Today we are interviewing Marta Flores, a Catalan journalist who stumbled into the fashion industry by chance but now boasts over 20 successful years in renowned publications such as Woman, SModa, and currently as the Director of InStyle. Marta Flores and her team are responsible for the increase in prestige and strengthening of the InStyle brand, thanks to a firm strategy that highlights three important pillars:
First, they have encouraged an increase in creativity and a higher number of high-quality photo shoots with the best fashion and beauty experts in Spain.
Secondly, they have worked towards specialization, increasing expert content with a prescriptive tone.
Lastly, they have reinforced their brand identity, making InStyle the only luxury shopping guide in the market. Readers will find real proposals in both digital and printed formats that will allow them to make decisions in fashion purchases.
Furthermore, InStyle stands out from other fashion and beauty magazines due to its strong focus on the world of national and international celebrities. This is its unique characteristic and what sets it apart from its competitors.
Marta Flores and her team are also responsible for doubling the number of monthly readers on InStyle.es, going from 1.5 million to a total of 3 million visitors. This is due to the increase in content and volume of publications, as well as the increase in video production, in addition to its friendly tone that allows it to connect with its readers.
Marta Flores tells us about her career path and what it means to be the Director of a prestigious publication like InStyle.
When did you start in the world of fashion?
I started in the world of fashion working for Woman Magazine, which was then called Woman, not Woman Madame Figaró. I started as a collaborator in Barcelona (because I am from Barcelona) working with them on beauty topics, and then I started as a writer there, and later I wanted to move to Madrid and was appointed editor-in-chief. Then, my career path led me to S Moda magazine of El País, which was started by Amparo Prieto, the director, and me. We both worked at Woman before moving to S Moda and creating the project. Finally, I ended up at InStyle three and a half years ago as the director of the magazine. I entered the world of fashion in a casual way because, in our time, there was no culture of fashion or opportunities to get into the world of fashion like there are now. There were no courses, and universities did not teach anything about this. So, either you got there by chance or by vocation because you liked the subject. In my case, it was by chance because I was working with Grupo Zeta, producing other magazines before and finally, I ended up at Woman. That’s how I have been professionalizing within this world, and now I have dedicated more than 20 years to this profession.
What do you like most about your job?
Well, it’s a very creative job and it’s true that you learn something new every day, I have a journalistic part obviously, which is what I studied to develop my skills. But the most important thing for me is the creative part because I think that creativity is what allows people to be happy. There is a professional aspect that can be tough, but creativity needs to be encouraged wherever you are, and in this profession, creativity is very important both in terms of imagery and text, as well as in terms of different perspectives. And that’s where I develop myself as a professional and as a person, right? There’s satisfaction on both sides.
Have you always worked in the fashion industry?
No, I haven’t always worked in fashion. I’ve worked in lifestyle magazines, as well as magazines focused only on beauty. But I’ve always been around this world to some extent. It’s true that at the beginning, I wanted to work on the radio, but by chance, my first job was in a beauty magazine. So, I’ve gradually gotten to know this industry and I’m still in it today.
How do you prepare a photo shoot?
For a photo shoot, we have a fixed team in the magazine, including a creative director, regular stylists, and photographers that we work with regularly. The most important thing is to get the celebrities who will appear in the magazine, and from there, we create a mood board, which is like a series of images that will inspire us when we do the shoot. This mood board is created with the creative director and the photographer who will be doing the session, and then it’s passed to me for approval.
We always try to link the shoot to the current trends because although we’re doing celebrities, we want to do fashion with celebrities, meaning that we don’t just want to take portraits of the person, but also provide fashion and beauty information to our readers. It’s very much linked to trends. So, from time to time, I might suggest a particular trend for a particular celebrity.
We also determine everything, such as how the makeup will be done, how the hair will be styled, so that when we get to the shoot, there’s as little improvisation as possible. This is so that everything is clear to the celebrity and the team, and we can work quickly and professionally and focus on the creative part. Once we have the idea set, it’s a matter of letting the professionals’ creativity flow on set.
What is the most important thing about working in a magazine?
Well, I don’t know if this job is really important, I think there are other jobs that are more important than working in fashion. Personally, working in magazines has given me a lot of satisfaction, especially working on paper because I believe that paper (although we are developing a lot in digital) has things that digital can’t offer and never will, like the treatment of an image, which is much more elaborated, more thoughtful, with a reading rhythm that those of us from the paper era enjoy immensely. On the other hand, digital is much faster, more agile. For me, working in a magazine, as I said, is a creative process, it’s almost like giving birth to a child every month. When you have it in your hands, you really feel proud of what you have done, and I think it has a point of excitement that has satisfied me all these years.
InStyle?
InStyle is a product, it’s a title that since its start in the United States has a vocation to be a shopping guide. Meaning, just as there are other magazines that intend to delve into the fashion industry, in its sociological aspect, etcetera, we focus solely and exclusively on shopping and also on delivering all the trends through celebrities, those would be our two strong points. So, that’s the line that the mother magazine sets and it’s the line that we have wanted to follow by adapting it to the Spanish territory.
What is your philosophy for InStyle?
My philosophy for InStyle is not necessarily a specific one, but to create a product that is very visual, appealing, and attractive to the reader, and that the reader finds what she is looking for. It could be that a reader wants to learn more about fashion and buy another publication, but they always end up buying InStyle because it offers them the best and most visual insights on trends that they can buy in a season.
Who decides what is published in the magazine?
I mainly decide what is published in the magazine, as every month I create a “Planillo,” which is a kind of template of how the magazine will be structured in terms of the rhythm it will have in fashion, beauty, and celebrities. From there, I have a team that improves the ideas, because that’s what it’s all about. I believe that the team is not just an extension of myself, but it has its own identity, and each person in the team improves on my original ideas. I think it’s important to surround yourself with the best people because one person doesn’t know everything. For example, if I come up with a concept for a photoshoot, I like to have a creative director who can improve on my original idea. If I have an idea for a fashion section, I like the fashion editor to give me an idea of how to visually translate it onto the page. The design team does the same; they always improve on my original graphic ideas. So, ultimately, the decision is mine, but it’s a team effort, and the final result is the culmination of many proposals from the people who work here.
Regarding fashion shows, I attend them twice a year. The ready-to-wear fashion shows are presented twice a year, one in February/March and the other in September/October. Fashion shows are a significant stage because not only do you learn about trends, but there are also numerous presentations around them. You’re not just sitting at a show watching a runway, but there are many public relations and commercial activities that need to be done. Also, your presence at a fashion show is like a status symbol for the magazine. A magazine that can be present at fashion shows, especially in the front row, indicates a higher category of a magazine. So, it’s an important showcase for fashion magazines in general, and it’s essential to be present.
Do you think it’s important for readers?
Well, I’m not sure, I couldn’t say for certain. When readers pick up a magazine, they should realize that there’s a lot of work that goes into it by many professionals who are thinking very carefully about what to put on each page, what the rhythm of the magazine should be. Sometimes we pick up magazines and just flip through them, or stop at an article, and it happens with newspapers as well, or other publications that I see. Of course, in my case, I can analyze perfectly what’s behind it, but readers obviously don’t have the same profile as those of us who work in magazines. But I would ask them to look closely at the teams that make it up. Just by looking at that, they can get an idea of the complexity of what we do, and in fact, it’s something that surprises many people when we explain it to journalism and fashion students, when we explain everything we do on a single page just by taking a page and explaining everything we’ve thought about around that page, they are often amazed, right? Because they don’t imagine that it’s so much work, so just that, that they take it with care, read it, and appreciate the work.