Posts

Camilla Long’s column in the Sunday Times, ‘Enninful’s big goodbye says his Vogue was never for us’ – Is Wrong

 

 

 

On Sunday, I read Camilla Long’s column in the Sunday Times, entitled, ‘Enninful’s big goodbye says his Vogue was never for us.’ It was interesting to read Long’s perspective, which I believe is one of white privilege and is something that I conclude after a lot of deliberation.

In a nutshell, Long says that under Enninful, British Vogue had lost its way and become empty and that as editor-in-chief, Enninful had failed to do what Vogue was known for, which was to discover new talent of writers, photographers, designers, etc.
Long also references Enninful’s last cover which he created for the March 2024 issue of British Vogue, which is called, ‘Legends Only: 40 Iconic Women’, and says ‘it missed the mark.’ See the photo here, what do you think?!

I re-read Long’s piece, and mulled it over…and it just did not sit with me, so much so that I was compelled to write this post. I believe Enninful had shaken things up at Vogue and put diversity and inclusion at the heart of his vision. There was more modern representation than ever before. More ethnic representation than ever before.

I remember the issue that came out during the pandemic, when everything in the UK was in lockdown and Enninful played a blinder or should I say an ‘equalizer’, by featuring frontline workers on the front cover. For the first time in Vogue history, there were ordinary people on the front of the magazine.

This column by Long misses the point and does not see the difference that Enninful made to women like me, women of colour…the rest of us, who have always stood on the outside looking in…

Representation matters because what we see in the media doesn’t just reflect reality – it also shapes it. On the other hand, positive representation can shift public opinion for the better and create greater understanding and appreciation between cultures and communities.

Contrast this with the photo of the editorial team under the last Vogue editor, Alexandra Shulman, which came under a lot of criticism when it made its way onto social media. There was no representation whatsoever, it was not an inclusive team.

 

And I shall leave you with this last thought, a Reuters 2021 survey of 100 major UK news outlets found that only 15 percent of the 80 top editors were non-white.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Twenty Twenty

I have been working on the PR campaign for this is incredible book(which came to me serendipitously), Twenty, Twenty by the highly-acclaimed author, Nigel Watts, which is a blueprint for 2020, which was originally published in 1995 by Hodder and Stoughton.

The book eerily and accurately predicts a global pandemic that occurs in the year 2020 causing the world to communicate largely through virtual technology, with people wearing masks, a drastic reduction of air travel leading to ‘virtual tourism’, and nature fighting back for its survival due to mankind’s destruction of our planet.

Tragically, Watts took his own life in 1999 and now 25 years later, his very brave widow, former BBC presenter and broadcaster, Sahera Chohan has republished this timely and relevant book this August; the book’s anniversary month.

At the time, when it came launched, the book received rave reviews from The Times, Time Out, Sunday Times and more. The Times said: “Twenty Twenty is about the end of the world, viral apocalypse, virtual reality…[it] asks the big questions at a time of global destruction and spiritual uncertainty…an intriguing synthesis between ancient mysticism and the brave new world of virtuality. It is a book to make the pulse race, the mind dance and the heart sink.”

Twenty Twenty foretells the events of the year 2020, where an ageing writer infected with a deadly virus and despairing of mankind’s continuing damage to the planet retreats to a derelict factory in the icy wastes of northern Canada. Meanwhile, at a remote research institute in the Californian desert, William Morrison, a virtual reality test pilot, and Julia

O’Brien, a British anthropologist, are working on a VR simulation of the Amazonian Kogi tribe. William and Julia appear to have little in common, until they discover an uncanny connection that finds them being drawn towards a derelict factory in northern Canada. As the story escalates to its dramatic conclusion, Watts powerfully manipulates the reader’s perceptions of reality, whilst blurring the boundary between creator and created.

Nigel Watts has drawn his name in the sands of time, putting him side-by-side with some of the greatest futuristic authors – Orwell, Huxley and H.G.Wells – securing Twenty Twenty not just as a book of our time, but an enduring and influential novel. Needless to say the book has been drawing lots of media attention and it has been such a great book campaign to work on…to know how it ends you will need to buy the book, which is available on Amazon.