As Nicky Deam sees it, designer Rachel Zoe’s decision to stage her second consecutive runway show in Los Angeles — her spring 2018 collection debuted on Tuesday evening at West Hollywood’s Sunset Tower — was smart.
Editorial director of The Zoe Report (Zoe’s online publication dedicated to fashion, beauty and lifestyle), Deam is a big fan of the LA fashion scene. Four years ago, she worked as a publicist in New York City, and she is enjoying the reprieve from the competition and cattiness she witnessed during that time.
“It’s just a very different fashion industry here,” she said. “There’s a sense of family; everyone has a vested interest in making the LA fashion scene succeed. When I run into people from Who What Wear and Goop, I’m genuinely happy to see them. They’re friends of mine.”
Since joining The Zoe Report in 2014, Deam ascended from editorial manager to fashion director, then to editorial director, a role she’s held for the past two years. It allows her to have her hands in projects across Zoe’s empire, from styling photo shoots for Box of Zoe, a seasonal subscription box, to working on storylines for “Real Life With Rachel Zoe,” an Instagram Stories-based series.
“I have to set calendar reminders for every single thing,” she admitted, “even to eat sometimes.”
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Though she called Zoe’s recent fashion show “a calm ease into the fashion month cycle,” Deam and her team spent the evening covering the event from the every angle. “Shop The Best Celebrity Looks From Rachel Zoe’s Fashion Show” and “How To Get The Beauty Look From Rachel Zoe’s LA Fashion Show” were among the stories it inspired.
On the morning after the show, the day before leaving for the first half of fashion month, Deam shared how she spent the hours leading up to the event, what celebrity guest left her starstruck and which Rachel Zoe looks she plans to wear at her upcoming nuptials.
5:45 a.m.: After battling the urge to hit snooze, I throw on some gym clothes and get myself to a Cardio Barre class. It’s just enough intensity to energize me for the day without rendering me bowlegged.
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6:15 a.m.: Back at home, I peruse The Zoe Report, The Business of Fashion, Vogue, theSkimm and social, then hop in the shower.
7 a.m.: I receive the news brief from our New York team, and together, with the social and analytics teams, we decide on which items to cover first and how. Meanwhile, I struggle with eyeliner.
7:50 a.m.: I grab a cup of coffee en route to the office, then listen to the BBC World Service for the 45-minute commute, trying not to let road rage get the better of me.
8:45 a.m.: I’ve just returned from vacation, so I do battle with my inbox and generate a multitude of to-do lists for the day.
9 a.m.: I meet with Angela Melero, my saint of a managing editor, and we discuss everything from traffic growth to upcoming Emmys and fashion month coverage. We also discuss our strategy for covering Rachel’s spring 2018 collection show and bridal debut, which happen this evening! Angela schedules our freelance army each month, so we regroup on their assignments and general workflow. We send our editors on press trips to get them out in the world as much as possible, so we’re constantly juggling schedules.
10 a.m.: We have our biweekly Zoe Media Group meeting led by our general manager, Tom Balamaci, where we share recaps from all divisions of the company and highlight any pain points, upcoming goals and projects. It really streamlines the collaboration process and keeps everyone, no matter how junior, fully in the loop.
11 a.m.: I lead our editorial meeting, where the social, video, email and marketing teams join Rachel and the editors to review traffic, engagement and positioning of the past week’s successful and less-successful content. We hold separate brainstorms weekly for the fashion, beauty, news and lifestyle verticals — where everyone is encouraged to suggest stories, new and creative social positioning, and inspiring content — so this is more of a post-mortem on performance. We take Rachel through the next week’s newsletter lineup and any big content focal points. She often weighs in with additional pitches and insightful positioning. We strive to mix the old-school newsroom vibe with a modern, data-driven strategy, and that stems from Rachel’s background as an editor at InStyle.
Noon: I touch base with the sales team to review upcoming holiday RFPs and start planning the content tentpoles for 2018. We’re winding down our body-positive hub and planning for October’s Boss Month, where we spotlight industry leaders and offer career advice and tips for the busy modern woman to excel in the workplace. It’s one of my favorite hubs of the year because we get to talk to fascinating people across multiple industries, and it’s a fun way to incorporate a range of advertisers.
1 p.m.: I inhale a meal from Backyard Bowl [a Cali-based healthy restaurant chain] while reviewing the strategy for tonight’s presentation coverage, which is an all-hands-on-deck experience. I briefly sit with Deirdre Kennedy, our svp of marketing at Rachel Zoe Inc., and we run through the plan for the night. I write a quick story around the bridal collection, mainly because I love to write a few stories a week to stay in tune with the editors and partly because I’m getting married in a month and am beyond excited that Rachel has just created a stunning line of gowns. I’m going to find a way to do 10 wardrobe changes over my wedding weekend so I can wear them all. Kidding. (Not kidding.)
A style from Rachel Zoe’s new bridal collection (image via The Zoe Report)
2:45 p.m.: I catch up with Marisa Runyon, our video and TV director, to regroup on budget and strategy for the next few months. She oversees all social-first and site video for Rachel Zoe Collection, Box of Style and The Zoe Report. She also writes and spearheads our exclusive Instagram Stories series, “Real Life With Rachel Zoe,” which airs weekly, and liaises with our agents on bigger TV projects for Rachel. We discuss metrics around our new Facebook show page, which enables viewers to binge-watch previous episodes of “RLWRZ” on Facebook and review the storyboards for the remainder of this year’s episodes.
3:45 p.m.: Emails! Emails! Emails!
4 p.m.: I meet with the Box of Style team to discuss the remaining newsletter and editorial content schedule for the fall box of goodies we curate with Rachel for our members. We send them a quarterly box of fashion, beauty and lifestyle finds we’re obsessing over, which doesn’t seem like it would be a lot of work, but the seasons roll around very quickly. We talk through the final selection for our winter box, and brainstorm locations and concepts for the campaign shoot in a month.
5 p.m.: I regroup with my senior fashion editor, Laura Lajiness, who is based in New York. We’re dividing and conquering fashion month, with both of us heading to New York, me heading to London, her heading to Milan and Rachel hitting Paris. Between the shows, the meetings with advertisers and the branded-content shoots in each of the cities, we aren’t going to get much sleep. I’m hit with a wave of mild panic, thinking about the fact that I have to unpack my vacation suitcase and pack for two weeks of fashion shows before I leave in under 48 hours. Matcha time!
6 p.m.: Most of the team is already on site at the Sunset Tower for Rachel’s show. I throw on an RZ jumpsuit and a swipe of red lipstick, and hop in a car.
6:15 p.m.: The venue looks stunning. I get to catch up with Pamela Glassman, Rachel’s sister, who heads up sales on the East Coast and lives in Florida. She is a total riot and sounds exactly like Rachel, who is currently knee-deep in pre-show interviews.
7 p.m.: Goldie Hawn arrives. I die.
8:15 p.m.: Showtime! The spring 2018 collection is the kind of ethereal dream that vacation wardrobes are made of. It looks gorgeous on the moonlit runway, which is situated over the Sunset Tower pool. The bridal collection genuinely gives me goose bumps. As usual, Rachel takes the most humble of bows and retreats backstage.
8:30 p.m.: Dinner is served. Rachel sits with Nicole Richie and Chrissy Teigen, who both look amazing in the collection. Rodger [Berman, president of Rachel Zoe Inc. and Rachel’s husband] demands extra steak, in a rare departure from his Paleta meal plan.
10 p.m.: I drive home and fall asleep to an episode of “Vice” with my jet-lagged fiancé.
