Edward Enninful on His Fashion Design Debut for Moncler: “I Had to Go for It”

There was a lot going on at the Moncler City of Genius event this past weekend in Shanghai. When the French-born, Italian-owned outerwear brand presented the latest iteration of its fashion festival, just some of the headliners included Nigo, Rick Owens, Francesco Ragazzi of Palm Angels, and Lucie and Luke Meier of Jil Sander. Also on hand to deliver heavyweight cultural cachet were Donald Glover, A$AP Rocky, and Willow Smith. And there were plenty more designers and celebrities there to generate creative energy too.

Amongst them all, one of the most intriguing participants on the roster was Edward Enninful, a man who has done almost everything that can be done in fashion—although he has never, until now, designed a collection. The former editor-in-chief of our British edition and ongoing Vogue advisor started his career as a model when he was 16 years old. By the time he was 18 he’d been handed the role of fashion director at the great British style magazine i-D (currently in the midst of its own reinvention). He also styled some of the most influential editorials of the last few decades while collaborating with the late Franca Sozzani at Vogue Italia.

Before Enninful jumped on the plane to Shanghai this weekend, I jumped on a call with him to find out about his involvement with Moncler. In the pre-chat warm-up I wondered now that he has added “fashion designer” to his portfolio of hyphen-spliced vocations, what comes next? Enninful considered for a moment, then said: “Well, I still can’t sing.” Here is a cut of the rest of our conversation.

What was it like switching roles like this?

I’ve been a stylist forever: my whole career. So I’m used to working with designers. I’m used to going in and sharing my opinion and helping to shape the collection. But to work on my own in that position has been an incredible experience. To work from the conceptualization, through to the fabrication and the finished article—to be there every step of the way—is really something new and fascinating for me.

How did it start?

Well, I got a call from the Moncler team not long after announcing I was moving on from British Vogue. And I had always wanted to work with Moncler and Remo. In terms of what they’ve done with developing the model of collaborations within a brand, they’ve really moved fashion forward. And, you know, while I had already taken the decision to do pretty much nothing for a year, this was too good to be true—to have the opportunity to work with a company that I really respect and to shape something new—so for the sake of taking the chance to experience something I never had before I had to go for it.