Is A King Born?
I met him once when he seemed to be the youngest and coolest fashion editor on the planet. We are talking 1991 here and Edward Enninful had just become fashion editor of I-D Magazine after a brief little career as a model/assistant right there. I was working at TEMPO magazine at that time and our publications shared stories, photographers and writers every now and then.
Enninful pretty soon became famous in the fashion world, being young AND BLACK in a mostly white and middle-aged to old community. He started to work fo Italian Vogue, then the coolest among all international Vogues, then moved to New York to become part of Anna Wintour´s team on the mothership.
And that is when I lost him completely
Watching him as a pathetic fashion editor literally breaking into tears after a run-through with his boss - and in front of a camera that followed Wintour through the production of "The September Issue" - gave me the creeps. As I actually started to judge everyone else differently after that movie (Mario Testino: hypocritical, Grace Coddington: strong and funny, Stefano Pilati: panic-struck, Jean-Paul Gaultier: relaxed and self-confident, etc.etc.).
As in: Tell me how you behave in the presence of Anna and I tell you who your are.
Now he has become the editor of the moment. Time cover, knighthood, happily married. And now: A memoir.
Easy and entertaining to read if you want to know about those famous Nineties, and also very honest.
Still: Edward Enninful is someone people love but also someone who divides people - like, there are numerous companions who are with him since forever until today and others who despice him for being vain, entitled to become the next king Edward in the fashion world to outlive the former queen Anna.
I suggest you make up your own mind by reading "A Visible Man", the Bloomsbury book.