FashionPR.com Interview : Courtney Blackman - Forward PR

Serious stuff: I’m the founder and managing director of Forward PR. I also co-founded and currently act as co-chairman of London’s industry collective, Fashion Business Club: a group of fashion insiders helping to shape the business side of the industry; and I sit on the board of the Ethical Fashion Forum.

Fun stuff: I grew up playing the drums and snowboarding and really like eating. My most hilarious job was cutting pineapple with a machete on a sailboat in Costa Rica. I have dual citizenship (British and American) and live full-time in London with residences in Canada - where I actually own an opera house; and in Panama – dangerously close to a volcano. I speak both Spanish and Italian, but my Spanish is better.

In-house PR & marketing director for a London-based designer who has since relocated to Tokyo.

I just really liked fashion PR, my personality suited it…and couldn’t find a job anywhere else, so thought, hey, I’ll start my own firm. So I did.

Forward PR is a boutique agency and professional intermediary between press, stylists, and both established and emerging fashion, jewellery, accessories brands, etc. Our clients have appeared in hundreds of publications, music videos, collaborations, and such across the globe. We work with a vast network of editors and stylists on a local, national and international level and currently work with FASHION.MUSIC.STYLE magazine, Fashion Summit 2009, Ford Models Supermodel of the World UK Search, Fred&Ginger, LeJu, Nude Jewellery, ParkVogel, Rebecca Cella, Rebekah Roy and Sapphires Model Management.

Probably anywhere between 50 and 70 hours per week depending on what’s happening.

Lobbying and communicating our clients’ identity to the media to attain editorial coverage; searching out partnerships such as celebrity endorsements and brand collaborations; putting on special events - all with the end goal being to raise the clients’ profile, increasing consumer awareness, and hopefully their bottom line.

My clients. We are very choosy about who we work with and have to fully embrace both the product and the person or people behind it. We have amazing clients at the moment and each one is so unique and so skilled from jewellery designers to fashion designers to a stylist to a modelling agency…I can’t not but find them interesting.

Understanding clients, the market and providing seamless and intelligent service to all sides (the client and the journalist, stylist or celebrity).

Consistency with an edge and impeccable service.

Smart, organised, friendly and have a good sense of humour.

A new designer is a whole different animal compared to a more established brand. A PR will have to spend more time developing and working with the label to make sure they understand PR and how they’re being communicated to the media and the long-term effects that this vital communication will have on the brand’s longevity. A new designer should expect a lot of shaping and development, but on the flipside, a new designer will not necessarily have the funds that a more established brand will have, so must be realistic about the time that a PR will allot to them.

A PR has to be the right fit. You have to look at the other brands that they represent and see if they are of similar calibre (but not clashing or competitive), and of course you need to see the results they’ve attained for other clients, and meet the team and see if you get on well. That’s key.

Finding enough time in the day to do everything work-wise and balance it out with personal life. Sometimes the two get so interlaced; it’s hard to when I’m at an event to enjoy myself or to work/network.

Quite similar to the response above. I have to really like the product and the person. If I don’t believe in the brand, I wouldn’t be able to PR it, no matter how much money is involved.

There are multiple layers of media now. Traditional media, social media, blogs. I’m a fan and user of Facebook, Twitter, etc., so understand their importance and where they fit. It’s just a matter of keeping on top of new blogs that creep up and new magazines (both online and offline), sussing out which are the good and influential ones.

By getting results: column inches, editorial shoots, music videos, television appearances, radio interviews, brand collaborations. We have stacks of press books and digital archives filled with the coverage we’ve attained for our clients.

I can’t give away all the tricks now, can I?..but let’s go with common sense on this one. How do you maintain any relationship?

There are seasonal trends and publications have an editorial calendar that they develop for the year (which can fluctuate)…and if you’re in constant contact with journalists, they’ll put out sample calls, image requests, and story ideas.

Digital fashion media/PR is here. It is in the present and will only play a more prominent role in the future. More and more magazines are going online, new blogs are creeping up on a daily basis, online shopping is growing at warp speed, so media/PR needs to mirror and support.

There are little moments of quietness – mostly in August and December, but for the most part, we’re always busy.

A great product, solid and coherent branding, good business sense, and a keen understanding of marketability.

I do have a few friends who are PRs. It’s always good to know other PRs, that way if Forward PR is not the right fit for a brand or vice versa, we can recommend each other; and it’s good to swap trade secrets.

Work experience. It’s invaluable in understanding how the industry works.

Communicating a brand to consumers through third-party endorsement.

Michael Herz
Jasper Garvida
Marios Schwab

To be honest I’ve never really had a favourite quote.

info@forwardpr.com +44 (0)207 495 3390 Twitter @ForwardPR Twitter @courtnyblackman Twitter @FBCLondon LinkedIn: Courtney Blackman Facebook: Courtney Blackman