Career in fashion journalism is not all easy glamour - it can often mean hard slog. Raminta Paukstyte talks to a journalist who discovered how true that is.
Not everyone has a legendary Vogue
editor Anna Wintour in his or her family to open the door to a career in
fashion. Liz Lamb, blogger and fashion & beauty writer from the North East,
currently working at ncjmedia, for the Evening Chronicle, The Sunday Sun and
The Journal Live Blog knew that well but that didn’t stop her. Liz shares her
own experience, how she went to long far distances to achieve what she really wanted.
Fashion business nowadays appears to
be shocking sometimes. In the early
beginning of her career Liz went for the interview for the Cosmopolitan and was rejected because of the funniest reason ever.
„I was told I was too experienced for the role and I didn‘t get that job“- Liz
admits smiling. It appears soon, she accepted it more like a lesson that rather
strengthened and challenged her more than faced down.
That wasn’t the only time when she
was not selected for the role, though. After she finished her degree in
University she did an internship in Daily
Mirror based on fashion coverage. While she was there a job came up. “I
thought: ‘Brilliant, I’m gonna get this job that I always wanted but,
unfortunately, the job went to a friend of the fashion editor’s daughter, who
never done any experience there’ “– sadly memorizes Liz.
However, life is full of rises and
falls. In order to improve her news writing and interviewing skills, she took
an intensive six months course of Newspaper
Journalism in Newcastle. After that she had a chance for eight months job
training where she worked on a weekly newspaper of the North East. “I did
various things such as reporting, feature writing, council meetings…”- mentions
Liz.
The way she listed these, however,
revealed quite a lot of monotony she may experienced there and some kind of
disappointment too, as she did not exactly what she wanted. Later she went to
work for Northern Echo, where Liz
promoted regional reporting, covering all sorts of stories as well as feature
writing. All of these positions lacked fashion background. Even then she didn’t
surrender and didn’t forget her real goals. “But I really really wanted to get
into features and get into fashion.”
Eventually, successful start at Evening Chronicles was what helped her
to become more independent in her writing. She is already two years writing
features there. But that’s just a little part of her role today. “I do two
pages of fashion every week for the Journal,
two pages for the Chronicle. I do a fashion column on Saturday on a journal;
I’ve got fashion and beauty blog. ” – she says.
Her responsibilities may sound enormous. It seems that she hasn’t got
time for herself, especially after she admitted cheerfully: “I haven’t found my
wedding dress yet”. There appears no complains from Liz’s lips, though. “I do a
lot myself. It‘s long hours, no lunch breaks, but if you enjoy it- it’s worth
it.” Time stops even this girly chat becoming conversation slowly, leaving a
lot of positivism from such an inspirational, full of enthusiasm personality.
c. 2011, May.
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