the victim as cody fisher. you are watching bbc news. now, the arts interviews: edward enninful. as editor in chief of british vogue since 2017, edward enninful has challenged convention not least by increasing the number of black and older women in the magazine. he s reached the summit of international fashion and media while battling depression, alcohol problems and a sickle cell condition. it s a long way from his childhood in ghana, which his family fled during the political turmoil of the mid 1980s, landing in south london at the height of social unrest in the capital. black, working class,
and sort of heading to college and simon was staring at me and he was.i remember bald, wearing denim and, you know, i was quite sheltered. i6. yeah, and at baker street, he got off and gave me his card and he said, my name is simon foxton. i m a stylist i didn t know what a stylist was but, call me. i d love to use you in a shoot. i remember getting home and poor mum. mum, i want to do this! she wasn t having it. she s like, the fashion industry is full of weird people i didn t know what she meant by weird at the time but as you do when you re young, i sort of forced her, and eventually she called simon. so she called him, not you? well, she did. she wanted to vet him and make sure that he was. basically! wow. african mother. and sort of, yes, then i started sort of shooting with simon and nick knight as a model, and then i became a model with an agency while i was at college and really, that was my entry into fashion. and a few weeks later,
laughs stop it! you don t speak for the whole fashion industry, you re not a corporate spokesman. but one critique of the fashion industry broadly has been that it has, for too long, promoted a very narrow conception of beauty. if you like, a eurocentric or western one. for years, there was a very narrow ideal of what a fashion model should be or what a fashion magazine, who should be in a fashion magazine. i love beauty in all its shapes and, you know, all its colours and i want those people reflected in the magazine. itjust did not make sense to me business wise or culturally not to reflect the world we lived in. let me put to you one other critique of the industry. there is a growing amount of concern about the impact of fashion on the environment, that it costs the earth, basically. the charity 0xfam says that fast fashion produces more carbon emissions per minute than driving a car around the world six times, and according to mckinsey, the consultancy, just one industry, fashion,
as much as france, germany and the uk combined. that is an extraordinary impact, often on items that are wasted or disposed of. are you concerned that fashion is costing too much for the earth? at the moment, the biggest conversation in fashion right now is about sustainability and how, what we can do to save the planet. for me, if you look to one of my issues, i had taylor swift on the cover and my motto is, buy better, buy less. let s not buy things every day that will pollute, will end up in landfill. let s buy better things you can pass on to generations. these conversations are so paramount in the industry right now. it is impossible to talk about what you have done at vogue without talking about the guest editing that meghan markle did. this occupies only a couple of pages in your book, you describe her as a phenomenal editing partner, but as everyone has
iran sees demonstrations continue. after a woman was killed accused of wearing her hijab incorrectly. now on bbc news, the arts interviews. as editor in chief of british vogue since 2017, edward enninful has challenged convention not least by increasing the number of black and older women in the magazine. he s reached the summit of international fashion and media while battling depression, alcohol problems and a sickle cell condition. it s a long way from his childhood in ghana, which his family fled during the political turmoil of the mid 1980s, landing in south london at the height of social unrest in the capital. black, working class, gay and a former asylum seeker,