Interview with Rebekah Roy,Fashion Stylist

Rebekah Roy is the Fashion Editor at Fashion.Music.Style magazine, and she styles for a wide variety of clients from “Visa, Nintendo, Harvey Nichols, John Lewis, Harrods and Virgin to celebrity clients including Sarah Brightman, The Feeling, Kate Nash and Billy Idol”. Roy is also a Freelance Fashion write and blogs at Drapers Online. She writes her own blog called Stylist Stuff.

Cision:  Which London Fashion Week shows will you be attending and which designers are you looking forward to seeing?

Rebekah: I’m styling two shows and a presentation this season:  Alice Palmer, Prophetik and Chris Beales. There are so many shows that I’m looking forward to seeing – both on and off schedule have so much to offer. I’m really looking forward to seeing Mulberry and Georgia Hardinge, Vauxhall Fashion Scout’s Merit Award Winner. I’ve had a preview of her collection and I’m very excited for her.  I’m also looking forward to the menswear day. London has such amazing menswear designers.

What are the most significant events that shape your year?

Attending London Fashion week, Paris Fashion Week and graduate fashion shows are very important to me and greatly influence my work but it’s day to day life, the randomness of everything I see that influences me the most.

Who/What influenced you to work in the fashion industry as well as to start writing the blog “Stylist Stuff”?

My grandmother made almost everything she wore. As a little girl I’d watch her make her own patterns and create outfits. My mother also sewed, knitted and did tatting. I was actually encouraged by a model on a shoot to write a blog. I was always taking pictures on my mobile, and I used to save them and make notes about the shoot.  The blog was just away about sharing what happened on a shoot and what a stylist does in day to day life.

As both a Freelancer and Fashion editor, how similar do you find your role as a blogger to that of a journalist/ stylist?

Most of my roles seem to blur into one, and their influences really come from the same sources. As a fashion editor my focus is on editorial content, creating fashion shoots and discussing with my team the different designers that we want to interview and feature in the magazines. The blog is daily, more personal and I write about what influences and inspires me. I’ll often take photos of what’s behind the scenes from the editorials that I’m working on.

Which fashion blogs do you follow and have you developed any relationships with them? If so, what have you gained from this?

I follow quite a few blogs: Fashion Editor at Large, Disney Roller Girl, The Cut <http://nymag.com/daily/fashion> , Girl, Kingdom of Style , Style Rookie, Liberty London Girl.

As a freelancer much of my work is done on my own but I’ve had the opportunity to meet bloggers who work in the industry. It’s a very supportive community.

How do you interact with PR’s and what advice do you have for them when contacting Fashion editors/Bloggers?

As a fashion stylist I interact with PRs on a daily basis – I’m often calling in clothes for music artists and for fashion shoots and over time you build very strong relationships with the PRs.  If I like something that a PR sends me or e-mails me about I’m happy to write about it, but I only write about things that I like. Over the past couple of years PRs are taking more notice of bloggers and doing blogger events and special invites. There are many PRs who just specialize in online media and I think it’s important for PRs to know the style of the blog that they are contacting and if that suits the brands that they represent.

Do you think social media has changed the way PRs and journalists communicate with each other? For example, do you see PR’s using Twitter to contact you as opposed to emails or telephone calls?

I still find that most PRs contact me by e-mail. I’ve even had the occasional job offer by twitter and text message – from people that I’ve never met – so it’s slowly changing and becoming more acceptable, more normal.

Where do you see the future of journalism going?

Video! It’s become very accessible; you can shoot a video on your mobile! More bloggers are having their own YouTube channel and we’ll see more video content on blogs.

Also see Cision’s Top 10 UK Styling Blogs part of Cision’s Fashion Week.