Sophia Li (B.A. ’13) can thank Instagram – and a bit of gutsiness – for helping earn her a spot on the rapidly growing team at Vogue.com. From Conde Nast’s 35th-floor café, Li recounts the chain of events that brought her there: A well-known Chinese stylist liked one of her photographs on Instagram which led Li to blindly email asking for advice. That turned into work with Vogue China and street cred in the fashion world. Later a series of networking meetings turned her onto a role at Vogue.com. “If I don’t completely put myself out there what’s the point,” says Li. She joined a 15-person team at Vogue.com two years ago. Soon it will reach 75.
Li says she benefitted from close ties with VCU’s Fashion Design & Merchandising faculty. She got to know her professors particularly well on study abroad trips and while directing the student fashion show. “I think you can have an amazing program but if you don’t have a connection to your faculty you won’t get as much out of it,” she says. “I know people who have gone to great [fashion] schools but they had a lot of online classes and little faculty interaction. For me, the professors at VCU made the difference.”
While at VCU, Li wrote an essay about globalization in fashion that won her a scholarship with Cotton Inc. She was able to parlay that into an internship in trend forecasting with Cotton in New York the summer before she graduated. “Science, culture, art all contribute to where fashion in going and I loved that about trend forecasting, but I’ve realized that editorial is all encompassing, too. It’s about what’s timely and relevant and what fuels us.”
As a photo producer at Vogue (Li was recently promoted to Entertainment Media Editor), Li helped produce photo shoots “shareable things that work in the fashion world and are really well executed” including gifs, videos, Instagram round ups and other forward-thinking content. For one post, they 3-D printed miniature Karlie Kloss dolls wearing the latest fashions then sent them to photographers around the world who shot the dolls in iconic places like Stonehenge. Li even shot one herself while on vacation in Spain. The resulting post was witty and highly sharable. Li’s also had the enviable opportunity to cover the red carpet at the Met’s Costume Institute Gala and her own interests such as Chinese New Year.
Image: Model and contributing editor at British Vogue Alexa Chung and Li pictured at Vogue’s pre-Met Gala pajama party in 2015 (source: Instagram)
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