Working As A Fashion PR
Do you need to work for a company as a Fashion PR?
You can obviously work for yourself. You have to have done a certain amount of time to build up your reputation, and to work for yourself. Otherwise you'll find it quite difficult to get business. Obviously, I think, first and foremost, you have to work for a company or designer to build up your reputation. And then there's a lot of people that go freelance. Or you can start as freelance and build your reputation up through that. It is, ultimately, all about your reputation. How people think you deliver in your job and if you're good at your job. And what results you've driven for clients.
Who do you work for as a fashion PR?
Does a Fashion PR have a set number of brands that you represent?
Does a Fashion PR represent male and female brands?
You can do, yes. I do. You naturally specialize in one, which is just where your personality takes you more than anything. But a lot of people don't; a lot of people do one or the other. If you work for a designer, a women's wear designer, you're always going to do that whilst you're there. I started doing women's wear PR for Julien and then moved from that to do Levi's, which is obviously men's and womens, and I'm now probably set more in men's wear than I do womens'. It depends on who you work for. There's different ways of communicating women's PR than there is to men's, obviously. Women's is much more focused about catwalk and trends and a new shape, a new silhouette whereas guys' is simpler than that. For men it's about a cut, or they might have a hem of a trouser that is slightly higher than last season, or a bit more of a "look" than necessarily fashion.
Do Fashion PRs regularly work with the same publications or stylists?
Do you provide clothes to celebrities?
Yes, we do that quite a lot. Anything from casual wear, like Levis, to a big product placement plan. Last year we placed 380 celebrities or trendsetters within the UK, so if you're averaging more than a person a day, it's quite a lot. We place a certain look - we'll place a skinny fit or loose fit next season or whoever that may be for visibility. It also helps drive sales for that brand in particular. Or you can do anything from the BAFTAS to the GQ Awards. It depends on who you work for and whether your designer is interested in using a celebrity or not. A lot of people are, because it is the age of celebrity at the moment. You'll have celebrities that will only wear certain clothes which you might not be able to get to, and then you'll have new targets and new people coming through that might be more relevant to what who you're working for. So we do target celebs.
Do you pay celebrities to wear clothes?
We haven't done, but I know that you can do. Obviously, there are sponsorship deals in place. One of the people that we work with, Umbro, have a sponsorship deal with the likes of John Terry and Michael Owen, and there is a payment involved in wearing their boots and being an Umbro player. In fashion, it can be a little bit different. Sometimes you pay, sometimes you don't. In my experience, we never have.
Which magazines have you provided clothes for?
Well, every single magazine you can think of. I mean, we send out every single day to Vogue, Elle, Marie Claire, Cosmo, all the women's titles; Men's Health, Maxim, Arena, Zoo Magazine, Nuts Magazine. Every single magazine you can think of, we work with.
Which TV shows have you provided clothes for?
It's a little bit different with TV shows because TV shows aren't credited and you don't tend to get, as you do in a magazine, trousers worn by X model wear Hugo Boss, or wear Levi's, or wear whoever. TV is a little bit different, and depending on the show and depending on who's in it and what they're talking about, if it fits with the brand then we might do it; if it doesn't, we wouldn't.
How do you know what a publication or stylist wants?
You get to know them and their magazine. You should know every single page that they do, what their style is, whether they only write about Levi 501 jeans, whether they hate anything with white marks on it, and whether they like the worn in jeans that you get. You just become friends and talk to them all the time; because you're reading what they're writing, and you understand what they're looking for. Also you have to have a little bit of knowledge about their reference. So if they give you a reference, and you don't know it, you need to make sure that you look it up and you're doing the right things.
Do you get paid commission for each exposure of a brand you provide?
How much can a successful Fashion PR earn?
I think a successful Fashion PR can earn anything from £30,000 to £100,000 depending on your level. It's completely dependent on who you work for, and whether that's an agency or, again, a designer and what their revenue is like, and if they're making sales or if they're not.
Do you provide more than one than one label or brand for a job?
How can you tell if a brand will be wanted?
You have an idea if a brand's wanted, if you want it. If you look at it and you see what they are doing and you think that's interesting, or you would buy it yourself and your friends would buy it, or you may get it for you or for your boyfriend. If there is that personal interest, then there's possibly going to be interest elsewhere.
Do you only place clothes where the fashion designer wants you to?
Yes, they have a say definitely. I mean, it is important for a brand to be where they want to be. However, the employee asks because we understand the industry and we are the professionals within that sector. Therefore, it is definitely up to us to advise them of where their brand should and should not be. And sometimes that is a bit of give and take whereby sometimes we win and sometimes they win. But ultimately it is a partnership and you have to make sure you are doing what they want and they trust you enough to put their brand in the right places.
Do you work with models?
Yes, we do, sometimes. It depends on what we're doing. If we do a little salon show for the launch of a new season, then we'll cast some models with a stylist, or we might product place them. They might be on our list that are key targets within the industry that we want to see our clothes on, or we might be doing a show. I was in Paris a couple of weeks ago for Men's Fashion Week, and there's obviously models that were being cast for the show there.
How do you cope with a difficult model?
I've never come across a difficult model necessarily. I think it's not really the PR's job to deal with difficult models. My job is to make sure that people are writing about who I'm working for in the right way or talking about them in the right way. Models are a completely different entity to that.
Do you provide all the clothes on a particular production?
No we don't. There's many kinds, ten to fifteen probably , of key agencies that people we call stylists will phone and give their story to, within London that is. Also, they'll talk to individual designers because a lot of designers have their own in-house PR. But they'll get a multitude of clothes and then they'll pull from that their exact story and take that to the shoot with a few extra styling bits.
Is doing PR for the catwalk different from magazine work?
With the catwalk show, your main objective is to make sure that the press are there and buyers, if that's part of your role as well. Also, with catwalk you'll reckon a year in advance for magazines. A few magazines might do a preview. You'll get a write up in the newspapers and whether the press liked it or they didn't like it, what they felt worked, what they felt was on trends, which will all be included in that. Magazines, you're probably working about four or maybe five months in advance. It's much shorter lead times. Obviously, your objective changes too. Getting products on pages as opposed to bums on seats.
Do fashion PRs stick to certain types of fashion?
What happens if the stylist hates the clothes you've provided?
None of the stylists I've sent to have hated all the clothes I've sent them. They won't use them ultimately, and then you'll end up a few months into your time where you're supposed to be delivering media with nothing. Then, you'll have to sit down with whoever you work with and recognize there's a bit of a problem there and how to fix it.
Do brands come in and out of fashion?
They definitely do - Levi's is a brilliant example of that. It's obviously the biggest denim brand in the world and it goes through peaks and drops of success. At the moment it's really successful. It's had times in the past, like the launch of engineer jeans that was massively successful, and then it goes through dips when all of the LA denim brands come over. People then want to buy Rock and Republic for 350 pounds and we go a bit denim designer crazy. They'll then go back to their brands that they love and know that deliver a really quality product, and then they'll go on a high again. They definitely dip, and our job as their PR is to make the dips less and the highs more.
How do you find or sign up new brands into an agency?
It's through recommendations. It's great work that we've done that they've seen. It's through your network. Someone who works on a magazine or in a newspaper might recommend you. It's generally that way, or you are asked to pitch for new clients. As part of one of the leading agencies in London, they know who the big agencies are, and sometimes you're just on that bell anyway.
How do you deal with upset clients who didn't get the exposure they wanted?
Through my experience, I think, obviously the longer you work in PR the better you become at dealing with things like that. I think the key thing is not to take it personally. It's not about you necessarily, such as you've not done your job and you've not been talking to those people about the brands, and then that's a bit different. But as a general rule, we've been talking to them and if there is that kind of problem, you have to foresee it before they do. So the idea is that you've had that conversation, why it's not on that page, why we might have missed out on that issue, etc. You have that conversation before a client gets angry.
