Eva Chen: Instagram's Director of Fashion Partnerships

Second Life

Who What Wear

Fashion & Beauty, Arts, Careers, Personal Journals, Society & Culture, Business

4.8 • 3K Ratings

🗓️ 5 November 2018

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Eva Chen's résumé reads like the front row of a well-stocked magazine stand. She's held jobs at publications like Harper's Bazaar, Elle, Teen Vogue, and Lucky (where she was editor in chief, no less). Although landing a job as editor in chief of a major publication sounds like the peak of one's career, Chen was just getting started. Now, she's catapulted to director of fashion partnerships for Instagram, has written her first book (a children's story called Juno Valentine and the Magical Shoes), and is trying her hand at design with the launch of a capsule collection with Janie and Jack in conjunction with her book.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Hilary Kerr, and this is Second Life, a podcast spotlighting women who have truly inspiring careers.
0:13.1	We're talking about their work journeys, what they've learned from the process of setting aside their doubts or fears, and what happens when they embark on their second life?
0:22.8	Today, I am deeply excited to have a very dear friend on the podcast, the one and only Eva Chen.
0:30.4	For those of you who don't know Eva, she's one of the most beloved humans in the fashion industry,
0:35.5	and she is incredible at her job, which is leading the
0:39.3	fashion partnerships team at Instagram. She's also a new author and her first incredible children's book,
0:46.4	Juno Valentine and The Magical Shoes, is officially in stores now. But before she crossed over to
0:53.6	the social world at Instagram and into your local
0:56.3	bookstore with Juno Valentine, Eva actually started her career in the old school publishing
1:01.9	world as an editor with me at Elle Magazine. I'm so excited to sit down and discuss her amazing
1:09.2	career and hear more about her second life and third.
1:13.3	Now on Second Life, it's Eva Chen.
1:17.6	Okay, Eva, so with this podcast, we always like to start in the beginning because that seems like an appropriate place to begin.
1:25.1	What did you study in school and what did you think you were going to be when you
1:28.8	grew up? So I went to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, which is basically like maybe the
1:34.4	nerdiest college in the world. And most of the student body there was studying engineering or
1:41.9	medicine, even though it has amazing liberal arts as well, like
1:45.1	English and all the humanities. So I was pre-met when I started in college. You thought you were
1:50.8	going to be a doctor? I for sure thought I was going to be a doctor. What kind of doctor?
1:54.0	I thought I wanted to be a cardiac pediatric cardiologist. But clearly I'm not wearing scrubs right now.
1:59.9	I was very inspired by George Clooney in ER, but I ultimately graduated with an English degree.
2:04.7	So how did you make that switch? And at what point did you realize that medicine was perhaps not your direct path?
	...

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