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Nicole Kidman Is British Vogue’s September 2026 Cover Star

BY CHIOMA NNADI

I have major trust issues when it comes to my hair, dating back as far as I remember. One particularly harrowing core memory: I’m aged nine on a school trip to Butlin’s when my teacher, whose straight, blonde locks couldn’t be more different from mine, was tasked with styling my Afro. Her well-meaning efforts – a demented cross between Pippi Longstocking and the scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz – left me positively mortified. As a teenager, finding a reliable hairstylist proved just as fraught. After a few years of chemically straightening my hair, I resolved to go natural aged 14. At the recommendation of a friend, I made an appointment with a hairdresser in Battersea specialising in Black hair. What could possibly go wrong? A lot, apparently. Midway through a blow-dry, the stylist threw up her hands. “I’m sorry, but your hair is unmanageable. I can’t do this,” she said. With hairpins still clinging to my partially coiffed do, I was swiftly ushered out the door.

When I finally landed at Charlotte Mensah’s salon, shortly after moving from New York City back to London a couple of years ago, my expectations were miserably low and yet she disarmed me almost immediately. “Whatever the length, whatever the texture, Charlotte finds beauty. She listens to your story about your hair and replaces it with a better one,” writes Zadie Smith, herself a regular at Mensah’s beloved Hair Lounge on Portobello Road. In anticipation of Community Matters, an exhibition celebrating Mensah’s 40th year in the industry, which opens in September at Ladbroke Hall, Smith travelled to Accra with the award-winning British Ghanaian hairstylist. Shot by Nigerian photographer Manny Jefferson, the accompanying pictures are at once a love letter to West African hairstyles, the women who wear them and the decade-long friendship between Smith and Mensah.

Friendship is at the heart of this month’s headlining fashion story too, a bumper introduction to the exciting new generation of British models. Contributing editor Olivia Singer followed Jacqui Hooper (22), Bebe Parnell (21), Charlie Jones (19), Ella Dalton (20), Charlotte Boggia (19), Monet-Lauren Gordon (27), Cathy Simmons (22) and Layla Etengan (20) over a rambunctious shoot with photographer Rafael Pavarotti and stylist Kate Phelan. They were inspired by the throwback swagger of Buffalo style, and that personality-driven aesthetic is in keeping with the vibrant energy of this crew.

At only 20 years of age, the Green Party’s Dylan Law is undoubtedly a next-gen name to know in British politics. Nosheen Iqbal met the new deputy mayor of Hackney just weeks after the local election in May that swept him to office. Law is “an antidote to the GB News-ification of public discourse”, she writes. Photographed by Campbell Addy, he is a breath of fresh air indeed.

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