Beyoncé, Edward Enninful, and Anna Wintour
While Enninful basks in the glory of a Beyoncé cover story, Wintour takes selfies with Kim Kardashian.
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Some of the social media conversation around Beyoncé on the cover of the July issue of British Vogue has unsurprisingly fixated on how Anna Wintour must be upset to not have gotten the story. I get why this is a satisfying narrative. While Wintour is at Condé Nast HQ taking selfies with Kim Kardashian, who was allowed to go hold court there to shill her expensive and unnecessary skincare products, British Vogue editor-in-chief Edward Enninful is still basking in the glory of an ambitious cover story that both featured one of the most famous women on the planet and provided some of the only clues the public got about her new work. If the company one keeps is an indication of who’s on top — and in fashion, it generally is — which Vogue editor would seem to be dominating the summer so far?
Whenever a British Vogue cover drops there’s usually some internet chatter in this vein — about how British Vogue is way better and Anna Wintour could never, or whatever. But where people like to project envy or rivalry, there may be nothing more to this than two editors simply serving two different markets while being judged in the same online echo chamber.
The Beyoncé cover story was another win for British Vogue, sure, and, since it was the only real tease we got about Renaissance — her first solo studio album in six years — took on even more significance after the “Break My Soul” single came out Tuesday. With Beyoncé maintaining her famously distant approach to celebrity, the signature of which is not granting interviews, fans were left to mine the British Vogue photos for clues about her new music. Beyoncé used the photos prominently in her own social media teasing the release and currently has them all over her website, so it seemed like it was always meant to be a pretty important part of the early marketing efforts. There are absolutely worse things for a fashion magazine these days than being a crucial part of the release of new music by one of the most celebrated and adored artists of our time.
The shoot itself is a maximalist nightclub fantasy, Beyoncé riding a horse on the cover, perched on a disco ball and enshrouded in gold Schiaparelli couture on the inside pages. The online masses seemed to enjoy the images, styled by Enninful. They certainly stood out on social media the way Beyoncé always does and maximalist fashion naturally tends to. Minimalism is a hard sell to an audience consuming photography on a cellphone, which we see each time Maria Grazia Chiuri’s subtle Dior collections get dragged on social media while Daniel Roseberry’s outlandish Schiaparelli collections are wildly praised.
It is a completely different look from the current issue of American Vogue, featuring Dua Lipa.
The two covers are emblematic of one longstanding, intentional difference between European and American fashion magazines: European magazines feature edgier and more experimental fashion than American titles. Take the horse, Stetson (who was amusingly credited in British Vogue’s Instagram along with the assistants and others on the crew). Anna has put animals on the cover of American Vogue only five times over the course of her 34-year-long tenure; three of those spots went to dogs. None went to a horse. I have a hard time imagining her casting a cover horse in general, but especially in 2022 after putting Ariana Grande with a dog on the August 2019 cover and Kendall Jenner with a cockatoo for the April 2018 cover. An animal has to be a highly occasional cover subject in order to truly surprise and delight.
Enninful wrote the July cover story, and offered this about how the shoot came together:
Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, a writer of excellent and lengthy texts, had taken to messaging me as we brainstormed the direction of her Vogue shoot together. A fashion fantasia spun from the tropes of club life during the last century’s final quarter. Mirror balls, light boxes, headdresses? Of course. A horse on the dance floor? Certainly. A motorcycle for her to adorn in Junya Watanabe leathers and Harris Reed & Roker boots? Why not. B wanted to play with fashion like never before, and as we swapped references (from the 1990s garage scene to ’80s excess), talked hair and beauty, and got to know her team, a vision of glittering retro-futurism began to take shape.
So many of these things — mirror balls, a horse on the dance floor, Junya Watanabe leathers — are just not American Vogue things. Yes, it’s possible Beyoncé went with British Vogue because she wanted a specific aesthetic that is not germane to American Vogue, and because she and Enninful have a rapport that she doesn’t have with Wintour. But I can’t imagine Wintour sitting at her desk when the horse cover came in thinking, Shit, why didn’t I think of that?, when the whole point of her running American Vogue has been to not think of that.
Wintour’s American Vogue hasn’t ever been very edgy. The magazine just simply hasn’t been "out-there” in general since Diana Vreeland ran it in the sixties. This is because it has long had to appeal to the widest audience of any Vogue, and possess an American sensibility. It must attract fashion advertisers from the LVMH and Kering portfolios, but also mass retailers like Target. Since she became editor-in-chief in 1988, Wintour hasn’t much deviated from her commercially viable formula of casual-seeming glamour.
The new British Vogue cover is Beyoncé’s second in less than two years, having appeared on three American Vogue covers prior to that. Beyoncé’s last British Vogue cover in 2020 was to promote her Ivy Park line. As with the new cover shoot, that one was also styled by Enninful. Beyoncé wore a full Ivy Park look on one cover, but looks by Mugler and Alexander McQueen on the other two, suggesting Enninful got more freedom with the styling than her last Ivy Park promotional cover story for Elle. In that editorial, she wears Ivy Park, rather astonishingly, in every single photo — great for her, less great for Elle, which appeared to be serving up free Ivy Park sponcon on a silver platter.
American Vogue’s handful of Beyoncé cover stories have never been to promote Ivy Park. I’m guessing Wintour wouldn’t cede the choice of a cover look to anyone other than her and her team — and she definitely isn’t going to put athleisure on the cover. You may remember her scenes with Enninful in R.J. Cutler’s Vogue documentary The September Issue, where we see Wintour demand glamour. In the film, Enninful was contributing to the 2007 September issue of Vogue, and having a hard time getting his photos and pitches approved. In one scene, Anna looked at his idea on paper, handed it back to him and said, “Where’s the glamour? It’s Vogue OK? Please, let’s lift it.” Not allowing a celebrity to select a cover look is also a business decision, since the cover is the best real estate for showcasing clothes made by advertisers.
The machinations of corporate media’s managerial layers are not sexy to talk about on TikTok, but it’s worth noting that Wintour is also the global editorial director of Vogue in addition to editor-in-chief of American Vogue, meaning she oversees all Vogues. In his role as the European editorial director of Vogue, which he’s held since 2020, Enninful reports to her. In 2020, the New York Times reported, “The two are said to have a difficult working relationship, according to people in New York and London who have directly observed their dynamic.” However, this is Anna Wintour — a woman who is “difficult” for so many people who have worked with her.
Another not sexy observation about the British Vogue cover is that Beyoncé’s album comes out in July, and she appears on the July issue of British Vogue — but American Vogue now puts out a June/July issue. (It’s remarkable in 2022 media that British Vogue still has separate June and July issues.)
So yes, we could look at this cover as an indication of who’s “winning” between Wintour and Enninful. We could also look at this cover as a win for the Vogue brand at large, the moment clearly and deservedly Enninful’s.
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While you briefly mentioned Beyonce's lack of interview in the cover story, I haven't seen it discussed much. I get that when celebs are powerful they don't 'need' to do an interview, and Beyonce is not the only celeb who does it. But what does that say about magazines, that a journalist or EIC in the case of Enninful, needs to write around the subject with few direct quotes? That's its more of a think piece than an interview? We were all quickly distracted ("look over here!") when the single was released shortly after the magazines hit stands, and since the video was lyrics only, the photos served the same ;purpose as the video. I understand I'm not the target audience for Beyonce, Kim K or Dua Lipa, but I do love magazines.
Always interesting to read you!