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Cover #1 of 14 by David Hockney:
VOGUE.CO.UK
Edward Enninful Unveils 14 Special Covers For Vogue’s August Issue
There is a phrase I keep hearing at the moment... “I can’t wait to go back to normal.” It sounds innocuous enough at first – and, of course, in this year of great uneasiness, I find myself pining for comfort, too. Who doesn’t want to live in a society that isn’t so riddled with inequality that the Black Lives Matter protests that have taken place around the globe don’t feel like a painful necessity to change the status quo? Or to live in a world beyond a deadly new disease, where we are finally able to socially non-distance again? Who doesn’t want to feel happy and calm and normal?
But a truth has been exposed by the tumultuous events of 2020: there is no normal to return to. Like many of you who I’ve spoken to or corresponded with over these past months, I share a sense that, actually, “normal” is what got us to this point in the first place. If we are going to evolve, to a place of greater fairness and safety for our planet and its people, our future cannot look exactly like our past. We are going to need a genuine rethink about many areas of our lives. Our attitudes, our priorities, our compassion. What and how we consume. What we stand for and how we voice it.
It’s easy to feel tired or daunted, to look at the past few months and simply think, “I’ve had enough.” But let’s be honest: normal wasn’t working. There is not, alas, a quick fix. Though one positive that has emerged during these times for me has been a greater opportunity to think and prioritise. Marooned at home, a silver lining for the lucky ones has been time. Typically, I never spend more than a night or two in on the trot, and travel extensively for work. Suddenly there was space to reflect and reset. To pause, so as to better work out the next steps.
That is what this issue is all about: reset. It starts with 14 special covers – a first project of its kind for Vogue. It has been a major theme of these past months that our eyes have turned to nature as a steadying force amid the chaos, and so I am delighted to bring you a story for which some of Britain’s greatest living image-makers – from photographers David Sims and Nadine Ijewere, to artists Lubaina Himid and David Hockney – present new and original landscapes captured around the country.
Their work on the covers, and in the 20-page story “All Across the Land”, is not only beautiful and poignant, but also highlights that at the core of everything is our planet. Its maintenance enjoyed renewed focus as human activity slowed down in late spring, from the indelible images of clear canals in Venice to an absence of smog over Los Angeles. As the world rushes to find its feet again, we all need to be more mindful of the toll our previous pace of living took on nature. As writer Helen Macdonald observes in her accompanying essay, “Some commentators maintained that Covid-19 was planetary revenge for the havoc humans have wreaked on natural systems. Others, more quietly, carefully and humanely, have wondered if it might signal a reset in our relationship to nature.” I very much hope so. I’m pleased to add that later in the year, we plan to hold an auction of original prints of these images, donated by the artists, in aid of Covid-19 relief charities.
Fourteen special covers are in store for the August 2020 issue of British Vogue, including one contributed by David Hockney.
Elsewhere, Vogue has been doing things a little differently. In a crunch, I’m pleased to see imagination thrive, as we adapt and learn new ways to create. In Back to the Future, we combed the archive to bring you some of the best-known photographs from Vogue’s past decades, with a thoroughly modern twist. Working with the effects house Framestore, some of the magazine’s most famous images, by the likes of Norman Parkinson and Helmut Newton, have been seamlessly adorned with items from the new-season collections, in a blink-to-believe-it fantasy of old and new. Meanwhile, photographer Nick Knight brings all his genius to bear on producing a Zoom fashion shoot par excellence.
It is an issue of personal reflections, too. Some of our well-known friends, from Sade to Yara Shahidi, take us into the heart of their homes to reveal what this time has meant for the most important relationship of all: family. There are many keen observations, too, such as author David Sedaris’s take on the new reality of mask wearing, and writer and activist Gloria Steinem’s indispensable life advice.
Most moving of all is a viewpoint by Sophia Neophitou-Apostolou, the stylist and beloved fashion-industry favourite. When news reached me that my friend of many years had returned from fashion month with such a severe case of coronavirus it eventually meant she had to be put on a ventilator in the ICU, I was distraught. For a long time it did not look like she was going to make it, and Sophia was in a coma for more than three weeks. When the call came to say she had pulled through, so many of us shed tears of joy. I want to thank Sophia for sharing her story – or, as she calls it, her ultimate “reset”. We are privileged to include it in Vogue.
The August issue of British Vogue is on sale on 3 July.
VOGUE.CO.UK
