This book looks at images of the ‘woman-child’ in British and European fashion
magazines, in the period spanning 1990 to 2015. Yet, in the years that have lapsed
since the conclusion of this study and the publication of the present book, the
industry and fashion media have continued to evolve. One significant shift not
covered by this timeframe is the change of editorial direction at British Vogue,
the magazine studied most comprehensively for this project. In 2017 it was
announced that Alexandra Shulman would be stepping down as editor-in-chief
of the magazine, with Ghanaian-born Edward Enninful named her successor. The
December 2017 issue of Vogue was the first under his stewardship, and featured
British model, Adwoa Aboah on the cover, alongside a list of contributors, many
of whom were people of colour. Politics, anti-racism and diversity have since
become central to the vision of ‘#NewVogue’ elaborated under his direction and,
as such, the magazine now looks very different from the version I studied, and
critiqued, for this book.
This book has two overarching research questions: the first concerns the meaning
of the woman-child, in her various incarnations, and the second concerns the
possible appeal she holds for contemporary women living in the UK, following
several waves of feminism. For it cannot be assumed that an image of childlike
femininity in the eighteenth century, when Wollstonecraft was writing, would
be read in the same way as a childlike woman today. I was therefore interested