by Rachel Ogbu//

In April, Edward Enninful was announced as the Editor-in-Chief of British Vogue. He has become the first male editor of the magazine and is scheduled to resume work officially in August.

Edward Enninful was born in Ghana but started working in fashion when he was 16 and is now living in the United Kingdom. While he prepares for his official resumption at British Vogue, he has been working on his latest project, a campaign for American super-brand Gap.

Earlier this year, the 45-year-old which British media are hailing as the most powerful man in fashion enlisted 80 of his friends and colleagues to campaign against President Donald Trump’s controversial executive order restricting immigration from seven (mainly Muslim) countries. Enninful’s “I am an Immigrant” video was a hit, attracting up to 542,000 views on YouTube. “Being an immigrant and living in England, I feel like I lived in two worlds,” he tells The Telegraph. “There was the world that, when I was at school with my friends was very English, and then I’d go home to another country, with exotic foods and colours. I have a sense of colour pairings, and that came from my background, I think”.

In 2016, he was appointed OBE in the Queen’s 2016 Birthday Honours for services to diversity in the fashion industry. “What I love about diversity now is that it’s moved on, it’s no longer just seen to talk about black and white. It’s religion, sexuality, age, size,” he says. “I’m very proud of the world that’s embracing all these different ideas of what it is to be diverse, in 2017. By people getting together and celebrating this idea of togetherness, great things can happen.”

Condé Nast approved of Enninful’s work at Italian Vogue saying it had “attained landmark status in recent cultural history”. Caroline Rush, chief executive of the British Fashion Council, told the BBC: “Anything that promotes diversity and gender equality in the industry is incredibly important, but there’s no doubt that Edward’s been appointed because of his talent.”

“He brings a very distinct point of view in terms of the imagery that he has been associated with, and I think that’s going to be really exciting to see how that is translated into the pages of Vogue.”

Enninful has worked as fashion director at i-D made (at 18, he became the youngest ever fashion director for an international publication), he has worked as contributing editor to Italian Vogue, contributing fashion editor for American Vogue, fashion and style director of W Magazine. He has received so many awards including Clio Excellence in Commercial Styling Award, British Fashion Awards Isabella Blow Award for Fashion Creator and BRAG Business Achievement Award.

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