The days are getting harder and harder to get up for. We met up in the morning for breakfast, but the line was so long I just waited until lunch to eat. A lot of the breakfast places by the hotel just do pastries in the morning I noticed, and I didn’t love that. I wasn’t super hungry either though, so it was fine.
The class met up today to walk over to visit Hearst. They produce a lot of the magazines we read today, like Good Housekeeping, Elle, Cosmopolitan, Red, Men’s Health, and so many more. It is one of the bigger companies we were visiting, so it was really exciting. Their building is beautiful, right in the middle of London’s hustle and bustle. When we first arrived, we were split into three groups to take a tour of the Hearst UK building. We got to talk to Alex Harring, who does a lot of video production, and we got to see her little studio. It was really interesting to talk to her and see the space because I watch her Cosmo Beauty Tricks, she films all the time at home. We then went to the library there, where they hold all the archived magazines the company has published going all the way back to the first magazine every brand has published. We finished the tour by checking out the closet for all the fashion shoots. They have to track every article of clothing from the moment they receive it to the moment they send it back. There were two interns packing stuff while we were checking it out. I’d take that internship any day.
We got to sit in on a panel discussion with some of the editors for the magazines like, Kenya Hunt, Matt Hill, Jess Edwards, and Amy Lane. We talked about a lot of different stuff. Kenya works with fashion, so we talked a lot about how fashion is changing for the better in society. Another fun subject was how they choose who gets to be on the covers for magazines because it isn’t always globally the same cover. After that, we sat down with Julian Lanley about his program called “The Nest.” The program incubates new ideas and talent to develop new businesses or business plans. We also talked to Elle and Sophie, who work in a lot of the fashion photography and styling for magazines. They went over how you schedule a shoot and how they pick their models, and how they budget. After that, I got to meet Effie Kanyua who is the director of PR & Communications. She was so sweet and really made it possible for the visit to happen. It was super cool.
We went back to the lobby because the tour wasn’t over. We walked over to their Good Housekeeping building. They practice their recipes in this area because it has everything you could need to. They advertise their recipe’s to be so easy anyone could do it, so they have 3 different people test out every recipe they put out. Then, in the basement there was a whole other department that tested products. They had a beauty room, hair room, washer/dryer room, vacuum room, cooking room, literally anything you could think they could test they can and have a room for it. After that the tour was over, and they offered to take us to back to the main building for free magazines.
We were all starving at this point so we went to a Thai restaurant nearby with some of the group. I then needed to go back to the hotel because my body could not continue going anymore. I took a nice fat nap.
I got up and got ready for the night after that. Our little group went on a nice dinner with a few friends to an Italian place, and I got some red pesto risotto. It was delicious. I love pesto so much. We walked back to the hotel to regroup and grab a few more fellows to walk around town with because it was our last night here because we leave for Windsor and Stratford in the morning. Then, I ended my night early to go back to the hotel and finish packing.