40 female icons graced Edward Enninful’s last British Vogue cover
In a dedication to the women of Vogue, Enninful called for an epically star-studded shoot for the March issue.
A logistic feat that saw 40 of the fashion industry’s leading women converge in one photography studio in New York City, on one single day in December 2023, is a testament to Edward Enninful’s legacy as British Vogue’s editor-in-chief. Having held the role since 2017, in June of 2023, Enninful announced he would be stepping down. For his last cover, Enninful dedicated the issue to all the women he had met and worked with throughout his editorship.
Across London, New York, Paris, Milan and Los Angeles, 40 invitations to be part of the cover shoot went out—to the likes of Kate Moss, Christy Turlington, Oprah Winfrey, Anya Taylor-Joy, Jane Fonda, Dua Lipa, Kaia Gerber, to name only a few. All 40 women cleared their schedules to grace the cover for the March 2024 issue, shot by Steven Meisel, sending a sentimental message that spoke to Enninful’s august history.
“Women have shaped British Vogue for close to 108 years now, and have certainly informed every moment of my six and a half year tenure here, to say nothing of leading and guiding me through my entire life,” Enninful wrote in one of his many Instagram posts ton Friday that officially launched the shoot.
“We readied 40 of the world’s busiest women for Meisel’s lens and it was epic. It was the biggest set I’d been on in my career, everyone was in the highest of spirits and it was fun to witness even the most worldly of stars’ jaws hit the floor at a never-before-seen gathering.”
Among the international faces, Adut Akech, a South-Sudanese Australian model and one of Australia’s most influential model exports, graced the cover alongside the female titans of industry, having been a cover star for British Vogue on a number of occasions under Enninful’s direction.
Not just a first for the editor himself, but unprecedented in the history of the industry, the magnitude of the shoot both logistically and symbolically makes this a cover for the history books. “It was clear to all of us on the team that no one woman could or should encapsulate these past few years for the magazine,” Enninful wrote in another caption. “What we needed was a group, to lean into the power of the collective to bring to life what I hope has been a daring, disruptive and evolutionary period in Vogue’s history.”
