Chioma Nnadi has been set to take over as head of British Vogue.
The London-born journalist and editor of Vogue’s US website has become the first Black female head of the fashion title, “head of editorial content.”
The announcement followed a weekend of fashion shows, dubbed by attendees as “Anna Wintour’s flex”. The shows had been partly overshadowed by Vogue World,
“Is there pressure? Yeah, there’s definitely pressure – it’s Vogue,” Nnadi said while speaking from her home in New York.
“It still means something to be in Vogue, it still has authority. [And there’s pressure] because of Edward. He broke new ground. It’s more than being part of a magazine – it’s part of the cultural conversation.”
According to Nnadi, her focus will be on “digital storytelling” and keeping Vogue “interactive” with readers.
Chioma Nnadi was born to a Swiss-German nurse mother and a Nigerian father who came to the UK to study in the 1960s, Nnadi grew up in central London, working at indie magazines such as Trace and the Fader. In 2010, she moved to New York to work for Vogue, where she currently runs the US site and co-hosts its podcast, modeling Anna Wintour’s “All platforms – all the time” mantra.
“As a Black woman, but also as a biracial woman, how I view the world is also how I see it – through a lens that is influenced by my background, by where I live, and by having parents from different cultures and having to move between these cultures,” Nnadi said of her appointment.
“Things have changed a lot. When I started out, there was one other Black person working in the building, and we both went to the same college. It wasn’t the same place it is now. Obviously, matters of diversity and inclusion should always be on the agenda, but it feels like more of an open conversation now, and that feels to me like progress,” she added.
Chioma Nnadi will take over the role on 9 October.
