Unless you were living off grid last week, you may have seen the razzmatazz surrounding Edward Enninful as he bid farewell to his editor-in-chief position at British Vogue. His swansong March issue features a cover starring 40 of the world’s most influential and stylish women, including supermodels Naomi Campbell and Cindy Crawford.
It has been called “The ultimate fashion issue”. But some readers may be surprised to find Keir Starmer smizing back at them. The Labour leader and aspiring prime minister makes his glossy magazine debut to talk about everything from his vision for Britain to his “beloved Gunners” football team. Running alongside the interview are images taken at London’s Parliament Hill, including one with his wife Victoria, a health worker.
Starmer joins a growing list of politicians who can’t resist the allure of Vogue and its influence. Last year, the deputy Labour party leader, Angela Rayner, appeared in British Vogue’s December issue. In 2017, the then prime minister, Theresa May, became the first PM to front the cover of American Vogue. The former leader of the Scottish Conservative party Ruth Davidson sat for British Vogue in 2018, while former Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon has appeared twice (in 2015 and then 2021).
It’s not just British politicians. US vice-president, Kamala Harris, was shot for American Vogue in 2021 and former first lady Michelle Obama appeared three times during her days in the White House. In 1998, Hillary Clinton appeared in velvet next to an urn of red roses. A 2022 “digital cover” featured Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska, while who can forget the decision to feature Asma al-Assad, the first lady of Syria in the March 2011 “Power” issue, while the Arab spring was arising in the Middle East.
While many politicians have appeared, some have not, try as they might. While speaking last year at the Edinburgh festival fringe, Sturgeon revealed that Liz Truss had once asked her “how to get into Vogue”. On realising Sturgeon had appeared not once but twice in the fashion bible, Truss was said to have “looked a little bit as if she’d swallowed a wasp”.
So what’s the appeal? On a basic level, there must be a belief that it will broaden a frontbencher’s appeal. In the same way Joe Biden set up his own TikTok account this week, politicians use Vogue as another tool to reach voters. In 2019, British Vogue reported a readership of 925,000, and the average reader was 37. This year, the US edition reported 10.5 million print readers, of which 7 million are millennials. Online figures are even higher.
The magazine has also increasingly become more inclusive and in turn political covering everything from trans rights to greenwashing. “I do use the platform to address injustices,” Enninful said in 2020. Anna Wintour also wields some serious power. She vociferously supported Hillary Clinton during her 2016 presidential election run and was named as a leading fundraiser in Obama’s re-election campaign. Next month she will host a fundraising reception for Joe Biden’s campaign during Paris fashion week.
There’s probably a vanity element to its allure for politicians, too. A flattering portrait taken by a storied photographer who usually works with Hollywood stars (Annie Leibovitz shot May and Clinton) sounds more appealing than awkward pap shot on the steps of Downing Street.
But is it crass during a cost of living crisis particularly for leftwing politicians to appear alongside five-figure handbags?
It was along these lines that Rayner’s appearance backfired. She was widely criticised for wearing borrowed designer clothes – a standard practice for anyone being photographed for the magazine – but some felt that jarred with her viewpoints on Britain’s wealth divide.
Harris, who regularly wears Converse trainers, was said to be unhappy she ultimately ended up wearing them on her debut cover, asking aides: “Would Vogue depict another world leader this way?” Online discourse focused on how casual the cover was, with some people arguing it was “disrespectful” of her status as the first Black female vice-president in the US. A US Vogue spokesperson said the editors had felt the image captured Harris’s “authentic, approachable nature”.
The biggest newsline that came out of Starmer’s appearance? That his wife ended their first conversation by saying: “Who the fuck does he think he is?” Female politicians, on the other hand, have not got off so lightly. It will be no surprise that the backlash against female politicians often centres around what they are wearing. Though Starmer’s personal clothing choices are mentioned in the interview – his blue Adidas trainers and Stone Island polos that earned him the moniker “The New Hooligan in Town” – the story doesn’t include clothing credits, as they do with his female contemporaries. Meanwhile, very little bandwidth was given to Obama’s appearance in his two Vogue appearances, in 2006 and 2008.
Female politicians seem unable to escape comment on their clothes, though, when they make media or public appearances. In 2021, an MP remarked that Rayner was “dressed inappropriately” on a campaign visit to Hartlepool. Photographs showed Rayner wearing leopard-print trousers and stompy buckled boots. Meanwhile, a political row broke out when May chose to wear a pair of £995 leather trousers from her own wardrobe for a shoot with the Sunday Times.
There are worse places to look for votes than amid advertisements for designer handbags and articles about burnout. But, as my colleague Jess Cartner-Morley put it in 2021: “A Vogue cover is always a moment, but not always a flattering one.”
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