Watching the Hills has currently become my new tv obsession and I’m not going to rave about the actual show but I just watched an episode from the second season when Lauren and Whitney get a visit from the super intern Emily from New York.
This girl really amazed me, she goes to NYU 2 days a week, works at Teen Vogue 2 days a week and at Chanel for 1 day per week! How incredible is that! When I interned at Agent Provocateur’s press office we started off with just me and then two other girls came to work as well. Both of them were fired within a week from starting. I had to work so hard to convince them to even offer me the placement because I didn’t do marketing or fashion for a degree and those girls who did precisely that couldn’t even hack it.
Right now the fashion industry is booming. Fashion has become so much more accesible through high street chains like TopShop and H&M, internet fashion spots like Asos.com, netaporter.com and so on, whose revenue has just shot straight up during the last few years, the hundreds of fashion blogs that are thriving and of course tv shows like Gossip Girl and the Hills. Its so easy nowadays to be stylish because you can pretty much get anything off the rack and look just right.
But, and Emily makes a perfect example, it takes so much more to make it. Its not just about the fashion anymore and having the right handbag: you need to be so dedicated to your work, even when that includes getting people lunch, stuffing envelopes and talking to snotty press people all day long. Working at AP definitely made me get a clue and not be so naive which is quite useful now when I’m going into actual PR work because I know you have to pay your dues and just get on with it before all the good opportunities open up for you.