The editor of Vogue position is a hallowed figure, although the last incumbent at British Vogue uses the slightly watered-down moniker of “head of editorial content” instead. So meaningful, in fact, that trends and style eras are often defined by a new name’s comprehensive explanation in its first issue.
Chioma Nnadi’s debut Vogue album, released on Thursday, features singer FKA Twigs posing on top of a London taxi wearing a Loewe dress whose square front panel went viral after being compared to a Post-it note. Nnadi’s choice to feature this image on the cover will only increase the design’s meme status.
“As an editor, you want every cover to be great,” says Justine Picardie, former editor-in-chief of Harper’s Bazaar and onetime features director of Vogue. “The cover is really important on newsstands. You get a lot of exposure in the big monthly magazines; But now you’re being judged just as much on social media, which is really hard.”
Picardie recalls how she wanted to “do something fresh and new while subtly looking at the great Bazaar images of the past” with the first issue of Harper’s Bazaar, released in December 2012 and featuring Sienna Miller.
Nnadi was appointed at a time when Anna Wintour was consolidating her power at the Condé Nast publishing house, where the heads of the magazine’s non-US editions now reported to her. “This will be signed by Anna Wintour, who is Chioma’s advisor and mentor,” explains Picardie.
How have the four Vogue ‘firsts’ of the past 36 years defined the era in which they were created?
Anna Wintour – high-low look hit Vogue in 1988
With her strict uniform of flawless bob cut, form-fitting midi dresses and Manolo Blahnik heels, Anna Wintour might not immediately strike you as the figure who brought jeans to Vogue, but her editorship of the American edition began with a cover that blew away tradition. It marked the beginning of a more entertaining version of the magazine.
In the November 1988 issue, Israeli model Michaela Bercu was seen wearing a designer black silk Christian Lacroix jacket adorned with a multicolored jewel cross. This highly prized piece was styled seductively with a pair of affordable Guess jeans, and Bercu looked perfectly flawless with her tummy glistening, “I got up like this” wavy hair, and laugh lines around her eyes.
“Michaela had been on vacation at home in Israel and had gained some weight. That wasn’t the point. In fact, it only served to reinforce the idea of taking the haughty glamor of couture and playfully throwing it into real life and seeing what happens,” Wintour later wrote of the cover. “What none of us expected to be on the cover, especially the magazine’s printers, was when they called and said with some surprise, ‘Was there a mistake?’ asked. I couldn’t blame them. It was so different from the studied and elegant close-ups seen on the covers of Vogue at the time. This time he broke all the rules.”
In hindsight, the cover marks the impending beginning of the effortlessly groovy chapter of the ’90s.
Alexandra Shulman – real woman’s woman in 1992
When Alexandra Shulman became editor of British Vogue in 1992, her appointment was met with some surprise. A report in the Guardian asked “who is this woman?” question was asked and it was added that she was “not what is known as a ‘fashion person’.” The same article suggests that the clothes featured in the fashion pages before Shulman took the job were “too stupid or expensive.”
So when Shulman’s first cover featured a woman in tights, a shirt, and low heels posing next to a pillar in a way that could almost be mistaken for a very over-the-top vacation photo, it seemed like a stark statement of intent.
It was one of the cover lines that remained the most resonant detail, years later. “A young woman wrote in the cover line of my first issue, April 1992, ‘Do we still need feminism?'” Shulman recounts in her book Inside Vogue: A Diary of my 100th Year. She realized he was writing. and asked me if I considered myself a feminist.”
Edward Enninful – Brexit time fashionista, 2017
After 25 years at the helm of Vogue, Shulman resigned in 2017 and Edward Enninful, the London-born son of Ghanaian immigrants, became editor. Her version of the magazine grappled with both the weight of fashion history and the reality of post-Brexit Britain.
Model of the moment, Adwoa Aboah, stars in her hijab, dazzling jewelry and bold, bright makeup on a cover that could have come from the Vogue archives of the 70s or 80s. “Edward’s first cover was beautiful and reminiscent of Vogue at its most classic,” says Picardie. “When you become an editor, you must take on the legacy of your publication and Vogue, which dates back to the late 19th century.”
Next to Adwoa’s photo was a roll call of British stars, from Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell to Zadie Smith and Salman Rushdie. “This is a country built on tradition, but, like fashion, it is a country that is constantly changing,” Enninful wrote in his editor’s letter. “It’s time to redefine what Vogue can mean today. To open. So I present to you The British Question: a tribute to our country and a group of people who represented it brilliantly both at home and on the world stage. Whatever your views on Brexit, there is one thing we can all agree on: we are a talented bunch.”
Chioma Nnadi – 2024’s Gen Z sweetheart
British Vogue’s new editor, Chioma Nnadi, has been praised for her cool, eclectic style and down-to-earth personality. He’s also just returned to his hometown of London after living in New York for two decades, so the cover line “Fashion returns home” feels as much like a personal message as a wry nod to the football anthem.
“This is a true statement,” Picardie says. “He’s going out and doing something different. I love covers shot in the studio and it looks exactly like London in a taxi. Your collateral loan [the designer you chose for your subject to be wearing] “This is so important, so choosing Loewe, designed by Northern Irish designer JW Anderson, is remarkable.”
Among Vogue’s recent launches, this is the only one to feature a well-known personality from beyond the fashion world. “It makes sense that Chioma chose musician over model,” says Picardie. “FKA Twigs is someone with a real story to tell.” It also appeals to Gen Z readers who desperately need to be intrigued by titles like Vogue, whether they pick up a physical copy of the magazine or watch the shoot content on TikTok.
As for the cover stories designed to entice readers to buy the magazine, there’s a sequel to a story about parenting in an open marriage; “It’s interesting to pay tribute to parenthood, which will appeal to older readers,” says Picardie.
Nnadi describes FKA Twigs as “an artist who embodies the ideal of the modern British eccentric: she is a shapeshifter who refuses to follow rules and takes real joy in clothes.” In his editor’s letter he also says; “While much has changed in the 20 years I have lived in the United States, London’s beautiful, creative, daring energy that cannot be found or imitated anywhere else remains undiminished.”
With fashion buzz swirling about Vogue going global, Nnadi’s first cover couldn’t have been more rooted in London.