CW
We asked the recent winner of ELLE's CW show, Stylista, Johanna Cox, about the difference between reality television and the reality of fashion magazines. A former military analyst, the 29-year-old Cox won a junior-editor title at ELLE, a clothing allowance at H&M and an already-paid-for Manhattan apartment for a year. Paying your dues is one thing, but what's it like when your dues include catfights on national TV?
You got into magazines in a unique way. How did it happen? About two years into my job as a Chinese analyst and linguist for a defense contractor in Washington, D.C., I decided it wasn't what I loved. I didn't want to be one of those people who talked about not liking their job and 20 years later they're still there. So I started my own fashion blog, A Serious Job Is No Excuse, to have a body of writing to show people. Then one afternoon a friend sent me a link from the site Fashionista.com, where there was a blurb about the CW's Stylista casting call. During my lunch hour, I submitted three photos and a one-page explanation about why I wanted to do the show. Within 15 minutes, I got a phone call.
How do you feel about being in magazines in this economy? I read every day about cutbacks,and I know how hard it is to get internships, so I feel very fortunate. I came from an industry where there's job security forever and ever—there will always be someone who needs a defense analyst who speaks Chinese. To come from that to here is very scary.
How has your perspective on the industry changed? All I knew about the industry was what I'd seen in movies. I got this great job, but under the guise of winning a reality show. It's not the most legitimate way to enter anything, but a friend of mine told me never apologize for how you got there—just work really hard and prove yourself to the point where they've forgotten any problem they had with you. And surprisingly, everyone has been really gracious to me, at least to my face. No one's ever hazed me.
No special treatment for a reality star? I've done some personal errands, messengering, packing and unpacking trunks, but I'm willing to do it.
What do you do at ELLE? I started in January, and I've been rotating through each department ever since. My very first rotation was in the fashion department right before Fashion Week, so I had to coordinate everyone's schedules, which meant a lot of spreadsheets, arranging cars and hotels, faxing things—it was the most stressed out I'd ever been professionally. I saw how bad it could be.
What was worse—the show or Fashion Week? The show! Having to live with personalities you'd never live with in real life was a test not many people go through,and I never thought I would go through. But my former cast mates DyShaun [Burton], Megan [Johnson] and Devin [VanderMaas] are some of my closest friends in New York.
Do you still see Anne Slowey [fashion news director of ELLE] everyday? Anne is the free spirit of the office, so even if I don't see her, I hear her. She's hilarious and I wish they had let her be herself on the show. She's funny and quirky, but they made her seem how everyone assumes a fashion editor would be—a stern taskmaker who's up there while you're down there. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Are there any similarities between defense analyst and magazine writer? One of the things that struck me was confidentiality. At my former job the stakes were obviously higher, but fashion is a gossip magnet. At a magazine we work on issues three to four months in advance, and there's so much competition that you have to keep your covers secret. Also, the double- and triple-checking of facts before they're printed is similar to analyzing documents before handing them over to a government agency.
What about the differences? The biggest difference is that I went from an industry that's predominantly male to an office that's 95-percent women. Also, the writing is closer to my voice and style. Defense writing is adjective-free, straight-to-the-point, no-conjunctions-in-a-sentence, and on Elle.com, I write like I used to write for my personal blog—it's more creative.
What's your advice to people just starting out in their careers or who want to make a career change? You have to be realistic. There are a finite number of jobs at these magazines, and there are so many people who want them. I don't believe in moving to New York on a wing and a prayer to make it happen. I think you have to do it responsibly. Proving yourself before you get into the industry—take your passion and do something with it in your five or six hours of free time—will set you apart.
What's your advice to the Marie Claire interns on the show Running in Heels? The girl from Wisconsin, Samantha [DeZur], is the best. You have to be positive in the workplace and she's the only one out of those three who's not trying to tear people down. Learn how to get along with women—it's an art.
--Dara Pettinelli
