My job is more about helping people tell their stories in ever more interesting ways.

Instagram was initially launched as a community for artists and photographers.

For a lot of children of immigrants, what happens is your parents want you to do something very linear that they can understand. I had an aptitude in sciences and never really questioned it.

The new generation of designers, like Prabal Gurung and Alexander Wang, have hundreds of thousands following them on social media who will probably never be able to afford their dresses but still feel a loyalty to them. So when that designer writes a book or launches a beauty line, they might pick that up.

Beauty is the lowest common denominator: I don’t care what they say – every girl, every woman, wants to feel pretty and empowered and beautiful, within their own definition of beautiful. I love fashion, I love shopping, but I love beauty more because I love the science of it.

I bought my first pair of pointy-toed Miu Miu shoes with a kitten heel from Barneys. They were $200, and it was a big deal. I wore them with a pleated black Benetton skirt and a white shirt. I looked like a waitress.

Build a lifestyle around your brand, and the audience will follow.

I have a bag and shoe addiction. If I were a doctor or a lawyer, I’d still have it.

During Fashion Week, I tend to do a gel manicure because it’s easier.

The thing about Instagram and fashion is that is has absolutely taken down the sense of the velvet rope and has pulled the curtain aside on the entire experience that used to be for a select 100 people in the world. Now it is there for millions of people to consume.

My advice for young people is, study what you love and intern in what you want to do. And I think it’s okay to pivot as many times as you need to.

Fashion appeals to everyone… Everyone gets into it.

The best perk of my job is getting to take products home. I mean, my bathroom looks like Sephora; like a clean, smaller Sephora.

Print is very important because I think there is nothing like the tactile sense of picking up a magazine.

The eight months I took off between ‘Teen Vogue‘ and ‘Lucky‘ afforded me such amazing opportunities, and I learned so much from so many different people – the brands that I worked with, the companies that I was consulting for.

I was very focused on school. No social life whatsoever.

You can get inspired from a magazine, yes, but you can also be inspired from a website, from a street-style blogger, from what people post on Instagram.

We’re a show-and-tell generation. People want to see behind the scenes. The more involved and invited they are, the closer affinity they have to your brand.

Working at ‘Harper‘s’ was an awakening experience for me. I genuinely enjoyed the process of putting together a fashion magazine.

I would say I am unapologetically nerdy. I was always a little awkward.

You could be an 18-year-old girl in Tokyo wondering how you could ever break into fashion or beauty, so you follow your favourite designer or editor, see what their day comprises, where they go, who they meet, how they do it… If I were setting up my own label today, I would definitely do it through Instagram.

It’s more instructive to learn what you don’t like than just to like everything.