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Eighteen months after he wrapped up his tenure at British Vogue with a final issue featuring 40 famous women on the cover, Edward Enninful is back on newsstands.
On Friday he released the debut issue of 72 magazine, a quarterly print title. It is the first project from Enninful’s new venture EE72, a media and entertainment company he set up in May with his sister, the talent agent Akua Enninful. On the magazine’s masthead Edward Enninful is credited as chief creative officer, cementing his pivot from editor to entrepreneur.
Speaking to the Guardian, Enninful said he wanted to “create something tactile, timeless and collectible by creating an object that honours traditional media with an unconventional approach to modern storytelling. While people say print is dead, I believe the opposite – print has become more powerful than ever and an art form that must be preserved.”
Enninful is known for his starry contacts book and the magazine’s front cover reads like an extract. Fronting the issue is Julia Roberts, who is interviewed by George Clooney. In a behind-the-scenes video on Instagram, Roberts says to Enninful: “You left your other job, so I left your other job and now we’re both at your new job together.”
In place of coverlines that usually describe the features inside a magazine is a list of 20 celebrity names including Pharrell Williams, Oprah Winfrey, the Italian film director Luca Guadagnino, Gwyneth Paltrow and the American painter Amy Sherald.
Its launch comes a week after Chloe Malle was appointed the head of editorial content at American Vogue, succeeding Anna Wintour, who announced she was stepping back as editor-in-chief in July. Malle, a long-term Vogue veteran, has said she plans to reduce its print frequency, creating instead more collectible editions.
The publication has recently been criticised by fashion fans for becoming too mainstream. Its latest issue, which landed on shelves on Monday, co-stars the models Gigi Hadid and Kendall Jenner. Malle described her recent digital cover story on Lauren Sanchez Bezos as a “calculated risk”.
The PR consultant and author Mark Borkowski says Enninful’s rebrand would have been carefully considered. In June 2023 when he announced he was leaving British Vogue after six years as editor-in-chief in addition to four years as European editorial director of Vogue, there were rumours Enninful had been forced out after a power struggle with Wintour. “There were obituary-type pieces written about Enninful,” Borkowski says. “Some felt he had risen to a pedestal he wasn’t worthy of.”
Now it appears we are entering the era of rivalry 2.0. For anyone who thought Enninful had fallen off his path to rise to the top of the fashion chain, this phoenix-like comeback hints that he believes his journey is not over.
“The launch shows he is a very powerful person and influencer,” Borkowski says. “But being an entrepreneur brings added baggage. You are not the product of an empire. Now it’s about the quality of the team he builds. Every move he makes will be pored over. He cannot fail.”
If the other names on the masthead seem familiar, it is because many used to appear under Enninful’s own at British Vogue. Sarah Harris, who spent more than 20 years at Condé Nast and worked under Alexandra Shulman (Enninful’s predecessor at Vogue), is EE72’s editorial director.
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He has also poached other Voguettes including a former fashion critic, two fashion editors, entertainment director and two creative directors. On Friday in an interview with Bloomberg, Enninful said he never wanted Wintour’s job. “I wanted my own thing. I wanted to create something for the next generation. And that’s why I left.”
September is historically the most important month in fashion with magazines at their heaviest, laden with new season luxury advertising. But there is not a single one in 72 magazine. A spokesperson described it as a “strategic decision” and “a direct challenge to the advertising-dependent model that’s been constraining editorial creativity for years”. They declined to comment when asked if there were paid product placements or if brands paid for shoots.
Harris describes the opportunity to work with Enninful again as “a no-brainer”. She says the biggest difference from going from a legacy brand “with established systems, relationships and ways of working” to what Enninful describes as a startup is the decision-making process. “You make decisions quickly and don’t waste time on corporate processes. We’re not bound by precedent or traditional hierarchies that restrict innovative thinking. This gives us the freedom to be organically responsive to culture as it’s happening.”
Features inside the £15 magazine’s 111 pages span fashion to wellness to arts and culture. Marc Jacobs shares his bedtime routine. A beauty shoot features a $24 (£17.70) toothpaste and an unbranded GLP-1 medication pen. And there is a three-page spread dedicated to a shoot featuring a Moncler collection designed by Enninful himself.
Jeremy Leslie, an art director and founder of MagCulture, , an online platform and shop that specialises in independent magazines, says 72 is lacking a “a vital spark” and “not the anticipated mould-breaking launch”. Instead he says today’s successful print magazines “produce biannual issues with twice the number of pages, invest in special print effects and strong typography, and mix glossy and matt paper throughout their pages”. He also finds the lack of advertising “baffling”.
Editorial independence has become somewhat of a grey area when it comes to glossies. Most recently, Vogue was called out online for its September issue featuring Emma Stone wearing only Louis Vuitton over a 12-page spread. The actor has been an ambassador for the French brand since 2017. A spokesperson for Vogue described it as an “entirely editorial” decision without commercial influence.
On 72’s back cover, a much-desired slot for brands to gain maximum exposure, there is another shot of Roberts. This time she is grinning. With rumours swirling about Wintour’s next move and Vogue downsizing, some are wondering if Enninful may have the last laugh after all.
