Kenya Hunt: ‘The situation with Ozempic is exposing the holes in the body positivity movement’

Fashion briefly flirted with plus-size models, but thin is back on the catwalk and representation is still lacking in luxury fashion houses where creative directors are still mostly white men. Olivia Petter meets Kenya Hunt – at the helm of ELLE UK, and recently named as one of London’s leading Black creatives – who says diversity must be more than a ‘trend’

It’s time the industry stopped being obsessed with keeping up appearances (Edd Horder)

Picture a fashion editor. Is she slim, white and utterly terrifying? Does she have a permanent look of disdain splashed across her face? Has she got a famous bob haircut? If the answer to any of these questions is “yes”, you need to get up to speed – and stop watching The Devil Wears Prada. Today’s fashion editors are nothing like the monolithic stereotypes many uphold. All you have to do is take one look at last season’s front row to see how much the industry is diversifying, particularly within the media, with more people of colour taking the reins at leading glossy magazines than ever before.

“That’s the thing I find most thrilling,” says Kenya Hunt, who was appointed editor-in-chief at ELLE UK in 2022, making her the first Black woman to edit the title. “I’ve spent the majority of my working life chronicling the paucity of representation within fashion, so to be in a place now, where I’m at Paris Fashion Week and I look around and, you know, there’s Edward Enninful (the outgoing editor at British Vogue, set to be succeeded by Chioma Nnadi), there’s Lindsay Peoples (editor at The Cut), there’s Harper’s Bazaar’s Samira Nasr ... that’s tangible change. To be a part of that feels amazing.”

It’s been a long time coming. These days, Hunt is one of the most esteemed figures working in fashion. In 2021, she was given the Global Leader Of Change Award at the British Fashion Council’s annual awards and on the day we meet, over rose matcha lattes at the Rose Bakery in Dover Street Market, Hunt has just been named one of London’s most influential Black creatives by The Evening Standard in its Black Fashion Power List. She is also the author of GIRL: Essays on Black womanhood, which came out in 2020.