I have a thing for magazines. I read them, like a lot. I started reading Sassy when I was 9. Even if I didn’t work in Fashion/Lifestyle PR, I’m sure the monthly drop off would still have me rifling through, making notes and tearing things out – making lists of things to research, inspiring story and pitch ideas etc. Favorites that I read most months include Bust, Nylon, Venus, Bitch, Miss Behave, Lula, Blueprint, Domino, Lucky, and sometimes Paper. Yes I know. Good thing I am a fast devourer.

Lately, however, I’ve been noticing a repetition of information, wherein purusing Bust, Nylon, Venus, and Paper glossies, I am apt to find at least 3 feature stories on repeat. Last month it was French actress/singer Charlotte Gainsburg, and J-Pop band Kiiiiiiii, this month it is interviews with French Grafitti artist Fifi, and Shingai Shoniwa, lead singer for the Noisettes. It’s made me start to wonder how these mags get their information and how they choose their content.

I have a theory. There is a tiny carrier pigeon, or maybe a sneaky elf in limited edition sneaks, who runs around New York, sneaking into these hipster culture/fashion/music hybrids and spilling the dirt on upcoming features. Or maybe all my favorite magazines are BFF (best friends forever) and hold secret society meetings and collectively decide on content. Are these mags relying on the same PR firms to guide access, or is it simply that they have such a finely tuned finger on the pulse of what is hot, hip, and now – that it is pure coincidence that they regularly feature the same stuff? What gives?

Friends of mine find this phenomenon “F%$*ing annoying,” and I can’t help but wonder about it’s root cause. There are so many amazing, talented, worthwhile people/artists/products/designers/creators out there – I’d sure like to see a greater diversity welcomed onto the monthly hip list from my favorite mags.

(This post was listed as a Coutorture Weekend Must Read for 6/1 and was featured on Elle.com)

PR Couture goes pre-birthday celebrating and shopping in San Francisco next weekend (June 2) – If you want to meet up, or send a must-see, please send an email

Who you calling smart? – Season Five Style gives the update on recent celebrity/fashion advertisement pairings.

Internal PR makes everybody happy.

Honey, you give PR a bad name – sheisty, sneaky lame-o incentives on the other hand….it’s really the whole tone of the proposal that gets me, kind of like when you are at the mall and then are suddenly getting conned into one of those $500 worth of salon visits for $50 things. Yup – you know who you are.

How many degrees is too many? – Parsons offers Fashion Marketing courses online.
The debate and definition of Luxury via Lookonline.

The future of fashion – Stylehive fills up their dance card with new fashion partnerships.

(image via the fab travelgirlinc )

Pick up any PR textbook and many a business book and you’ll notice that the author tends to assume that working in PR means working as a company employee (they also seem to only focus on PR as it relates to healthcare, finance, oil companies, etc but that’s a rant for another time).

The truth is that there are generally two options, in-house or agency. In-house means working within a company – you come in at 9, eat in the company lunch room, are considered a full-fledged employee of the company, and work to maximize the reputation, media goals, and awareness of that single company through your work. The controversy over PR’s desire to work at an executive level, as a kind of advisor to management, is based on the idea that the PR advisor is working in-house, or at least as part of a traditional corporate culture.

In contrast, PR agencies usually have their own office and business account at Staples. They take on several clients, and are usually contracted to work a certain amount a month, plus expenses. Communication with the client takes place primarily via email, conference calls, and the occasional in-person meeting hosted at either the agency or the client’s place of business. For agency practitioners, media relations, rather than management advising, plays a more central role. Secruring media mentions and placements are one of the major ways that agency practitioners demonstrate the value of that monthly retainer to their clients.

Most large fashion houses keep their PR in-house. They may contract out to a PR agency for added event assistance during fashion week, or to several agencies across the country to help land local media hits during a large campaign. Smaller or emerging designers and fashion labels often work with a PR agency that specializes in fashion, or has a fashion team, to help them ramp up media awareness. Or, if they are feeling risky, or don’t really understand the importance of a PR’s job well done, they might try and get a marketing or PR intern to do the job for free. Later on, they might hire a PR person to work full-time.

Rather than managing the reputation of a company that provides a service, fashion usually falls under the consumer/retail/luxury goods sector, and as such, much of the public relations work is concerned with communicating about the brand through its products via media placements. This often includes sending samples to fashion editors and coordinating fashion shoots or editorial mentions which, unlike advertising, do not come at a direct cost. Instead, the cost comes from the work of the PR to seek, secure, and maintain that media contact and mention, which is a more affordable, meaningful, and all around more powerful method of promotion.

Having worked in-house, agency, and now as a sole practitioner/freelance, I have experienced how the responsibilities, expectations, and challenges pertain to each:

In-House PR

• My job responsibilities in-house included that coveted seat at the decision-making table. I worked directly with the CEO, assisting with everything from PR strategy, brand development, advertising and marketing, to better internal and customer communications. I became an expert in this single brand, and much of the work I did was optimizing media relationships based on reactive (responding to media inquiry) media relations. My challenge with working in-house included staying excited and challenged by work that eventually became routine.

PR Agency

• As an agency account executive, I worked on 3-4 clients at a time. My desire to learn as much about them as possible blended well with agency expectations as well as my own natural love of learning. The variety in daily work was challenging and exciting, although it was at times difficult not to have that same access to senior management, or the owners of companies as I was used to. Also, my past experience working as part of an internal team made it difficult to reign back and allow the heirarchy of agency practitiners to take over and manage accounts. This was to my advantage however, because I learned to listen and observe, rather than diving in with an opinion or solution. Within the agency, the major pressure was to land publicity for our lifestyle clients. Unlike my past experience of coming into work with an inbox full of magazine requests, it was now my job to proactively make these editors interested in my clients’ products. I learned quickly how difficult, but ultimately rewarding, this experience could be.

Despite the prolifiration of in-house this and that within PR research and the PR classroom, it’s interesting to note that the voices of in-house PR’s are all but mute in the blogosphere. Perhaps agency blogging will serve to encourage PR research methodology to consider or require agency perspectives in their work. To do so would further enhance public relations’ own understanding of the true scope of the profession, in particular the varied responsibilities and experiences of in-house, agency, and freelance practitioners. In addition, being mindful of how client specialties impact strategy might serve to temper the desire of the profession to distance itself from those very tactics and strategies, like media relations, that are so valuable for agency practitioners in comsumer goods PR and/or specialties like fashion. Perhaps this might encourage the profession as a whole to stop doing it so badly.

(This post was featured as a Coutorture Must Read for 5/22 and was also featured on Elle.com)