Amy began her fashion PR career in 2008 after completing a short course at the London College of Fashion; interning at Tatty Devine and Marks & Spencer. She then went on to work at Monsoon Accessorize, Dune, Impulse PR, Shop Direct and schuh before joining PrettyLittleThing.com in July 2016.

Give us a breakdown of a typical working day?

My alarm goes off at 5:45am and the first thing I do is grab my phone and scroll through my work e-mails. We work with agencies in Ireland, the US and Australia so keeping up with the time zones in the US and AUS is often a little tricky so I respond to anything urgent as soon as I’m awake. I’ll then sit and scroll through Instagram and check any influencers or celebrity PrettyLittleThing tags or mentions.

I’ll have a shower, get dressed, make a smoothie and then I’m out the door by 7:45am. If I’m not meeting a journalist or agency for a breakfast meeting I head to our office in Carnaby Street and begin the day. What I love about PLT is no day is the same. I often travel up to our HQ in Manchester to spend time with my team there.

I’ll be on the phone to press, celebrity stylists, feeding in any brand updates to our agencies, holding conference calls, discussing brand partnerships, putting proposals together for our events, working with our brand ambassadors, writing press releases, searching for new talent, working on budgets, planning events outside the UK, writing reports, working with our Marketing team on content, events, offers and social media activations. Time goes so quickly in our office because we’re always working on so many exciting things across all our markets. We work really closely with our US agency following our launch with Kylie Jenner last year and have some exciting activity planned for 2017 over there.

After work I’ll either meet my friends for dinner or a quick drink or head to an event. There’s always lots going on in London and I’m lucky our office is such a great location and really near to everything. If not, I’ll head home, cook some dinner, keep an eye on my e-mails and social media and then head to bed. That sounds really boring. Haha.

Most enjoyable and challenging aspect of your job?

Most enjoyable aspect of my job is definitely the team and the amazing things we get to do, seeing the brand continuously grow and working with such high profile talent and celebrities. It’s always amazing to see the likes of Kylie Jenner (pictured below with Amy) and Hailey Baldwin wearing PLT. We also have the most INCREDIBLE head office in Manchester which makes commuting regularly much more fun. I love that I can split my time between both offices.

Most challenging aspect is probably working across the different time zones!

The role of the celebrity/influencer has changed dramatically in your time - how do you see this developing in the future?

I’ve always been really interested in social media, influencers and celebrities (my first job at Monsoon/Accessorize was as a Social Media and PR Coordinator) so I’ve followed lots of influencers for years. I’ve definitely had to be on the ball since working at PrettyLittleThing not only with UK influencers but globally too. My team have fantastic relationships with so many amazing influencers and we’re at an advantage where we can bring girls into our HQ or London showroom to shoot content for us – people want an insight into what goes on behind the scenes and we’re so lucky to have the space and global reach to create such incredible content with influencers and celebs.

Social Media is ‘real time’ especially now with the ‘Live’ functions on Facebook and Instagram. Instagram is such an incredible tool as influencers are having such an impact on brands and consumers. Now it’s not just about the number of followers but how much your followers are engaging with you and the content you’re producing.

With the changing PR landscape - what would be your advice be to someone getting into PR?

It’s a cliché, but NEVER give up. I was an intern for so long and it’s so easy to fall into a trap of thinking "I’m never going to get a ‘real’ job” but hang in there. Offer to do anything and everything in the office, don’t be afraid to talk to people, be friendly and helpful and just persevere. I was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time when I got my first job at Monsoon Accessorize and teams always remember good interns!

What’s the best piece of career advice you’ve ever received?

Work hard and be nice to people, which in PR is crucial as everyone knows everyone!

Where’s your favourite location/hidden gem in London?

Portobello Road. Farm Girl café is a favourite. There’s so much history along Portobello and it brings back so many amazing childhood memories. It’s my favorite street in London.

How do you switch off?

Usually with a glass of wine and an episode of Gilmore Girls (I know, I’m SO behind!).

Contact

Amy Simon in 'PR contacts'