A friend was interviewed this week for an interesting sounding “publicist” job in the fashion industry, so I became curious and wondered if the fashion world might offer opportunities for aspiring PR professionals.
More than 100,000 people in New York alone are employed in the fashion industry, according to StyleCareer.com. Major cities around the world have apparel centers where designers and manufacturers show, market and publicize their goods. Chicago’s Apparel Center is located at the huge Merchandise Mart.
A number of fashion PR jobs are listed on the PR Couture site. Fashion-focused PR agencies can be located through ApparelSearch.com. Although jobs clearly exist and attrition will open more, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics does not paint a rosy long-term picture for opportunities in the apparel and fashion industries, predicting slower-than-average growth rates in most areas of the business. Even though staffs are lean and budgets are tight in most industries, it is especially so in the apparel industry where profit margins narrow with competition and declining sales.
I haven’t yet determined why entertainment and fashion industries refer to PR as publicity–and PR practitioners are publicists. Other industries moved away from the publicist label many years ago.
Wow! I just posted on my blog last night about my wanting to potentially go into Fashion PR, so thank you for this! Knowing there’s room for growth, and that I could help define PR as more than just publicity makes the decision to refocus that much easier. I think one reason that fashion has stuck with the “publicity” label and model is because the practitioners haven’t made a big fuss about what they are called. Publicity and awareness building are widely used tools in fashion, so that might be another part of it.
Great post, and timely as always!