Another Magazine has a great series in which they put the spotlight on the people who do their most to stay out of it, the people making things work from behind the scenes, the PR people who have to deal with our strug asses thirsting to get into every possible fashion show, party and event. The latest entry centers on one of the most influential and powerful women in fashion, Karla Otto. She reps some of the most well-known fashion houses in the industry, from Céline to Givenchy and has become the "stateswoman of PR" in the process.
Otto is German, but it was her time spent in Japan where she was scouted as a model that exposed her to fashion, though she never put much stock in it as a career. Instead, she saw the wider workings and creativity of the fashion industry and a chance meeting with designer Elio Fiorucci gave her the opportunity to move into doing public relations for his brand and ultimately led to her starting her own firm in 1982, when the PR industry was still pretty low-profile. Fortunately, in the 30 plus years since, the basics of nurturing relationships with the press remains pretty similar: "PR at the time wasn't a high profile business as it is nowadays but yet the basics were there: establishing and nurturing relationships with the press, listening to editors and understanding their needs, identifying angles to build relevant and interesting stories, shaping the perception of the collections, being impeccable in the organization. In this sense, nothing has really changed."
Since her start, Karla Otto has built an empire of fashion public relations. She has SEVEN offices around the world and embraced social media as a means for good fashion representation, which shows how behind the rest of industry can be at times. To this day she still gets to spot talent herself and decides on her clients based solely on intuition because, if it wasn't already obvious enough, Karla Otto is a fucking G.
Just hope you're on the "nice" list come New York Fashion Week, so you don't have to beg for an invite to Tim Coppens. That's Karla's call too.
