Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast: Making Art Work · Nick Petrella and Andy Heise

#367: Aleah Wright (Founder of Wright Beauty and Freelance Writer) (pt. 1 of 2)

·20 min·1 clip

Aaliyah Wright explains how TikTok led her to pitch an interview with Oscar-winning costume designer Paul Taswell to Essence.

1. Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast: Making Art Work features Aaliyah Wright discussing her transition from fashion internships and freelance writing to founding Wright Beauty. 2. Hosts Andy Heiss and Nick Petrella interview Wright, whose work spans fashion writing, blogging, beauty products, and media pitching. 3. The episode asks how Wright built a fashion-and-beauty career by combining opportunities that did not initially arrive in a predictable order. 4. Wright studied merchandising with a media minor at Kent State and wanted to move to New York and work in luxury fashion. 5. Her Michael Kors internship included visual merchandising, small leather goods, womenswear, menswear, and work connected to Macy’s on 34th Street. 6. A study-away visit to Prada’s flagship store in Milan preceded Wright’s New York internship with Prada. 7. Wright says Prada placed her in handbag and accessories merchandising, teaching her about buying, stores, customers, deadlines, and business operations. 8. After the Prada experience, Wright began pitching fashion writing and used prior beauty writing for InStyle to build confidence. 9. Wright discovered Paul Taswell discussing Wicked costume sketches, fabrics, and characters on TikTok and pitched an Essence interview. 10. To arrange the feature, Wright contacted Taswell’s publicist and Universal representatives and secured an advance screening and interview access. 11. Wright says the Taswell feature opened opportunities when publicists began recommending her for Broadway coverage and film premieres. 12. Wright describes pitching as putting forward the complete idea and explaining why an editor should publish it. 13. She treats fashion writing, blogging, and Wright Beauty as parts of one system for building authority in fashion and beauty. 14. Wright says her body butter and beauty oil business began about two years earlier and requires coordination with manufacturers and orders. 15. Wright keeps blogging and fashion writing active simultaneously while stepping away from business tasks when orders are being handled. 16. On generative AI, Wright says she writes her ideas first and uses ChatGPT mainly to polish wording or strengthen pitches. 17. Wright argues that an artist’s originality comes from internalizing information and redistributing it through personal experience and perspective. 18. The interview also covers topic inspiration from social media, industry developments, new product launches, commerce content, and audience response. 19. Fashion writers building pitches, blogs, and independent ventures. 20. Listeners seeking only conventional luxury-fashion career paths may skip.

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