Whether we are utilizing online social networking sites for the sake of professional expansion or personal pastime interests, the possibilities seem endless. In the past few years, with the advent of MySpace and Blogger, fashion has thrown us more than a few Internet ‘It girls’.
Bloggers have become higher profile, landing front row seats at both the uptown tents, and downtown at Milk Studios for New York Fashion Week, with VIP party invites included. Such entities have spawned much controversy and intrigue within the confines of the industry. Competition has been turned up a notch, and unfiltered information is on the rise, questioning quantity vs. quality.
Among our many new aged wonder-kids is a blossoming sixteen-year-old editor, who has had her own glossy magazine since she was fourteen years of age.
Her name is Kristin Prim, and she is the editor-in-chief of Prim Magazine. Prim seems to have something a bit more unique than the run-of-the-mill quasi-adolescent blogger – she possesses something perspicacious to the age-old It girl, with striking beauty, and a stylishness beyond her years.
For inspiration, our young editrix houses an archive of over 300 fashion magazines, including vintage tomes from the 80’s and 90’s. Prim collaborates with high-end famed industry types in all areas, and works very closely in every division of her glossy, from art direction to intellect.
When I asked if she ever got intimidated by key industry players like Kate Lanphear at a party, or someone like the vociferous Kelly Cutrone in a meeting, Prim tells me she learned to fight her battles very early on, which has built self confidence, and that she enjoys working with Cutrone’s People’s Revolution firm on a regular basis.
Prim is everything you would want her to be – wise beyond her years, in-tune with the current times, and educated at length about fashion history. When speaking to the uber-friendly editor, I was relieved that she can giggle like a teen one minute, and leap into the mature attitude that surpasses many adults in the next.
Even more refreshing and surprising in this tale of a teen climbing the fashion ranks is the fact that her background includes no ties to fashion – she attends Catholic school, her father is a pharmacist, and her mother a housewife. While Prim is the first to admit she has received a great amount of financial backing, she is definitely the very root of all that it has accomplished.
So how does a teenager who lives 20 minutes outside of Manhattan create an internationally distributed fashion glossy in a time when print feels nearly dead?
The phenomena started as an online publication, with attention to brands like American Apparel and Urban Outfitters – a foreign aesthetic from what the Prim brand has come to currently represent.
Prim took a liking to commenting on the Teen Vogue website, and her ideas caught the eye of Editor-in-Chief Amy Astley. Astley then sought out the young fashionista to be featured in Teen Vogue as blogger of the moment. Then came French Glamour. From then on, other magazines caught wind of Prim, and eagerly ran mentions of her and her magazine. Soon the advertisers and backers came out to play – designer Jeremy Scott sought Prim out, and a feature collaboration came about soon after.
