Hilary Alexander (the great)

I was over the moon to hear that Hilary Alexander had taken home the Eugenia Sheppard Media Award from the CDFA awards in New York.

Not only is she pretty much the bees knees and at the top of my people-I-aspire-to-be list, she is also a KIWI!

Her first journalistic job was for the Manawatu Evening Standard at the frighteningly young age of 16.
Frightening because I'm jealous.
Jealous because I hate hearing about people achieving things at such a young age, it makes me feel like a right slacker.

Anyway this fantastic lady is now to be found at the most established post of fashion director for the Daily Telegraph(UK), where she does great things on a daily basis.













Profile: Hilary Alexander


Hilary Alexander, the Daily Telegraph 's fashion director, started her journalistic career at just 16-years-old.

Taking her first steps as a trainee reporter at the Manawatu Evening Standard in her native New Zealand, Hilary quickly won accolades for her writing, moving to two national broadsheets as a news reporter. Hilary then headed overseas to Australia, working on the Ballerat Courier , and then the Wollongong Mercury in New South Wales as a news and features reporter.

Working her way slowly West, Hilary's next journalistic stop was a fashion editor position at The China Mail , a tabloid newspaper in Hong Kong, before she decamped to the national broadsheet, the Hong Kong Standard , where she took up the post as features editor.

After a year-long break for travelling, various other posts in the Hong Kong fashion industry followed, before Hilary landed on British shores in 1984. A year later, The Daily Telegraph beckoned; she joined the newspaper as fashion editor in January 1985 before becoming fashion director in 2003.

During Hilary's years at the Telegraph , she has styled fashion shoots all over the world, in as far-flung locations as Guatemala, Kazakhstan, Bhutan, Mongolia, Cambodia, Kenya and Peru; reviewed hundreds of catwalk shows every season; and interviewed fashion's biggest stars for the paper and website.

Hilary often lends her fashion expertise on television: she is a regular "talking head" on BBC 2's Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two and documentaries for Channel 4, as well as for international broadcasters like NBC.

She also works as a stylist and presenter for fashion and charity events such as the Designer Wedding Show, the Breast Cancer Care charity gala and Fashion for the Brave, which was held last year with the Household Cavalry.

Twice named British Fashion Journalist of the Year at the British Fashion Awards, she was awarded the title Visiting Professor by the University of the Arts and an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Design by Nottingham Trent University. She is a valued judge for the Scottish Fashion Awards, Graduate Fashion Week, the Bright Young Gems at International Jewellery London, and a member of the British Fashion Council's management and press committees.

Adding to her numerous accolades, Hilary is to receive the Eugenia Sheppard Award for journalism from the CFDA.


Via: The Daily Telegraph