Jessica Kiraly: ELLE Magazine

This past summer I had the opportunity to intern at ELLE magazine. Amazing doesn’t even begin to describe the experience I had at ELLE. I spent the summer in a closet filled to the brim with designer shoes and handbags, as well as lots of sparkly diamonds. Those diamonds were my area. While the other interns in the closet handled bags and shoes I was the only intern that specifically handled jewelry. I interned directly under the Accessories Editor, Caroline Grosso, who is in charge of the Paris market and the HUGE jewelry market.

Interning solely as the jewelry intern meant I had a lot more responsibility and duties than the other accessory interns. I not only managed all the jewelry samples but I was in charge of filing insurance, tracking expensive packages, and producing carnets (international documents for over-seas shoots). During all of this I was also in charge of making sure every single piece was accounted for. This wasn’t easy when sometimes our shoots, especially September, called for 300+ pieces of jewelry. Other shoots had less jewelry but the value of the pieces were higher. On a normal day I could have anywhere from $100,000 to $2 million worth of jewelry I would have to keep track of. For shoots that had a higher “price tag” we hired guards to oversee jewelry and handle pick ups as well as drop offs. I also got the chance to go on set a few times which was a whole new experience for me. I ended up spending some pretty late nights at the office but in the end it was truly all worth it.

I learned so much about the industry during my time there and made amazing contacts. ELLE was an absolutely amazing place to intern at and the fact that my job was different from the other interns meant I had the chance to stand out and really make an impact with the people I worked with. The people at ELLE ended up becoming my family for the summer and I truly could not have had a better experience.

xx,

Jessica Kiraly

Fashion Board President