CLINIQUE #FACEFORWARD

I was lucky enough to fly up to Sydney to attend and celebrate the launch of the global Clinique #Faceforward initiative featuring Australia’s own creative director, stylist, photographer and flat lay extraordinaire, Margaret Zhang. Along side Margaret are 2 other millennial influencers, Tavi Gevinson and Hannah Bronfman – all three young women are true inspirations and making their mark internationally. The #Faceforward campaign encourages women to look towards the future, set goals and celebrate their accomplishments. Engaging women globally these three women come from the worlds of fashion, lifestyle, health and the arts and have all achieved so much at such a young age as they take risks and push boundaries.

The 3-Step Skin Care System, created more than 40 years ago by Clinique, a simple routine of cleanse, exfoliate and moisturize and now a new Sonic System Purifiying Cleansing Brush continues to revolutionize they way women care for their skin. Clinique believes the result of having clean and healthy skin makes women feel confident and empowered.

Held at the beautiful Seven at David Jones the morning consisted of a delicious breakfast and Margaret Zhang discussed all things beauty, social media and how she puts her #faceforward. Everybody left completely inspired after hearing about all the things Margaret has achieved and the many hats she wears. Her resume consisting of stylist, fashion writer, photographer, creative director and all round fashion “it-girl” just to name a few and shes unlikely to stop there. Multi-tasking is the key to her success, not falling into one particular career but involving herself is all aspects of her work, all whist finishing her Commerce/Law degree and managing her style blog Shine By Three.

I was lucky enough to sit down one-on-one with Margaret and discuss her #faceforward promise and all things social media and of course those amazing flat lays…

Interview with Margaret Zhang

How does it feel to be part of the Clinique #Faceforward campaign?
It’s been really amazing. It’s obviously flattering when a global brand like Clinique reaches out and says “we’ve been watching you”. It’s not about just being the face of something and its more about what about all three of us do and what we believe in and what we are able to communicate to our following. It’s been a really pleasant lovely experience where everyone is on the same page. I feel like with a lot of campaigns with celebrities, things I’ve worked on behind the scenes, there has always been that weird tension and three-way thing with agents and managers and all that kind of stuff and this has just been very direct and just what we all believe in and we are all working towards the same thing. So that’s been really good because we are all so different, the three of us and Clinique have obviously really been pushing their brand in a different direction to what other cosmetic and skincare brands are.

Your message to girls to get inspired and #FaceForward.
Don’t be afraid to experiment and don’t let your youth get in the way of your big ideas. Obviously in youth your limited with financial resources and stuff. But there is so much you can do for free – you can have your own website for free essentially and you can build your own content, all you are investing in is time and time investment is more important than anything. If your putting in the time and effort to create something really amazing Ii think that’s the most important thing.

Your #Faceforward promise.
Taking a moment to really appreciate what you have achieved and what you have done. Because I do have a habit of just powering ahead and hurdling through space and just not appreciating what I’ve worked on. You kind of get frustrated sometimes because you are really busy dealing with the ‘nitty gritty’ of what’s coming up and you forget that like “oh actually that was really good, when I just did that” and you didn’t stop to appreciate that achievement.

Do you think the perception of beauty and women in fashion is changing?
The strange thing about fashion is that, I mean a lot of my friends are models, and its really weird to see how one season they would be ‘the next big thing’ – every show books them, they do stupidly well, they book every editorial, every campaign and then the next season suddenly nobody wants them anymore. Just because of the way they look. Because I do a lot of castings for campaigns, I shoot and I sometimes catch myself where I’m like “Well her shoulders are too broad or her forehead is too high and you think oh my god, what are you doing” – its such a strange industry. But from a creative perspective if your an artist or a photographer, or a casting director and you have a vision its totally understandable that it needs to be met. So I think it’s a strange standard of very young girls who are pinned as the pinnacle of beauty almost and that’s kind of unattainable, because you can never look 18 again. So it’s a strange irony I guess, where the industry champions youth, but in almost a perverse way, without being sexualised. I really like that, the trend now is more towards more interesting looking people. People who are a little bigger, as much as she is a relative celebrity like Gigi Hadid for example, is a good size 10. But nobody cares because they are beautiful, and they probably wouldn’t fit a lot of samples, but it’s fine because people still want to shoot them, which I think is a really great example to set. I think the word “plus size” carries less meaning now than it did before and I think a lot designers are embracing older models, like anything from the return of the 2000 supermodels who are in there late 20’s now – which would have been a ‘no mans land age’ previously for models. And then people in their mid to late 30’s and all those models who have come back and looking amazing. Also much older models like Linda Rodin and Caroline De Maigret who is her 40’s – bring them back and showing you can have brand identities that are timeless – which is really cool.

When did you think that you had “made it” or become recognisable?
When I realised that there were people overseas who read my website, that was kind of a turning point. I was like “Oh wow I really have an audience that’s not just in Australia, that could be really beneficial to speak to a global audience’. So that’s been really interesting just watching how it fluctuates. For a time there Russia was like my top 3 for some reason, now South Korea is my 4th biggest following which is weird because I’m tan! Australia has always been my No.1 because it’s home and I post in this time zone. It’s a much more smaller fashion community, it depends on peoples interests at one point in time, trends are really transient in the online community.

When did you realise you turned your Website/Instagram into a career?
I guess its never been ‘I’m going to make a giant business out of my blog’, I’ve always been studying, always been making a business out of being a photographer, a career out of being a stylist – just building on several careers at the same time and they just fall under a similar umbrella. So I’ve never really put all of my eggs in one basket so to speak. It just keeps me sane and keeps everything in perspective and you can step back quite often and just assess what your doing and seeing if your happy with it. The funny thing about the fashion industry is the more you do in one thing the more work you get in that area. So this year I think I have been shooting so much, whereas last year I think it was styling a lot more. Then it just changes depending on which region, like in the States, I think they are more interested in my consulting capacity and in Europe they are more interested in my styling capacity.

Has your Blog or Instagram helped make you more recognisable? 

I actually came into Instagram quite late. I think I’ve only had Instagram for like 2 years. I think Instagram has been good in like a street recognition sense – people recognise you off Instagram. But I think I had a much bigger following on my website, early before that, its very different content as well. People visit my Instagram and website for very different reasons.

Do brands approach you or do you approach them?
I think a bit of both. I’ve always been really careful to not borrow heaps of clothes to shoot because they [followers] think its not real. So once in a while, I’ve become good friends with designers, so I shoot a few things of theirs, I will invest in things myself and buy them because I think it’s important for people to know that your not just just a Cinderella story. Fortunately as a stylist, you get to interact with brands that way and shoot things on models which is not so much of an authenticity problem. Then I’ve just grown brand relationships slowly, just having that conversation all the time and working with them on different facets of their business and showing them all the time how you can help improve.

Managing work/study and travel.
The flight is probably the only time that I get like a good 9 hours of sleep. I always have a little check list that I make before I get on the plane of things that I want to get done and I probably, most of the time, get through about half of it which is good. During semester if I’m traveling I study on the plane because there is very little distraction. I think I travel so often I have watched all the movies by now. 

When do you feel a good flat lay coming on?
When I have some stuff and I feel like the only way to present it in a really structured way and you see all the things you have and you sense a colour scheme.

The flat lay clean up.
I hate the clean up so much. I always leave it for like 10 minutes. I shut everything that needs to be shut and leave it and deal with it later. Sometimes you have to drag everything outside because the light is better …struggles!

Flat lay on a table or on the ground?
I flat lay on the ground so that it’s high enough to stand up. I stand up on a chair in a restaurant. My boyfriend is use to it now, at the beginning he was horrified.

Taking on collaborations.
I think I turn down about 80-90 per cent of what I get approached. Only because it’s just not right. I’m really selective with what I do and I want to make sure that we have a real relationship that it’s not just like a one off thing. I don’t normally work with brands unless its the first time they have spoken to me and there is a foreseeable ongoing partnership or it’s just a really perfect project. It varies, if they are hiring me as a photographer, I mean they are hiring a different photographer every season, it’s not likely you are going to get another collaboration but at the same time your not really investing so much of your brand in that, it’s just you shooting or you styling so thats ok. But when its me collaborating and working on a really big project it’s not really feasible time wise even to accept everything and just need to make sure that they really understand what I’m about. If the brand is just like ‘We want to pay you to do an Instagram’, well then you clearly don’t know what I am about then, because I don’t ever do that and yet the fact that you never noticed that means that you don’t really understand my brand. So always really selective, turn down so much stuff but its worth it in the long run.

You beauty routine
– Biggest thing drink heaps of waters 2-3litres a day
– A well balanced diet
– I use coconut oil on my face at night and wash it off in the morning
– Always wear illuminator

Clinique developed this campaign to spark and communicated a dialogue. Make a promise to the future. And put it out there.