Editor Of Vogue (Edward Enninful OBE): How To Become No.1 In Your Industry Against All The Odds!

It feels like you've lived an impossible life.

But with it, came all the... (instrumental music plays) I just needed to be able to look at myself and not hate myself.

Edward Enngull.

The first Black man to become editor-in-chief of British Vogue. One of the fashion industry's biggest names. He's single-handedly changing the face of fashion.

In your book, you talk about understanding that you were gay from a very young age. Had your father known, he would've slit your throat.

I grew up petrified of him. Each day, I was being told, "You're going to be a lawyer or a doctor." I knew that wasn't gonna happen. At the age of 13, I came from another country. 16, I was modeling, 18, I was an editor. It was quite fast. Work was everything for me. There was this notion that women of color on covers don't sell. I knew I would need to do something about it. I didn't just create a magazine that looked good, but is so financially successful. I was just so consumed with work and work was where I felt like an imposter, really. I mean, I never look at anything I've done and think, "This is amazing." I wouldn't sleep, that leads you to drinking and that leads you to drugs. You always have to fight.

But that fight comes at a cost.

I woke up one day and I saw these black markings in my vision. I was so scared. I knew after that, that I had to change my life.

You sit here as one of the most successful people in your industry. What would 51-year-old Edward say to 18-year-old Edward?

The one regret I do have is... (music stops)

Before this episode starts, I have a small favor to ask from you. Two months ago, 74% of people that watch this channel didn't subscribe. We're now down to 69%. My goal is 50%, so if you've ever liked any of the videos we've posted, if you like this channel, can you do me a quick favor and hit the subscribe button? It helps this channel more than you know, and the bigger the channel gets, as you've seen, the bigger the guests get. Thank you and enjoy this episode. (instrumental music plays) Edward, it feels like you've lived and traveled an impossible life. You sit here as one of the most successful people in your industry, but when I read about your earliest context, that's why I use the word impossible. Can you give me the information I need to know to understand how the man that sits in front of me today got here? And I'm referring to that early information, the context that molded you into the man you are today.

Thank you for having me. Um, so as you read in the book, I grew, I was born in a city called Takoradi in Ghana, West Africa. My dad was in the army, he was a major, um, my mother was a seamstress, and we lived on a military base in the town. So already there was... That was a weird, um, way of growing up where you are in the town, but you're not in the town, you're on a military base with its own sets of rules and, and traditions. So, that's where I was. And, um, my mother was a seamstress, and I grew up in love with clothes, in love with my mother and in love with clothes, and I was always with her, uh, you know, when her customers came in. And my mother had, was one of those rare women who had their own business. You know, in the '70s in Africa, she had an atelier with about 40 women. So I would spend days just really helping her fit women into clothes and, you know, little African boy standing around the corner listening to the gossip, being shooed away. But I always say that's when I developed my love for women, all women, because the, you know, my mother's friends, my aunts, uh, were all bodacious women of different sizes. Big women, if you, you know, if you want to put it that way, but they were just beautiful and vivacious and alive. So really, that was, that was how, um, I grew up in Ghana. I mean, you know, I was always a sickly child, so I would always be with my mother a lot. And I really learnt about sort of women and what really makes them tick. You know, I always say I can tell when a woman is happy in a dress by the flick of her wrist or a little wince of the, of the nose. And, um, so my mother was a really great influence. I didn't know anything about fashion, but I had an aunt who had a salon called Dolly Dots, and she was a hairdresser, and that was like paradise for me. And it was there that I discovered magazines. There was a magazine called Ebony, which is an American magazine that you'd get every month. Another one called Jet and another one called Time. And I would literally devour those pages. And yeah, I was, I was really happy. It was a really happy childhood. And then we had to move to London because there was a military coup and my dad, from one day to the next, had to leave. So, that was the next chapter mainly.