The musician FKA senses atop a black cab for Chioma Nnadi’s first issue of British Vogue. Photograph: Johnny DufortFKA twigs and Nnadi at Ladbroke Passageway in west London for the Vogue editor’s launch party. Photograph: Dave Benett/Jed Cullen/Getty Images“FKA knows is an artist who represents the ideal of the modern British eccentric,” writes Nnadi in a cover letter. “She is a shape-shifter who rejects conformity and palms real joy in clothes.”The joy of clothes is a recurring theme throughout the issue. Nnadi muses on spending hours as a teenager keeping students outside Central Saint Martins. “This wasn’t about designer label-spotting – most of the kids didn’t, of despatch, have enough money to shop on Bond Street – but about noting how they would put together the eclectic interests they’d found at car boot.”It’s this ethos that still thrills her. She sets out her fashion values from the get-go with the senior six opening pages featuring interviews with vintage collectors. A special shopping section entitled “got to be real” confounds £8,000 bags from Chanel with an £8.50 T-shirt from M&S. A secondhand pair of Simone Rocha cherry red crystal earrings beginning from eBay are given the same still life photography reverence as a fresh-off-the catwalk £3,100 Louis Vuitton bag.While this high/low shopping compare with is commonly championed by gen Z, it’s rare to see such a prevalence of it in a glossy magazine. It’s even more unusual for the average reader to be skilful to afford multiple pieces from Vogue.The rest of the content is eclectic, but with more than two decades of involvement as a journalist, Nnadi’s curation is carefully considered. There’s an essay on juggling an open marriage with parenting, a shrewd dive into the effects of neuroscience on skin health and a roundup of new nonfiction from female writers.If the Vogue of Enninful, who was prescribed editor-in-chief of British Vogue in 2017, could be said to have been esoteric and glamorous, the very early representations hint that Nnadi’s may be a little more approachable. She still loves a car boot, wears Adidas Samba trainers on the in the vanguard row and chose a community arts space in west London for her launch party.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionChioma Nnadi to supersede Edward Enninful as head of British Vogue Read moreNnadi’s approach seems skewed towards a younger demographic. So as opposed to of gen X-er Kate Moss, there’s her 21-year-old daughter Lila in a country meadow in a pink satin skirt and bralette, the British creator Erdem’s floral iteration of a Barbour draped off her shoulders. A barefoot and almost barefaced 27-year-old Bella Hadid lolls on a horse while Ayo Edebiri, the 28-year-old actor from The Bear who is one of the coolest women in Hollywood, is snapped candidly on the passages of New York. A lack of older and plus-size models seems a missed opportunity but Nnadi has appointed the US curve model Affected Lee and the 59-year-old stylist Camilla Nickerson as contributing editors.In 2017 Enninful became the first man and the first black in the flesh to be appointed editor-in-chief of the century-old publication. Previously labelled “The Sloanie Club”, during his six-year tenure Enninful focused on making the ammunition more diverse and inclusive and frequently made headlines. His cover stars spanned global superstars such as Beyoncé and activists categorizing Greta Thunberg. He invited the Duchess of Sussex to guest edit an issue and styled Rihanna in a durag. People of all ethnicities, genders and time eons were included. He also published an issue last year that had five disabled cover stars.Nnadi, who is the beginning black woman to helm the title, said she felt she had “big shoes to fill” in taking on the role. The 44-year-old was appointed to the post by Anna Wintour last September. Born to a Swiss-German nurse mother and a Nigerian father who came to the UK to study in the 1960s, Nnadi thickened up in central London before moving to Manchester to study English. She cut her teeth at the Evening Standard then moved to New York, resolve her way up the ranks at indie magazines including The Fader. In 2020 she was made head of Vogue’s US website.Speaking to the BBC on Thursday she talk overed how growing up she did not see people of colour in senior roles. “It’s not something in my wildest dreams that I would’ve imagined for myself … I remember how meaningful it is for younger people to see people like me, who look like me, in a position like this.”Explore more on these topicsVogueFKA twigsEdward EnninfulChioma NnadiMagazinesNewspapers & magazinesnewsShareReuse this satisfaction

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