Allure fashion director, Rachael Wang’s first paid job in fashion was at Self magazine, where she travelled the world assisting photo shoots at mostly beach locations.
Today, travel, fashion, wilderness and vintage inspired images fill her Instagram feed and offer a glimpse into both her professional and personal life.
“It’s an incredibly powerful platform for both individuals and brands,” said Rachael Wang. “I was immediately drawn to the visual aspect of Instagram when it launched.”
After her beach-hopping days, Wang became a freelance stylist assistant before cutting her teeth working under Edward Enninful, W magazine’s fashion and style director. Since then, she’s held roles including the market director of Style.com, the market director at Nylon, and fashion editor at Glamour, before beginning her current role in January this year.
Wang said she’s not a frequent poster to Instagram because of her busy schedule, but she said it’s an important tool within the beauty and fashion worlds. “Brands have the space to tell a story through images, receive immediate consumer feedback and to connect with individuals in an organic way.”
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We asked Wang, who has 20,100 followers, to identify five of her pictures over recent weeks to give us a glimpse of what being a fashion director involves, describe the posts and ideas behind them, and what makes a good Instagram feed. Answers have been edited lightly for clarity.
Angela Davis
I go back and forth about whether it trivializes issues to post about them on social media. In this case I decided I wanted to use whatever small amount of visibility I have to clarify my stance on a very urgent human issue. At that moment I felt such an overwhelming sense of hopelessness. I sought refuge in Angela Davis’ wisdom and hoped others would as well.
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An Island in Maine
I found this incredible private island on a lake in Maine on Airbnb and thought it would be the perfect refuge for a birthday weekend. The island is completely sustainable: The treehouse on the island has no electricity, a composting toilet and a manual foot pump to bring rain water through faucets. It was a really magical experience.
Tiny island in the sky we’re calling home for a few
A photo posted by Rachael Wang (@rachael.wang) on
Julia Banas in Iceland
This was a trip to a gorgeous location to shoot a story with Yelena Yemchuck, one of the most inspiring photographers I’ve had a chance to work with. This captured a fun in-between moment: There were flies at the waterfall so our producer provided us with nets to put over our heads and it was quite cold so Julia borrowed a technical coat from one of the guys to keep warm between shots. Julia’s elegance in contrast to the somewhat ridiculous outfit made the moment irresistible to me.
Zlata Semenko and Liam Quinn [models] in a Brooklyn Cafe
Photographer Nathaniel Goldberg was interested in shooting a story which captured the social aspect of Viennese coffeehouse culture at the turn of the century. I dressed Liam and Zlata in Gucci, which, under Alessandro Michele’s creative direction, really captures the whim and eccentricity I imagined those Austrian poets, artists and intellectuals might be drawn to.
Summer love July issue w/ Nathaniel
A photo posted by Rachael Wang (@rachael.wang) on
Kai Newman in St. Lucia
I was lucky enough to get to travel to the beautiful and charming island of St. Lucia to shoot a story for Allure with photographer Benny Horne featuring Kai Newman, who is from Jamaica (and represented by Elite). I was inspired to create a fashion story loosely based around dancehall fashion in the 70’s.
