The Modern Day Carrie Bradshaw: an Interview with Caroline Vazzana

[UNPUBLISHED:] Tell us about yourself.

[CAROLINE:] My name is Caroline Vazzana and I'm a fashion editor, stylist, influencer, and the author and founder of Making it in Manhattan. 

[UNPUBLISHED:] When did you first get interested in fashion?

[CAROLINE:] I've loved fashion and the fashion industry since I was young. When I was in fifth grade I always was intent on dressing myself because I always loved clothing and just the way it makes you feel and how expressive it can be. At first, I thought I wanted to be an artist so I used to take art classes and I used to do tons of different little art competitions. When I got a little bit older, I discovered that you could draw clothing and I was like, “Oh, this is kind of fun” and I started doing research on fashion design. After doing a little bit of research I was like, “Okay, I know I want to work in fashion, I want to be a designer.” I feel like when you're younger you don't know about all the different aspects of the industry, for example, social media. Everyone knows styling and editorial things. I only really knew about being a designer so I thought, “I'm not really technical, I would rather do something more creative so design it is.” Then I went to college and I majored in fashion design but then quickly realized I didn't really want to be sewing for the rest of my life. That just didn't appeal to me. Then I started doing internships to figure out what aspects of the industry I did want to do because I knew I still wanted to do fashion and I just had to try different things and figure out what exactly it was that I wanted to pursue. 

[UNPUBLISHED:] Did you end up getting a degree in fashion? 

[CAROLINE:] I switched my major. I was Design but I went to a small liberal arts college so I changed it to Design and Merchandising because that was a general double major that they offered. From there I got to take some more hands-on designing classes but also the business aspect classes. I felt like it gave me a good general understanding of the industry.

[UNPUBLISHED:] Was there anything that you got involved in when you were in college that was related to fashion that has affected your career? 

[CAROLINE:] I was in our fashion club called Club Vogue and I served in different positions of the board and then eventually when I was a senior in college I was elected President of the club. Something fun we always did was a student-run fashion show. In my senior year, I was the one in charge of planning all of that and there was no faculty involvement. I have to book the space, work with all the designers, and pick the models. It was all a good learning experience. It was such a small scale and looking back now I smile and I remember being so stressed about it and it was the most important thing in the world, but it taught me so much about management and being in charge. We also had a fashion magazine. I was a writer for the fashion magazine, my first three years, and my fourth year when I was a senior I was the editor-in-chief of the fashion magazine. That was great as well because I learned about editorial and fashion writing and putting together a publication. The summer before I went in and started as the editor-in-chief, I did an internship at Marie Claire magazine, and I felt like I was able to take a lot of what I learned from there and bring it back to my campus. I was able to take a little bit of what I've learned there and applied it to our school’s fashion magazine. I feel like both of those experiences – being at a small liberal arts college and in the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania –  did help me learn a lot as much as I could with being in the atmosphere and the environment I was in. I was able to take a lot of what I learned and then apply it once I eventually started working in the real world. 

[UNPUBLISHED:] When did you get into the fashion industry?

[CAROLINE:] I did my first internship after my sophomore year of college. I interned with Anna Sweet and then I did an internship with Marie Claire the summer before my senior year. When I graduated I got my first job. 

[UNPUBLISHED:] Do you have any advice for anyone wanting to pursue a career in the fashion industry? 

[CAROLINE:] Interning is amazing, I think having as many internships as possible before you graduate is so important because interning is the way you get your foot in the door, it's the way you learn. It's so important before you say, “I'm definitely going to work in fashion” to have an internship in it because you might get a job and hate it. It’s also important to figure out the aspects you like – some people hate working at fashion magazines, some people love working in fashion magazines and the only way you figure that out is through interning. Do internships, as many as you can, and say yes to new opportunities. The industry is changing so much right now and there are new job opportunities popping up all the time and just being nimble and being willing to say yes and to try different things and develop as many skills as possible is really important. Not just being a writer or just being a stylist. 

[UNPUBLISHED:] What made you realize you wanted to start styling?

[CAROLINE:] I've always loved fashion and I've always loved playing with clothing and putting looks together. It was always something that was in the back of my mind that I thought was interesting. Then when I interned at Marie Claire and the stylist used to come in, I thought that was really cool. The stylist just comes in when we have a big shoot, they're not there every single day. It's a lot more freedom. The summer before my senior year I got a message on Facebook from someone I went to high school with. They were comedians and they had friends who were comedians who were on a show on MTV at the time and the comedians were going to the MTV Video Music Awards. It was their first time going and they needed a stylist and this person I knew from high school had seen everything I was doing at Marie Claire and asked if I would style these girls for the VMAs. I was only 20, so I had never styled anyone before and I didn't really know that much about styling but found it interesting and thought it was a really interesting field. I had gained a lot of great connections with brands while I was interning at Marie Claire and I reconnected with some of those brands and asked if they'd be willing to loan looks and it ended up going great. Everything ended up working out really well and the girls were really happy. When it came time to graduate I definitely wanted to get a full-time job to have more stability and to make my way in the industry. I started working at Teen Vogue and InStyle and I started doing odd styling jobs on the side. It was definitely something that was always there, something I always enjoyed, and it was a great skill to have because it was always something that I could fall back on.

[UNPUBLISHED:] What has been the best part of being a stylist and working within the fashion

industry?

[CAROLINE:] All the incredible people I get to work with. I get to work with so many talented and cool and inspiring individuals, people I probably only dreamed of working with when I was younger. People who, if I knew I was working with them, my younger self would think, “No way, that's not possible.” It's such a really cool and inspiring place, pre-COVID when I was out and about doing things and running around my normal day to day, it's a lot of hard work but it is like super cool and you get to do so many interesting things. 

[UNPUBLISHED:] Why did you decide you wanted to be a freelancer?

[CAROLINE:] I enjoy doing so many different things so when you are just at a magazine or at one company, you are more limited. You don't have as much time to focus on those side projects or to pursue them fully so to be a freelancer and to be out on your own, you really get to do so many different things and try out different things. No two days are ever the same and you have a lot more creative freedom so that was something I was really interested in. 

[UNPUBLISHED:] Do you have any advice for anyone wanting to become a freelancer?

[CAROLINE:] When it comes to freelancing, your network is everything. That's how you're going to get jobs, that's how you're going to be kept in mind for different opportunities. If you’re friends with someone at a magazine maybe they need an article written and they'll reach out to you. Before going freelance or if you're thinking about going freelance, focus on building up your network because that's how you're going to make money and that's how you're going to stay afloat. Just don't be afraid to reach out to people when you're a freelancer, you need to hustle because you don't have a boss breathing down your neck, you don't have anybody looking after you. If you're not out there hustling, working, and making money, no one's gonna care. You need to stay on top of yourself and hold yourself accountable.

[UNPUBLISHED:] How has gaining popularity on TikTok affected your career? 

[CAROLINE:] It's been really cool, TikTok is such a different platform. I've had my Instagram for years and it took me years to get the following and I have almost half of that following on TikTok in only six months. I like TikTok because I feel like I'm able to connect with a whole new audience of people and a whole new generation of people. What I really like is on Instagram I feel like whenever I post something it has to be, not perfect, but there’s a certain standard, whereas on TikTok I just throw things up to see what sticks. You can also post so much, unlike Instagram. If you post three times on Instagram I feel like people get annoyed with you and unfollow whereas on TikTok people just want to see more.

[UNPUBLISHED:] Do you have any advice for college students who want to pursue a career in fashion but don’t live in a fashion capital like New York?

[CAROLINE:] I didn't go to a traditional fashion college, I was not in New York. Whether it's a fashion club or a fashion magazine or there's any kind of local fashion scene, get involved. You could start a fashion club on your campus, you could start a fashion magazine on your campus, or even if there's just a campus newspaper, which I feel like a lot of universities have, you could approach them and see if there's like a style column or a style section. I went to college in Redding, Pennsylvania and it's really small and there's not much around but there was like this area called West Redding and that was the fashion area. Something that's been cool about TikTok is I’ll have some people on my feed who have great style and I’ll go to their page and they live in literally the middle of nowhere and have a million followers. I think this generation is super lucky because you can tell your story no matter where you are, you can share your style, you can share your point of view and your perspective from anywhere, it doesn't matter. 

[UNPUBLISHED:] What do you hope that people who want to get into the fashion industry gain from following you on social media?

[CAROLINE:] I hope that they learned that they don't need to fit into any sort of mold or any sort of box. I think, in today's day and age with social media –and I mean it's in the nicest way possible – there's a lot of carbon copies of each other. You could look at someone's page and it looks exactly like someone else's page but I want you to come to my page and be like, “I don't need to fit into any mold, I don't need to be like that cool Insta girl.” You can be that girl wearing bright colors and glasses and be super eclectic and quirky. I just want to always be my most authentic, genuine self so I always want people to come and feel safe and feel inspired and like they can do anything.

[UNPUBLISHED:] Tell us about Making it in Manhattan. 

[CAROLINE:] There's the book, Making it in Manhattan, which was a lot of fun to write. It was pretty much just my way of saying I want to help anyone who wants to work in fashion. I want to teach them, I want to draw back the curtain and let them in on ways to make it in the industry that are not publicly talked about. I felt like when I was first starting out in the industry, I knew no one, I didn’t have connections, there was nothing. I wanted to write this all-encompassing guidebook for people who want to make it. Then there's the website and the editorial side. There's a lot of career advice stories on there and great resources if you're trying to make it in the industry and land your first internship. It's very eclectic and colorful just like I am, I feel like it's just another extension of me and my brand. I love the website so much and I just want to keep building it up because I feel like there are not many other things like it out there. 

[UNPUBLISHED:] What inspired you to write your book?

[CAROLINE:] I was working at InStyle at the time and I thought, “I’m doing so many cool things and I'm learning so much.” I just wanted to start writing things down so I didn't forget. I wanted to remember that time I interviewed Betsey Johnson at Fashion Week or that time I snuck into a fashion show. Whatever it might be I wanted a safe place for all my memories. I realized there were actually a lot of good stories and lessons from different things I had gone through so I decided I wanted to make it a book. I ended up reaching out and finding a literary agent and she helped me develop the idea and helped bring it to life. 

[UNPUBLISHED:] What audience are you trying to reach with your book?

[CAROLINE:] There are two different audiences. The first one is the younger generation, anyone from 14 to 25 who is trying to break into the industry. Then there's the whole other kind of person who's a little bit older, maybe in their 30s or so, who wants to make a career change, and they want to work in fashion but they do something completely different right now and they really want to break into the industry and make it. I've had people reach out to me who are moms who used to work in fashion and they just saw it the book and thought it was a cool story. It really reaches a wide variety of people. College students are the majority of people that reach out to me but I'll get someone who's a little older who's trying to make a career change or who is a mom or who bought it to read and gave it to their daughter. That's so exciting just see people's reactions because when you put something out into the world, you never know who it's going to help or who it's going to reach.

[UNPUBLISHED:] If you could give your younger self a piece of career advice, what would you say?

[CAROLINE:] Don't worry about what other people are doing. Don't worry about trying to please others, or worry about what other people think. We get so caught up worrying about what other people are going to think or that they're going to judge. I wish I had jumped on the whole YouTube train sooner. I wish I'd started Making it in Manhattan in college, I think it would have been so cool to share my journey in college and to share my passion there but blogs weren't really a thing when I was in college. I remember wanting to share what I was up to and things that I just didn't know how to do it. I think that's a good thing to share with people, if you have something to say and you have something that you want to share, do it. Don't let anybody or anything hold you back or make you question yourself.

Make sure to stay updated with Caroline on her Youtube, personal Instagram, Making Manhattan Instagram, and her website