Edward Enninful

>> W's new fashion and style editor Edward Enninful won't make his full debut for the magazine until September, but his stamp can already be seen on the magazine's July 2011 cover featuring Christina Aguilera, he says: "I was involved with Christina. I worked with our contributing editor Giovanna Battaglia on the look and the photography and also Lynn Hirschberg. And I wanted to show Christina in a new light, show off the icon that she is."

As for his future plans for the magazine: "We'll continue to work with photographers like Craig McDean, Patrick Demarchelier, Mario Sorrenti, Inez and Vinoodh, Mert and Marcus, but we also have a few big names in the pipeline and you'll see it in the coming months, particularly in September ... The September issue will be first big issue for myself, along with Alex Gonzalez, the creative director, and sort of Giovanna Battaglia, whom we offered to be fashion editor and hopefully a few other editors. And we're going to feature the industry's biggest names and well-known photographers. I think you'll be pleased. And what I love about this sort of blend of photographers is that each one has their own unique style. So if it's okay I'd like to keep their names under wrap just to surprise our readers. It's really hard to keep anything secret these days. But I try."

>> Edward Enninful, who left contributing fashion editor gigs at Vogue and Vogue Italia behind this month to become W's new fashion and style director, has also exited his position as fashion director at i-D, which he has held since 1991, when he was 18. His replacement is reportedly the stylist Charlotte Stockdale, who has worked with i-D in the past and whose clients have ranged from Fendi to the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show. Enninful's first issue for W, meanwhile, will be the September 2011 issue. [@fashedatlarge, @EdwardEnninful]

>> W fashion and style director Alex White, one of the last vestiges of the old guard at the magazine, is to be replaced by Edward Enninful, effective May 1. White, who held the position for 16 years, decided to step down to pursue a range of fashion and lifestyle projects in both digital and social media.

According to W editor Stefano Tonchi, the decision for White to leave was mutual: “Alex is a fantastic stylist and has done incredible work over the years. Everyone at W is grateful to Alex for creating such memorable fashion portfolios, and for the significant mark she has left on the magazine . . . She’s thinking very much about her own brand — the Alex White brand — and at a certain point that’s no longer what W is about.”

White agreed that they were "totally on the same page": “My 16 years at W have been thrilling. I’ve worked with wildly talented people and helped produce a gorgeous magazine. I was delighted to stay and help Stefano through his first, transitional year, and am looking forward new beginnings . . . I helped with getting over the hump. Now it’s time for me to continue my freelance and explore the other things I’m working on, including digital projects." Tonchi indicated that White is thinking about starting her own magazine, possibly online. White had recently been experimenting with her own column online, Alex White Edits, on W's website.

Tonchi and Enninful, meanwhile, hit it off while seated next to each other at a Balenciaga dinner during Paris Fashion Week a couple of months ago, Tonchi says: “I didn’t really think about hiring him, I just thought he was incredibly joyful.” They began discussing a job at W earlier this month and moved quickly from there.

"This is the beginning of a new era at W, and I couldn’t be more delighted to be a part of it,” said Enninful. And Tonchi added: "I'm thrilled that Edward is joining our team, and am confident that he will bring a great deal of creativity, professionalism, and industry knowledge with him."

Enninful, who has been a contributing fashion editor at Vogue since 2005 and at Vogue Italia since 1998, is ending those engagements. “Now I’m going to be focusing my editorial prowess on W,” he explained. “Whenever a relationship ends it’s very sad."

• Vogue's Virginia Smith turned down the Barneys fashion director position last week, and now the other front-runner, Lane Crawford fashion director Sarah Rutson, has too. “I have no intention or plans to leave Lane Crawford,” Rutson said over the weekend [WWD]
• Tomorrow's British Fashion Awards will honor Alexander McQueen posthumously for Outstanding Achievement; McQueen's frequent collaborator Nick Knight made a short film of the designer's archives for the occasion, scored by Bjork: “It is being styled by Edward Enninful and will feature black models only” [Style File]
• The first image of Dolce & Gabbana's Spring 2011 campaign, which features Izabel Goulart, Alessandra Ambrosio, Maryna Linchuk, and Isabeli Fontana captured by Steven Klein, has leaked (pictured) [TFS]

• Giorgio Armani and Lady Gaga, who have a multimillion dollar partnership, finally met for the first time last night; Anna Dello Russo also met Gaga and brought her a doll [Styleite]
• See the Ann Taylor-inspired looks the 2010 CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund finalists created as part of this year's competition [Fashionista]
• Hairstylist Didier Malige on Terry Richardson's childhood: "Now I see Terry as an adult, and at the time I knew him as three or four years old. His upbringing was totally liberal compared to a French kid of his age. They had a Fiat 500, which is a tiny little car, and he always had to share it with a huge poodle, like a royal poodle. And he always had to sit in the back with the poodle." [Into The Gloss]
• Juicy Couture co-founders Pamela Skaist-Levy and Gela Nash-Taylor, who favor vintage pieces, furry vests, black leather pants, and vertiginous heels, plan to launch a new label next year, and they're dropping hints: “It will reflect the way we dress now. We have outgrown our track suits and grown up” [WWD]
• Sasha Pivovarova, who likes to make dolls, opens up her Brooklyn loft for T's cameras [T]
• Watch the music video for a young Jean Paul Gaultier's 1988 single, "How To Do That," featuring Naomi Campbell [Jezebel]
• 23-year-old Central St Martins graduate Thomas Tait only does private orders so far, but he's already got fans in Giles Deacon, Daphne Guinness, Stephen Jones, and Manolo Blahnik [T]
• Intermission Magazine's website just launched, featuring interviews with the likes of Gaia Repossi and Hanne-Gaby Odiele [Intermission]

>> Lindsay Wixson is undoubtedly a designer favorite — Donatella Versace chose Wixson to mirror a younger version of herself, blonde hair, heavy eyeliner, and all in the ad for an upcoming Versace fragrance — and she just shot for Mulberry in Northern England with Tim Walker and Edward Enninful. But she's still only 16, which means she's excited about things like her sixteenth birthday present — Chrysler Sebring convertible — and next year's prom: “Jason Wu’s making my dress!” [Vogue]

>> There have been rumors circulating that Catherine McNeil had changed up her hair in a big way, and now her agency Next has released the first photos of McNeil's new black bob (a couple more here), adding that it was cut and colored by "a friend." Frockwriter thinks that statement might be code for it having been done on a recent yet-to-be-released job; it's not rare for a model to have her hair changed for a shoot: Abbey Lee Kershaw's was cut to shoulder-length by Chanel for the Fall 2010 ad campaign.

That exact thing also happened to Ajak Deng, who recently went blond after encouragement from Jimmy Paul and Edward Enninful. “They dyed my hair for Italian Vogue, but everyone seems to like it, so I think I’m going to keep it like this for a while! It was a little shocking,” she told Modelinia. “I was crying, but now I’m trying to rock my new hair!”

Yes, we are huge fans of Edward Enninful's work with photographers like Steven Meisel and Craig McDean, but our favorite Enninful moment is a short scene during The September Issue when the superstar stylist claims (giant Jamba Juice in hand) he wants to kill himself after an upsetting meeting with Anna Wintour. Wintour had just responded to his latest work for the magazine by asking, "Where is the glamour? I mean, please, it's Vogue."

Despite (or because of) her sharp critiques, Enninful credits Wintour with introducing him to a lighter side of fashion. In a recent interview with One Management's Christopher Michael for Models.com, he says: "With Anna, I learned that fashion can be fun and it didn’t have to be dark, fashion could be all these things and still have an edge, and still be a business.”

The model-obsessed stylist, who has been working in the industry since his days at i-D in the late 1980s, also weighed in on fashion's current fixation on girls with curves: "I’m all up for healthy beautiful women, you know. Cindy, Naomi…they were 8’s, 10’s … They were amazing women, they were not stick thin insects. So, for me I hope this carries on and I know that most magazines are really happy that we now have just beautiful women. It’s definitely a step in the right direction."

Source: Getty