How to become a fashion editor part 2


In 2008 I published one of my most popular blog posts ever, How To Become a Fashion Editor. It was a no holds barred guide to making it on the magazine intern circuit, inspired by my years as a magazine fashion editor. To this day, I still get comments on it and only yesterday someone tweeted me to say it was the best advice they had read. As it’s coming up to school-leaving/graduation time, I thought it was a good time to revisit some of the advice.

But wait! You can do better than read a solitary blog post, the Teen Vogue Handbook has just been published! I was very excited to be invited to the launch (yep, I still buy Teen Vogue religiously every month, even though I’m more than double the median reader age. And?). Held at the Marc by Marc Jacobs shop, it was wall-to-wall under-16s with a few grown ups of the Katie Hillier, Venetia Scott, Pixie Geldof variety thrown in. No alcohol but plenty of cupcakes and Percy Pigs.

But back to the book. The Teen Vogue Handbook – An Insider’s Guide to Careers in Fashion really is the handbook to end them all. It has sections on photography, styling, design, journalism, modelling, beauty – the lot. And it’s packed full of case studies and Q & As with the best of the best in fashion – can I interest you in Rodarte, Stella McCartney, Bruce Weber, Pat McGrath? How about Anna Wintour? As if the words of wisdom aren’t enough, the pages are then brought to life with the upbeat editorials we all know and love from Teen Vogue, as well as product-heavy still life ‘tool kit’ pages (hey, a budding editor is nothing without her Smythson notebook).





This really is a very thorough and beautiful handbook for anyone wanting to get on the first rung in fashion. But it’s even a must-buy for those already in the job. After all, lesson number one is: you never stop learning…