Work Experience at Hello! Fashion Monthly

Last week I was lucky enough to spend four days at Hello! Fashion, a monthly magazine based in central London. It was a rush to say the least as I only received the offer four days before travelling but it was a fab experience that I'll now share with you!

Luckily I have wonderful cousins who live near London so I was able to stay with them for the duration of my placement. However this meant catching several trains each morning to get to work which was uber stressful but here we go....

DAY 1 

I successfully caught the first two trains and arrived with 20 minutes to spare so popped into Pret to grab a coffee and read the latest issue as it'd only been released that morning.

On arrival to the office I was welcomed in, shown around the office and introduced to everyone. The office which was surprisingly smaller than expected but by Friday it felt like home because everyone was really nice and soon enough Laura, the fashion assistant had plenty for me to do.

I began organising the book, which is like a mock up of each issue so I had to replace this month's issue with the prospective pages for the November issue.

After lunch, I began transcribing an interview between Editor, Juliet Herd, and an American socialite who will star in the November issue. This was a very tedious task but it's something that must be done and every journalist has to do it if they want a good feature piece.

DAY 2

Overslept and missed the first train which meant super busy trains from Horsham to Waterloo, literally packed to the brim. Yay.

When I got to the office I resumed typing out Juliet's interview and by 12pm, 27 pages and 9,700 words later I had finished, result! 

I spent the afternoon researching for Melissa, Delphine and Jill with whatever they needed doing. This included finding ages for influencers and putting together a cut-search on Paul Sculfor and his new bride, Federica for an upcoming feature.

Laura then suggested I do some research for my own online piece, which I decided would be an embroidery trend piece. After putting together some high street images and contacting their pr companies it was time for home. So I logged off and jumped on the train, home just in time for Bake Off.

DAY 3

Up bright and early. I even walked to the train station for the fresh air which really paid off as I was bright eyed and ready for the day ahead by the time I got to London Waterloo.

When I got to my desk I carried on with my web story, using FashionMonitor and PR Shots. When it was finished I sent it across to Laura to edit and after a few back and forths, it was published. You can see my piece online here!

I spent the rest of the day compiling images for an upcoming jewellery piece for the December issue, narrowing down the style of the piece for Jill, the Deputy Editor and doing a cut-search on Langley Fox for Melissa.

Wednesday afternoon was très busy for me. After a whole lotta photocopying, tidying and organising the office, I got to work on transcribing an interview for Melissa, the editorial assistant. This interview was really interesting: it was between Juliet and an American Actress, again to be a feature for the November issue.

By this point, even though I hadn't personally conducted the article or put together the questions, I felt that I'd had some part in the pieces I'd worked on, researched etc. and I was already looking forward to seeing the final piece in print.

DAY 4

My last day at HFM was by far my favourite. By now I was friendly enough with everyone I'd spoken to, and hey, even the art guy sitting at my desk was chatting to me by now. 

I spent Friday doing lots of little jobs for lots of people. First I went to get the post, and oh my, these people get a whole lotta post! I had my eye on the Tom Ford lipstick vault but i digress...

I did some research on prospective job applicants for Jill, and printed off pieces of their work (which were all very impressive to me!) and then I resumed putting together the jewellery piece for the December issue and contacting the companies directly for high res images we could use in the magazine. This sort of became my baby while at HFM as I'd personally picked out each piece and narrowed them down to which we'll use etc. 

Friday afternoon, I updated 'the wall', which is confusing to explain: it's basically where you can see a prospective guide to the upcoming issue, page by page but in miniature form. If you're still not following watch The September Issue.

By now, my time at HFM was coming to an end. At five o'clock Jill came over to my desk and said that she'd like me to put together a headline and sell for the jewellery piece I'd been working on, which was amazing! So, that I did and fingers crossed they liked my angle, but I guess we'll just have to wait for the December issue to find out...

Overall I had a fabulous week and I owe it all to the lovely team at HFM. Hopefully I'll be seeing you all again soon!

Love Rosie

xx