Edward Enninful

Music, for me, is as important as fashion. The first visuals I remember are Elvis Presley, David Bowie, New Romantics, and different punk bands.

I grew up in an African household, so lots of chicken, lots of rice. We ate Jollof rice, a very West African dish.

I felt like I grew up with Bowie. I never dressed like him, even though I did love the music, but consistently throughout my career he has been a go-to reference point: The suit from 'Young Americans,' or the gold Missoni-type looks of Ziggy Stardust. 'The Berlin Years' still influences me.

I come from a family who didn't have much money but raised me to believe that money wasn't the most important thing in the world. We had enough; we were happy.

I'm just propelled by insecurity; that's what really leads me to want to do better.

I can tell you, without diversity, creativity remains stagnant.

By people getting together and celebrating this idea of togetherness, great things can happen.

Prince was not scared. The first time I heard someone sing about AIDS, it was Prince: 'In France, a skinny man died of a big disease with a little name.' He was not afraid of taboos.

My 'Vogue' is about being inclusive; it's about diversity. Showing different women, different body shapes, different races, class. To be tackling gender.

For me, fashion succeeds when it says something about the times we live in.

I can't just go in and throw clothes at a picture. I still have to have some kind of an idea of a character, of who she is, where she's from. It's almost like playing a child's game. You have your dolls, and you create characters for them. Fashion indulged that in me.

My mother was a seamstress, so I always grew up with her making clothes. I knew how to construct outfits. I knew how to sketch. I knew how to customise. But I could never imagine it as a career.

I was really sheltered growing up, with six brothers and sisters. We played together all the time, and I was living in a fantasy world, like most creative people.

I'm really excited to see my vision for the 'British Vogue' team come to fruition.

My mother and father just taught me the basics: to be really kind, to really listen to people. I have never been one to put on airs and graces.

I didn't know anything about the fashion industry until I met the stylist Simon Foxton on a Tube. I was 16, on my way to Kingsway College, and then my whole world opened up. Before that, like in every African family, you are meant to be a lawyer.

I am black in a predominantly white industry, and I have been luckier than most.

I'd never seen anything like it in my life. Someone so blatantly challenging the ideas of race and gender and sexuality. In a way, it was comparable to David Bowie, except that Prince brought that to the black community.

I like to play with contrast. It's about changing people's perceptions of people.

The fashion industry needs to breed a whole different way of thinking. We need more diverse people working in all facets of the industry.

Change always takes time.

A queen does not wear clothes off the runways.

Being an immigrant and living in England, I feel like I lived in two worlds. There was the world that, when I was at school with my friends, was very English, and then I'd go home to another country, with exotic foods and colours. I have a sense of colour pairings, and that came from my background, I think.

When you start out in the industry and things are tough, and you're not really making money, you question yourself: should I give up?

I'm very proud of the world that's embracing all these different ideas of what it is to be diverse, in 2017.

The funny thing is that the fashions from the '90s seem to sit so well with the fashions of 2016. Everything from then somehow skipped and came back.