In an essay to Vestoj magazine, fashion director of British Vogue Lucinda Chambers spoke openly about the sudden dismissal after 36 years with the publication, 25 of which she headed the fashion department. The essay caused a lot of excitement and was deleted almost immediately after publication - Vestoj attributed this to pressure from influential representatives of the industry. Nevertheless, the article reappeared on the site today.
“A month and a half ago I was fired from Vogue. It only took three minutes. Nobody knew about this: not the publisher, not the HR department, not the editor with whom I worked for 25 years. Nobody - except the person who did it, the new editor,”says Chambers, referring to the editor-in-chief of the edition, Edward Enniful, who replaced Alexandra Schulman.
Chambers admitted that she does not want to pretend she left the magazine, as many of her colleagues do. Instead, she decided to speak honestly about the state of the fashion industry: “You can't be a failure in fashion - especially in the era of social media, when you need to show everyone your beautiful and successful life. Instead, people live in constant anxiety. But why? After all, mistakes help us grow and develop. I'm not ashamed to talk about what happened to me. Yes, some of my shoots may have been bad. The June cover featuring Alexa Chung in stupid Michael Kors clothes is bullshit, but he's a big advertiser and I knew what I was doing it for, Chambers writes. - Today there are few truly inspiring magazines. They simply ceased to be useful - instead, we force people to buy absolutely unnecessary things, we promote consumerism."
Lucinda Chambers and Vestoj hope the essay will spark discussion and lead to positive changes in the industry.
Venezia Scott has been appointed as the new fashion director for Vogue UK and will start work on July 10th.