Sonia Haria reveals what makes a Fashion Week beauty story stand out

Alessia Horwich (00:07):

Welcome to On The Rox, a podcast from Roxhill Media that asks some of the best journalists in the UK for their solutions to the kind of dilemmas that confront PRs daily. We know that there’s not a one size fits all way of communicating with journalists, so we’re going direct to the writers in the newsroom to hear how they like to work with PRs and how you can stand out in their inboxes. My name is Alessia Horwich. I’m a former Sunday Times journalist now the Director of Creative Content and Brand at Roxhill. Today we’re going to be talking about how to pitch Fashion Week beauty stories to The Telegraph with the title’s Beauty Director Sonia Haria. Hi Sonia. I’m intrigued by beauty journalism because it’s so glam,

Sonia Haria (00:47):

Yeah

Alessia Horwich (00:47):

But did you always want to be a journalist?

Sonia Haria (00:49):

I always wanted to be a journalist. I loved writing. I loved reading. I was very much a bookworm as a teenager. It led me to studying journalism. I didn’t want to initially be a beauty journalist. It wasn’t what I went into journalism for. I wanted to be a news reporter.

Alessia Horwich (01:08):

Right ok.

Sonia Haria (01:09):

And I was really into the news and I’d always read newspapers, and so when I was studying my degree in journalism, it was always with the intention of wanting to work for a newspaper. But on the news side, after my second year of university, I got an internship at The Telegraph for, I think it was three weeks, but it was on the lifestyle team and it was part of Stellar Magazine, which was our supplement on Sunday, which

Alessia Horwich (01:37):

R-I-P.

Sonia Haria (01:37):

R-I-P. I know. So sad. So I was just on the general features team there as the intern for three weeks. I mean, I was like, what is this place? There were sort of cakes out there for a taste test and then there was a fashion cupboard, beauty products everywhere. I just felt like this was the most glorious place on earth and then very quickly in my mind I was like, this is what I want to do. I want to write about lovely things and speak to women, and I just really found my calling and thankfully the three weeks turned into a three month internship, which then turned into a six month short contract and then they offered me a job of Editorial Assistant on the magazine after six to nine months, and that was 18 years ago.

Alessia Horwich (02:34):

That’s like the dream way into journalism, isn’t it? You get somewhere you realise it’s amazing and they offer you job after job and you stay there.

Sonia Haria (02:41):

I know it’s been so, it’s been one of those places that actually I think the beauty of being on a newspaper is that you have access to, we have a magazine, we have digital, there’s the prestigious newspaper, there’s such a blend. So I don’t feel like it ever feels boring.

Alessia Horwich (03:01):

The way that The Telegraph runs itself now is digital first. I mean, it is unique I think of the nationals. None of the others are doing it in the same way you guys are and that must keep it exciting.

Sonia Haria (03:11):

Absolutely, and I feel like we’ve all really trained ourselves up to be so digital first. So this is a process that’s been going on for over a decade, I’d say, where other publications might think of digital as a afterthought or a second to print publication. It’s always been very, very important at The Telegraph. The digital is treated with the same integrity and rigour of journalism as our print publications are. Even a decade ago, we were very much trained in SEO. We were skilled up quite quickly in knowing what affiliates were. Even though we don’t deal with them on our editorial team, we still very much knew about where the digital space was going in publishing.

Alessia Horwich (04:06):

Yeah.

Sonia Haria (04:06):

So it feels really exciting to be on that journey.

Alessia Horwich (04:08):

It does sound a bit technical and a bit sort of digital, but I mean, do you think the beauty journalism and The Telegraph is a glam as it’s always been? Is it glam? What do you think?

Sonia Haria (04:17):

It definitely is glam in that we get to have access to lots of amazing celebrity interviews and obviously numerous amounts of beauty products and that

Alessia Horwich (04:31):

Piles and piles.

Sonia Haria (04:32):

Yeah, exactly. That’s never going to not be glamorous, but I think at the heart of it, what we always try to maintain is it has to feel really useful for our readers and that is one thing that we are kind of constantly thinking about when it comes to any beauty coverage we do. And the same goes for my colleagues on the fashion desk. How is it going to feel really useful for the readership? So it is very glamorous, but it’s also a lot of the day I spend, I actually love an office day where I don’t have any meetings. I can just go into the office. I have no makeup on, my hair’s up and I’m just in computer mode planning my Excel spreadsheets and planning all of the content grids for what we’ve got coming up.

Alessia Horwich (05:21):

And we are here to talk specifically about fashion week and beauty and how that works. I mean, you’re saying that you’re becoming someone who’s spending more time behind at their desk in front of their screen doing all of these really important things, how has that affected how you’re covering beauty during Fashion Week? How was it when you started and how is it now?

Sonia Haria (05:40):

That’s a really great question. So 15 years ago, I remember going to shows, we’d go to London, Milan, Paris, we would go backstage with a brand usually, so it’d be someone enormous like Mac. So I would be gone for three, four days out of the office to go to Milan and attend lots of amazing backstage fashion shows.

Alessia Horwich (06:06):

What would that be like? I’ve seen that on films and things like that. I can’t really imagine what it’d be like to actually be in the thick of it mean did you see outrageous things or was it like really overwhelming?

Sonia Haria (06:16):

It was really overwhelming very much. I was far more junior back when we were doing those things and just for me, I would less get nervous interviewing a celebrity, but I felt a real amount of respect for any of the big makeup artists and the big hairstylists because they were the ones who were shooting covers for Vogue and they were the real talent in that industry and I feel really honoured that I got to do those backstage shows. It was incredible. It felt really amazing to be there. And it’s funny because back then we didn’t really have social media. We weren’t taking videos or it feels odd to think back that we were simply just there to be there.

Alessia Horwich (07:06):

Which I guess makes more pressure on your shoulders

Sonia Haria (07:09):

Completely.

Alessia Horwich (07:09):

Because you are the witnesses and you need to take away.

Sonia Haria (07:11):

Absolutely.

Alessia Horwich (07:12):

There’s no cameras and,

Sonia Haria (07:12):

We all had blackberries. I think we weren’t even, no one was taking any extra content. It was just, what’s the story? What can we potentially work into a show report afterwards, spring, summer 14 for instance, what were the five key looks? And I remember that so vividly because I did go to Milan for that spring summer 14, and I remember this specific Dolce&Gabanna look, which was just so perfect, so perfect. We would write five key looks that we’ve spotted on the runway and that would go into the magazine perhaps four to six weeks later.

Alessia Horwich (07:50):

Right? Gosh.

Sonia Haria (07:51):

From when we actually went to the show.

Alessia Horwich (07:54):

That seems incredible now.

Sonia Haria (07:55):

Yeah. It really does.

Alessia Horwich (07:55):

That it would be so far after.

Sonia Haria (07:58):

Absolutely. So we definitely did use the content, but I mean it was dramatically different to how we would approach that nowadays.

Alessia Horwich (08:08):

Yeah. So tell me about that. How do you do it nowadays? What’s the differences? And I mean, is fashion week beauty so relevant today do you think?

Sonia Haria (08:15):

I don’t think it is, if I’m honest. It has changed dramatically in that fewer brands are sponsoring makeup and hair backstage, whereas now for us it’s just practically being out of the office for three days is a lot of time. It’s not that we don’t do fashion week anymore, but it has to be and has to feel, so so reader friendly, it has to feel super relevant. Our reader very much would switch off if it was a case of big lashes were seen backstage at X, Y, Z. It doesn’t feel relevant at all. I remember a few years ago at one of the Victoria Beckham shows her makeup artist had used a Weleda skin food moisturiser backstage, which felt very relevant because actually that was Victoria Beckham, which is someone our readers are familiar with a high street product that is quite budget friendly, it has to tick quite a few boxes for it to feel very relevant for our readers. The ultimate goal is always the story, and if you are really having to eke out a story, then it shouldn’t, we wouldn’t go.

Alessia Horwich (09:34):

I can understand that.

Sonia Haria (09:35):

Yeah.

Alessia Horwich (09:36):

When you say you’re thinking about your reader all the time, who is this reader that you’re thinking about? Because the PRs need to be thinking about that person too, I guess when they’re pitching to you. So who are you thinking about specifically?

Sonia Haria (09:46):

So our reader very much falls within, I’d say a 35 plus woman. Midlife is our sort of core consumer. She’s a woman who in my mind is very skincare driven. Our readers don’t typically tend to be trend focused so much as a sort of Gen Z consumer perhaps would be.

Alessia Horwich (10:10):

That’s tricky for PRs at

Sonia Haria (10:11):

Yeah

Alessia Horwich (10:11):

fashion week isn’t it.

Sonia Haria (10:11):

Completely.

Alessia Horwich (10:11):

Because that’s probably the first thing they’re looking for.

Sonia Haria (10:15):

Our reader very much is not just into beauty, and I think that’s something we always try to keep in mind. It’s not everything they’re thinking about all of the time then perhaps not a beauty first consumer. So for us it’s really about pinpointing what our readers need to know about and delivering it in a really entertaining, intelligent way where they feel like they’re learning something.

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Alessia Horwich (11:44):

Tell me about whether you would peg an interview to Fashion Week. You must be offered a tonne of celebrities prior to Fashion week. What would make you go for it? I mean other than obviously the profile of the celebrity, but potentially from a beauty perspective, if a PR is coming to you and maybe they’ve got a great makeup artist, but maybe not the makeup artist or something like that, what’s going to make you think actually this is of use to our reader?

Sonia Haria (12:12):

If it’s a makeup artist that really feels relevant to our readers. So perhaps if the makeup artist falls within our midlife demographic, I would probably see if we could make the makeup artist the star of the show, again, that’s sort of ticking our box of it feeling like a real woman. A decade ago we would do shoots and have models have these kind of beautiful 20 something models with perfect skin and amazing cheek bones and show makeup looks on them, whereas that just doesn’t feel relevant or useful at all for our readers. So that I would feel is where we would go with that story. So if there was access to an amazing makeup artist, how can we make that into more than them just giving some quotes to a story because quotes are fine, but can we build it into a package of it being the makeup artist sitting there doing some makeup on herself, us filming it, maybe doing a social collaboration at the same time it then building into something really useful that we could use perhaps across our app on digital and also some quotes used within a story. We recently interviewed Val Garland, which felt like it was a story that had access across loads of touchpoints at The Telegraph. So it was in the print magazine. It was a big story on telegraph.co.uk and it also was big on social because we had put in some time and effort to make it into a package.

Alessia Horwich (13:47):

I mean the way your face sort of lit up while you were talking about all these touch points, is that where you are really going at the moment? If a PR comes to you and says, I have this story, we can do this, this, this, and this, is that like a complete win when you’re opening it?

Sonia Haria (13:59):

Absolutely. Yeah, totally. I feel like, I think we have to think big really with our stories. A lot of our readers may read the supplement on a Saturday, they may read the newspaper, they may be across everything or they may just be on digital. So it’s really serving our readers wherever they are. I’ve always maintained that our content should never feel like it’s especially beauty, which can feel quite alienating a lot of the time. It shouldn’t feel too insidery. It shouldn’t feel like, oh, well I’m the expert and I know everything. It needs to feel really relatable. It needs to feel like I’ve got crow’s feet. For instance, if it was a makeup artist say, but this is what I do and this really helps and I just would avoid doing that. It just needs to feel like you’re having a discussion with a friend how we all learn about beauty. And I feel like that’s even myself as a beauty journalist, I love when I go out for dinner with friends and just sort of having a little peek in their makeup bag, like, Ooh, what’s the repeat buy? What do you keep going back for? And it’s those real kind of just making it feel as every day and useful as possible without it feeling like if you don’t have this perfect skin, you’re not part of the beauty industry. If you don’t have all of the latest makeup, you can’t access beauty. I mean, it should never feel like that. It’s enhancing. It’s joyful. It’s fun.

Alessia Horwich (15:26):

I mean, you’re doing a really good hard sell for Telegraph Beauty to me. Definitely. I think maybe I’m going to have to start reading it a bit more. I guess though for PRs, that is a real shift in mentality because for them it must be really hard to not be thinking about the client all the time, what the client wants, what the client’s trying to say. And actually what they need to be doing is thinking about if they want coverage with you guys, they need to be thinking about your audience and what they want to hear and how they need to be explained this product to and what’s going to appeal to them.

Sonia Haria (15:55):

Yeah.

Alessia Horwich (15:55):

But if they can do that, then that’s a win all round.

Sonia Haria (15:58):

Completely. I feel like the really brilliant PRs, and there are so many brilliant beauty PRs out there, the ones that really cut through are the ones that think about the story. So what is the story rather than like you say, there’s kind of dozens of products every week, new products launching. What’s the real point of difference? Why is it relevant to our reader? Our reader doesn’t always care about the newness. No one needs a new eye cream every three months. That’s not how we shop. So it’s kind of thinking what is the real relevance here for a tinted moisturiser, for instance, launching in the summer, that’s not particularly a new story that happens every year, but what is the real point of difference with that particular one? Why does it fit into the signature makeup look that our reader wants? What access, what else can you build out around that product? So thinking about the end story I think is always so crucial when it comes to pitching any sort of product because there are so much, I feel I very much sympathise with PRs because there’s often so much noise in the industry and especially in the beauty industry, constant, constant product that actually how do we cut through all of that? What kind of access could you have around that product launching? What are the other ways we can bring that story to life?

Alessia Horwich (17:34):

But they will have thought this through

Sonia Haria (17:35):

Yeah

Alessia Horwich (17:35):

Before they’re going to email you and let’s get onto the actual email. Fashion week is happening or coming up or Fashion week is now, well fashion month now, isn’t it really? They want to get a story that’s hooked around fashion week. They’ve thought of something good that’s going to work for you. What does this email look like? What does the subject line say that’s going to make you open it? What’s the formatting inside? What are the things that they have to include?

Sonia Haria (18:01):

So if there’s a new, for instance, a new product launching within or it’s becoming, its first use is going to be used backstage, that’s often where beauty product will be showcased. So just say a brand, are launching whole new range of coloured eyeliners, but they’re launching it backstage and they’re using it as a first. If we use that as an example, the things I want to know is what’s new and exciting about it? What’s the price point? That’s always very, very key for us. What makes it different? Are there any stats that play into the idea of coloured? Is search up for coloured eyeliner? Is there a really key makeup artist that we can have access to quotes for? And this is crucial quick quotes because that’s one frustrating thing on a newspaper often. If we want to do a quick story, I always sort of apologetically send an email saying, can I have some quotes within two hours? I know not everyone works like that, but it’s having access to someone really quickly helps tremendously rather than having a sort of turnaround of a week. And I know that it happens like that sometimes, but having quick access and stating that in the email is always really useful. And also imagery. Is there any exclusive imagery we can get beforehand? I want to know the key story. So one great example, a Chanel show from earlier this year that every single model down the runway was sent down the runway with their own bespoke red lipstick on. And that is a genius story because

Alessia Horwich (19:58):

Did they look different?

Sonia Haria (19:58):

They did. They were slightly tweeked according to their skin tone, which is a gold story for us because ultimately that’s bringing in real glamour, real beautiful, beautiful images, amazing access to backstage pictures and also runway pictures, and then having really useful tips because ultimately our reader still needs to learn something or feel like it’s enhancing their life in some way rather than just looking at beautiful pictures, how to find your perfect red lipstick. That’s that story.

Alessia Horwich (20:33):

Amazing. Well Sonia, look, let’s do a quick recap at the end. I really like to just get the main takeaways for the PRs. So if there’s three things that you would say to a PR who’s thinking about pitching a fashion week beauty story, what are the three main takeaways going to be?

Sonia Haria (20:46):

Think about how it’s really useful for our reader. So very specifically our reader, do research on who the reader is that you want to pitch the story for. And the readers are very different across so many different publications. What we like is very relevant, useful, but still really aspirational beauty advice. Also think about what’s the point of difference for the product that you’re pitching, what sets it apart? And then I’d say think about kind of, I suppose making a bigger thing of the experts you have to hand because the experts that you have access to. That just really makes me feel tremendously inspired because there’s an amazing hairstylist. They often don’t know that they’ve got all of the best stories.

Alessia Horwich (21:45):

Yeah.

Alessia Horwich (21:45):

I was on a shoot earlier today and it’s this one, the hairdresser very unassumingly, so brilliant, but was just like, oh, if you do this with your hair, it will kind of fall a bit differently and you need to tong this way because of the way your parting is. It’s those kind of real useful, simple advice and those are the experts and they’re the people that our readers need to sort of hear from.

Alessia Horwich (22:12):

Yeah, that’s the magic, isn’t it?

Sonia Haria (22:14):

That’s the magic. It’s those real kind of little tricks that make your life feel easier without feeling like it needs to go through this filter of I’m going to give you eight different products that you must buy. Sometimes it’s just the simple advice and really highlighting how can you make a bigger thing of the experts you have to hand.

Alessia Horwich (22:36):

Brilliant. Thank you so much, Sonia. That was so interesting.