How I build and cultivate connections in the fashion industry

If you are a Glam Observer reader you know I talk about networking quite often. This is because it is the fundamental piece for your career. In fashion, most jobs are assigned through word-of-mouth so the more people you know, the more career opportunities you have. In the beginning, however, networking seems a hugely difficult thing. I’ve been there too. Before moving to Milan, I lived in a city where there were no fashion schools and neither fashion companies, therefore no one I knew, not even friends of friends worked in fashion. So I started building the connections in the industry from zero as well. Knowing people from the industry was crucial for me to start Glam Observer. Think of the people to interview for the site or for the podcast, or those who spoke at the fashion panel and the fashion conference. Somehow I had to start interacting with those who work in fashion from scratch and build my own personal network. To date, I have therefore solidified a strategy that I use to know new people in the fashion industry and to maintain relationships with those already approached, because if the most difficult part seems to be that of the first approach, maintaining relationships created with effort is equally important.

So here’s what I personally do to build my network and keep connections over time.

While it is true that offline connections are much more efficient, it is rare that I use it as a first approach, unless I am at an event and I happen to talk to someone. So my first approach is always the online one. Thanks to Instagram and LinkedIn, networking, especially for the introvert, has become much easier and immediate.

How do I find new people to add to my network?

An effective way to find people who work in fashion is to start following the most popular on Instagram: stylists, editors, photographers, designers … (in case you don’t know the names, just google them). In this post you will find a list of fashion professionals to follow on Instagram that you can use to start from, and in the course, there is a list of over 100 people. (As a member you have access to discounts for the course based on your membership, if you have not received the email or cannot find it, email me at [email protected] to receive the link to the discount or with your questions).

To find more and more profiles to follow, I use the Instagram function that shows the suggested similar accounts. It is therefore very easy for the people suggested to be other professionals who work in the same company or in any case in the fashion industry.

How do I interact with fashion professionals?

Following someone on Instagram is not enough to establish a connection. You need to interact with them. It can become difficult to keep track of everyone when you start following many fashion professionals. So I organize all the people I follow with the Instagram Collections: you can create a single collection for all or divide them: create a collection for the stylists, one for the editors, one for the buyers … You can choose according to the people with which you prefer to interact with. If you want to work for a fashion magazine you will have to interact more with editors and you could then create a collection for the editors. If you want to work as a stylist you could create a collection for stylists and one for the editors are. Just save a single photo of the profile and save it in the proper instagram collection. This way every time you open the collection you have a photo for each person and it is very useful to keep track of them.

So after identifying the people, I follow them, save them in the collections and establish a day a week to interact with them. With the new Instagram algorithm, it is easy to miss an update, so interacting daily is difficult and would also take a lot of time. I set one day a week in which I dedicate 20 minutes to go to the saved collection and visit all the profiles of these fashion professionals and interact with the last photo commenting and liking them.

After commenting for a couple of weeks, I then send a DM to the people for interviews, events, etc. With some of them I’ve created real friendships.

If they live in Milan, I invite them for coffee to talk in person and learn about their professional career. In case they live abroad, the connection remains online and especially with some people I try to interact very often even commenting on personal stories.

Although LinkedIn is the social media for the professionals, I think Instagram is better to build relationships on a personal level. The relationship on LinkedIn is more detached, cold and professional. Rather than creating a professional network, you must aim to create a kind of professional friendship, and this on LinkedIn is not possible. LinkedIn is great for creating relationships with recruiters where you need to maintain a more professional relationship and also for personal branding. The interaction on LinkedIn with your connections is always at a high level: you congratulate on a new role, comment on an article they shared … but for a personal approach, Instagram is way better. However this does not mean that you do not have to use LinkedIn, because it is essential and if you have not seen it yet, in this webinar I shared my tips on how to use it.

It doesn’t take a lot to build and cultivate connections in the fashion industry, 20 minutes a week are enough to create an effective and lasting network. The strategy above is valid whether you have zero connections or to continue to grow your current ones. Happy networking 😉