By Guy Martin,Senior Contributor,Shannon Finney

Copyright forbes

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – SEPTEMBER 12: Edward Enninful signs copies of his 72 Magazine Debut Issue on September 12, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Shannon Finney/Getty Images)
Getty Images

Whether in London, Paris or New York, at Conde Nast, and more specifically at the Vogue editions, the top editors don’t usually leave their coveted posts of their own volition. But in 2023, after blazing through six revolutionary and financially successful years at the helm of British Vogue, Edward Enninful, the Ghana-born London editor, then hitting fifty and long rumored to be Anna Wintour’s crown prince in New York, decided to make his move away from the grand mothership. In short order over the last couple of years, the agile globe-trotting networker has put together a consortium of investors to form his own media company, EE72, the name taken from his own initials and birth year.

The startup boasts, of all things in this day and age, no less a proud live dinosaur than a quarterly print magazine, 72, whose first cover model, out now, is Enninful’s close friend Julia Roberts, a high-Hollywood “get” that is notoriously thorny for any publication to realize. Not stopping there, Enninful includes in the issue a sharp journalistic exercise from Ms. Roberts in the now-almost-extinct long-form of a 6000-word interview — again, by Roberts, on whom very little moss gathers — with Roberts’ good friend and longtime Ocean’s co-star George Clooney. Not a shabby blast for a fashion mag right out of the starting gate, but then again, 72 isn’t just any mag.

Pictured above this past March courtside (at a Los Angeles Lakers’ game) flanked by a couple of friends, Sascha Baron Cohen and Leonardo DiCaprio, Enninful was still on his investment and hiring rounds for the EE72, and the 72, launch. A scant five months later, on September 12, Enninful threw a New York fashion-week bash at Cut, the Wolfgang Puck steakhouse at the downtown Four Seasons on Church Street, to fete 72’s splashy drop.

The backstory: Enninful has deep roots as a London stylist and as the long-time editor of scrappy, flashy, ultra-hip i-D magazine — at 18, he was the youngest-ever editor of that magazine and stayed there for 20 years before being recruited by Conde Nast. Accordingly, EE72, the company, is structured in a new way, which is to say, it doesn’t just report on the street, it markets and acts on the street — in event production, fashion collaborations and branding services. The first EE72 collaboration occurred this past March with the Italian-owned French brand Moncler.

Enninful comes by this heady cocktail of professions with ease. Even during his glittering publishing career at i-D, W, and the American, Italian and British editions of Vogue, the fashion polymath remained a stylist and consultant — staging runway shows and even directing a film — such was his London fashion-world reknown. Print publishing is necessarily a part of EE72’s corporate core, but its main thrust will be digital.

Suffice it to say, with credentials such as this, a charivari of fashion-week regulars, media, film and musical grandees and not a few New York and London tatterdemalions showed for the September 12 bacchanal on Church Street. While the costumery was slightly more restrained than, say, a Met Gala, at the same time there was a back-to-school festival feel to the outfits. For the more intimidated guests, the hive-mind thought on the dress code was: Hey, this Edward dude is really savvy, so I’d better do up the dog, but try not to LOOK LIKE I did up the dog. In short, the tacit dress code was ultra-ultra-pinpoint hip, but effortless! You had to be pinpoint-hip to pull it off. A terrifying prospect for more than a few attendees.

Below, newlywed and habitual gym rat Jeff Bezos, looking mighty fit on the arm of his telegenic bride Lauren Sanchez, channels his very best Saturday Night Fever Tony Manero, as played by John Travolta. The Bezos peacock swagger is letter-perfect Travolta. In his super shiny midnight-blue single-breasted with just a hint of bench-pressed man-chest bursting through the midnight-blue shirt, the Amazon mogul is ready to disco down to a 30-minute remaster of the Bee Gees immortal “Stayin’ Alive.” Note the dynamic hint of the peerless 1977 Travolta footwork that Bezos brings to his entrance on the Downtown Four Seasons carpet. It’s what the British call “throwing shapes.”

As for the century and the decade, the 1970s are all there in the suit. The jacket’s nice and short to show off the leg and the dancin’ feet. All Bezos needs now is the soundtrack. Perhaps the Four Seasons had it playing on the outside speakers? We’ll never know.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – SEPTEMBER 12: Lauren Sanchez Bezos and Jeff Bezos attend the EE72 Magazine launch party at The Cut restaurant on September 12, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by The Hapa Blonde/GC Images)

Hewing to the “don’t-put-any-effort-into-this-or-you-are-dead” mode, Colson Baker (aka “Machine Gun Kelly”) is bringing his best 1970s leather bomber, which may or may not be a Fifties James Dean quote, but in general, the Baker profile is low (for him), and that’s reinforced by the regulation drop-point business-white dress shirt with a nice bit of beige silk on the vintage tie tucked neatly under the bomber. In short, a sober, respectful profile for this affair. He looks like the sort of smart-aleck 11th-grader who just might be funny enough to date a cheerleader, even though he was too skinny to play football and too scared to play basketball.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – SEPTEMBER 12: Machine Gun Kelly attends the EE72 Magazine launch party at The Cut restaurant on September 12, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by The Hapa Blonde/GC Images)

Pictured in a cameo on the Four Seasons carpet with a group of guests around him, entrepeneur-of-the-hour Enninful is resplendent in his trademark double-breasted peak-lapeled dinner jacket, insouciantly sans tie. Faultlessly subdued bespoke tailoring, and his grosgrain lapel broadcasts a certain seniority. On-the-money host-wear. Very presidential.

Speaking of politics, singer and forty-ish America’s Got Talent standout from good ol’ Indiana, Adam Lambert, far right below, has been rocking a full-on Byzantine Empire surcoat/suit outfit for some time now. We don’t know whether Lambert has actually studied the chaotic, bloody internecine betrayals and reversals of Emperor Justinian’s reign as he built the Hagia Sophia in then-Constantinople between 532 and 537 AD. But we can say that, should any Hollywood-epic producer want to do a film with a cast of thousands about Justinian’s build of the world’s greatest church-turned-mosque, that producer could today cast Lambert opposite the emperor as a splendid dagger-bearing inner-court villain with zero change of costume or makeup from his 72 mag party kit.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – SEPTEMBER 12: Edward Enninful (L) and Adam Lambert (R) attend the EE72 Magazine launch party at The Cut restaurant on September 12, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by The Hapa Blonde/GC Images)

Speaking of politics, singer and forty-ish America’s Got Talent standout from good ol’ Indiana, Adam Lambert, pictured far right behind Enninful above, has been rocking a full-on Byzantine Empire surcoat/suit outfit for some time now. We don’t know whether Lambert has actually studied the chaotic, bloody internecine betrayals and reversals of Emperor Justinian’s reign as he built the Hagia Sophia in then-Constantinople between 532 and 537 AD. But we can say that, should any Hollywood-epic producer be doing a film with a cast of thousands about Justinian’s build of the world’s greatest church-turned-mosque, that producer could today cast Lambert opposite the emperor as a splendid dagger-bearing inner-court villain with zero change of costume or makeup from his 72 mag party kit. Memo to costume and make-up: Don’t touch the man’s beard! Perfect Van Dyke! It screams supervillain!

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – SEPTEMBER 12: (EDITOR’S NOTE: Image contains partial nudity.) Paris Jackson attends the EE72 Magazine launch party at The Cut restaurant on September 12, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by The Hapa Blonde/GC Images)

As she often does, singer Paris Jackson resolutely brought the “naked” to the party, despite the fact that the distracting use of chiffon and other sheer fabrics is decidedly on the wane. But, Jackson gets a bit of carte blanche here, first, because she looks otherwise so comfortably deshabille, as if she’s just returned from “glamping” at an alt-rock-festival with her sturdy boots and has left her sleeping bag and a couple of her festival-mates and probably a band-member or two and their instruments — along with several bottles of pretty good firewater, and a twelve-pack of Dunkin’ Donuts they got on the Jersey Turnpike — in the van parked several blocks away. Do you know how close the Holland Tunnel is to Church Street? Easy parking for the van, especially at night, and when she’s done, they can all high-tail it back to Jersey.

It’s the very cool floor-dragging train that says all that, even though it can, also, not be true.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – SEPTEMBER 12: Evan Ross and Natasha Lyonne attend the EE72 Magazine launch party at The Cut restaurant on September 12, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by The Hapa Blonde/GC Images)

Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1, anybody? Pictured left, above, Evan Ross is going semi-military, in an Eighties “new-wave” kinda way with his white mess jacket. The mess — meaning, the military’s dining hall — required short semi-formal-to-formalwear in centuries gone by, and ordinary military blouses were not enough. In different colorways according to the regiment, the short, no-tails mess jacket became the go-to for formal mess dress in the British Army in the mid-19th century. Here, Ross’ 1984-era super-padded shoulders take his mess jacket to a cartoonish extreme, but, paired with some sort of baseball cap on backwards, he’s not headed to the Royal Marines’ Christmas ball anyway. He’s ready for a remake of all those Purple Rain videos in 2025’s version of 1984.

Ross’ super-tough wing-woman, Natasha Lyonne, seems ready for business in her regulation pinstripe kit, but it doesn’t look like she’ll be hunkering down in banking or law. More like: hardnosed artist management. Including managment of her own artistry. Nice aviators, to boot.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – SEPTEMBER 12: Oprah Winfrey attends the EE72 Magazine launch party at The Cut restaurant on September 12, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by TheStewartofNY/GC Images)

Pictured above, bright as ever, Oprah Winfrey is telling us that it’s definitely back-to-school, and that she’s gonna run us absolutely ragged with her must-read list this semester. School dread should be filling your gut about now. As the head teacher, of course she’s read all the books already, so you have some catching up to do, buster, and you better get to it, or else. The crisp essence-of-fall brown-leather suit means work. Cross this lady at your peril.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – SEPTEMBER 12: Tom Brady attends the EE72 Magazine launch party at The Cut restaurant on September 12, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by The Hapa Blonde/GC Images)

We can be forgiven for thinking that the gentleman exiting the 72 party above could easily be a lost tourist stumbling through the maze of Lower Manhattan, or maybe even a local high-school football coach from Staten Island who had a couple too many beers after his dental appointment in the city and got his directions crossed en route to the Staten Island ferry. He’s just been shown the door by the bouncers.

It’s the high-school-coach stonewash on those regular-fit Levis that are telling us with great certainty that his brother is a plumber. Are those real Nikes? Can be, but they look kinda custom-made — look at that reverse swoop on the outside of the left foot! Hold on! Check the chiseled jaw! That strangely straight brown hair. And the admiring smile from the lady some distance off. No way! The GOAT, himself? Yes, this is the real Tom Brady leaving the party. Dressing as a true-blue, off-duty, yet insanely famous, American sportsman. You don’t get many of those live on the hoof like this anymore. Which is probably why that genius Enninful invited him?

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – SEPTEMBER 12: Lenny Kravitz attends the EE72 Magazine launch party at The Cut restaurant on September 12, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by The Hapa Blonde/GC Images)

If the tacit, but highly fraught, 72 mag-party dress code is to come in what you are comfortable in while also making damn sure that you are on the dagger-point of all that is hip, then one man you are sure to invite is Lenny Kravitz, who has been doing just that since he was a teenager. He’s now sixty, and the fittest sixty that you (or anybody) ever saw, what with all the kale and healthy stuff he gets from his farm in the Bahamas. So ingrained is that style edict in the singer that we might venture that Kravitz could somehow telepathically zone in to the “all-black-longtime-rocker” uniform of skinny jeans and a black leather jacket without even being conscious that he was doing it. He snatched the scuffed boots off the floor at the back of one of his closets without even turning the lights on. That kind of perfect nonchalance for the street and the occasion.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – SEPTEMBER 12: Lila Moss attends the EE72 Magazine launch party at The Cut restaurant on September 12, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by TheStewartofNY/GC Images)

By contrast, model Lila Grace Moss Hack seems to have considered every last millimeter of her black dress deeply. It’s partly due to what we might call the maternal-line fashion pedigree, although her father, the British diarist Jefferson Hack, is apparently no slouch in the dressing department, either. Either way, Ms Moss Hack is somewhat more than just a model, and her name is featured on the cover of the inaugural issue of 72 just to the left of Julia Roberts.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – SEPTEMBER 12: Diane von Furstenberg attends the EE72 Magazine launch party at The Cut restaurant on September 12, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by The Hapa Blonde/GC Images)

Finally, a stateswoman with some gravitas. Diane von Fürstenberg’s not kowtowing or otherwise making a fuss, and she’s really comfortable with this dress-code because she’s Diane von Fürstenberg, get it? Born in Belgium to a mother from Thessaloniki who was a member of the Greek Resistance in WWII, von Fürstenberg was educated in Oxfordshire and Madrid before she attended the University of Geneva in economics. She designed her first silk jersey dresses after studying fabric manufacture in Italy. Samples of her famous wrap dress, first designed in 1974, are in the Metropolitan Museum’s Costume Institute. There are a few perks to being enormously vivacious and accomplished in your trade. One is, you have a certain perspective on things. The second is, you can definitely rock a good black well-heeled boot well through your eighth decade. The admirable fashion message here is: Be strong, because there’s no other way to be.

Editorial StandardsReprints & Permissions