023 and has since founded EE72, a global entertainment and media company. His honours include an OBE in 2016 for services to diversity in fashion, the CFDA Media Award in 2018, and the British Fashion Awards’ Leader of Change in 2021; his memoir, A Visible Man, was published in September 2022 and named Book of the Week on BBC Radio 4.
06 / At a glance
Quick facts.
- —Youngest-ever fashion director of an international magazine — i-D, at eighteen
- —Contributing editor at Vogue Italia from 1998, working alongside Franca Sozzani and Steven Meisel; styled the sold-out "Black Issue"
- —Style director of W magazine, 2011–2017, growing ad pages 16.7% year-on-year
- —First Black editor-in-chief of British Vogue, appointed 10 April 2017
- —Grew British Vogue’s digital traffic 51% and brought in 140 new advertisers during his tenure
- —Appointed OBE, 2016, for services to diversity in fashion; published the memoir A Visible Man, 2022