You can’t sit with us.
When Queen Elizabeth showed up in the front row with Anna Wintour at London Fashion Week 2018 the unlikely duo nearly broke the Internet — but according to a new book excerpt published in Hello! Friday, it turns out the Vogue editor-in-chief might have purposely left out her colleague Edward Enninful in the process.
The alleged “Devil Wears Prada” behavior occurred when the British monarch, who died in September 2022 at the age of 96, made her London Fashion Week debut to present designer Richard Quinn with the inaugural Queen Elizabeth II Award for British Design.
Hello! shared a new afterword from Amy Odell’s book “Anna: A Biography” on Friday that gives insight into the viral moment — along with former British Vogue editor-in-chief Enninful’s emotional response to the royal’s surprise appearance.
“Positive buzz around Enninful, British Vogue’s first Black editor-in-chief, and his vision of showcasing diversity escalated quickly — but so did his tension with Anna,” Odell wrote in the excerpt, referring to rumors that Wintour, 73, was threatened by the fashion pro, who’d been rumored to have his eye on her job at American Vogue for years.
The author goes on to note that Enninful, 51, who now serves as Global Creative and Cultural Advisor of Vogue, attended a dinner for fashion brand Moncler in Milan on February 20, 2018 along with then-chief executive of Condé Nast, Jonathan Newhouse.
Little did he know that back in London, Wintour had received “a personal tip from a member of the British Fashion Council” that Queen Elizabeth II would be attending Richard Quinn’s show that day, which the fashion editor had previously not planned on attending.
While “a notice had gone out previously that a member of the royal family would attend the event,” no one expected Queen Elizabeth — who had never attended fashion week before — to show up, and Wintour decided to keep the info to herself.
After receiving the news, Wintour “went and got that epic photo op, leaving Enninful so upset that Anna had gotten both the tip and the pictures that he was said to have cried,” per the book.
According to Odell, “Newhouse scolded Anna for not sharing the information about the Queen — but it didn’t matter.”
Indeed, a source told Pvnew earlier this summer that “It was a huge thing, and Anna got the photo op. Edward was blindsided. He was so upset at Anna, he was in tears.”
Fast forward to 2023 and rumors have continued to swirl that Wintour, who has served as Vogue’s editor-of-chief since 1988 and was promoted to worldwide chief content officer at Condé Nast and global editorial director of Vogue in 2020, was behind Enniful’s departure from British Vogue.
While the former stylist told CNN “I don’t want Anna’s job” last year, industry gossipers insisted that he had designs on the editor-in-chief role at American Vogue, with a source even telling the Sunday Times that Enninful had shared with pals he expected to move to NYC in the next few years.
“With regards to Edward’s hopes and dreams of Anna going, she’s not going anywhere!” a source told Pvnew in July.
In the words of “The Devil Wears Prada” villain Miranda Priestly, that’s all, Edward.
