[Music] Welcome to the Who What Wear Podcast. Your direct line to the designers, stylists, beauty experts, editors, and tastemakers who are shaping the ever evolving world of fashion. I'm Who What Wears editorial director, Lauren Eggerton. And today I have the pleasure of chatting with the founder of Up Next Designer, Albert Ayall. Albert got his start in fashion PR where he gravitated towards helping exciting and up and coming designers gain success. In 2019, he casually started an Instagram account to help him keep tabs on all of the new designers he was finding. But soon he began to gain traction and followers. His keen eye for new talent was a welcome change from the established brands the fashion world had come to know. But beyond reposting designers he liked, he amplified their work, using his PR skills to connect them with stylists, celebrities, and other resources to grow their brand. Today the account has over 500,000 followers and is a huge source of information, inspiration, and exposure for independent brands from around the world. I've been a huge fan of Albert's for a while now, so I asked him to join us on the pod to talk about the origins of Up Next Designer, how he grew his audience, and the emerging designers he's excited about right now. It's all coming up on Who What Wears. Hi. How are you? I haven't seen you in so long. I feel like I think it's such a full circle moment. We've got from like PR days to now like being on your podcast. Next, like it's just crazy. Thank you so much for joining me. We're so excited to have you here. I know that from just leading our edit team, our editors are so obsessed with you. You also are such an amazing resource to everyone in our company, especially to me, with styling shoots and things. It's just so appreciated that you do what you do, and I'm excited to be able to dive in with you today about that. You've built your platform, which is called Up Next Designer by spotting and championing emerging talent. So I'm excited to have you here to kick off Fashion Month especially and have you help our listeners stay in the know with what's going on. What an honor. I would love to hear your origin story. Do you remember how and when you kind of decided to get into the industry? Yeah, I mean, I was obsessed with pop culture growing up. I always read, just charred, and my mom always got people magazine to the house. So we would always read it on like Friday night, like at the fan, like we would all pass it around. We would look at the pictures. And I remember the Rihanna Adam Selman dress that really like stole my attention because I loved Rihanna. I loved everything about pop culture. And then I was like, you know, well, this is sick. What is she wearing? And I think that's really when my eye started developing for fashion and my love for fashion. Like that's when I was interested and I was like, who made this? Like I want to know more about this. And that was my big turning point. And then you started in PR, right? So tell me about the early days of your career and that aspect and how you transitioned into what you're doing now. So basically in high school, I wasn't really like the most fashionable person. I didn't really know much was more of like a pop culture nerd. I just really loved anything movies acting and singing and celebrities. And I just like always dreamed of working with celebrities and pop culture. And I didn't really know how to. I was into like drawing an art and I was taking like summer courses in architecture school. And it goes like 2012 maybe. I was in like 10th grade. The sky reached out to me and he's like, hey, Albert, like I want you to do my social media. Like Instagram really just started. And I was like, I don't do that. I want to be an architect. You know, Albert, you know so much. You're always at these cool places. We want you to like run our social media and get it to influencers and so on. And I was like, I'm not just going to go to someone at a party and give someone your watch. It's like, no, no, no, you do that. That's what you have to do. It's called gorilla marketing. I knew what gorilla marketing was, but I just never thought that like, I'm going to be that person. But I was like, you know what? Who cares? Like, let me do it. Why not? So I was just see, I mean, everyone from like Kara Faragni was back then and Leoni and Kasha Brinkley. I remember when she posted us like his followers, getting like 5,000 followers and they were just posts. Like there was no fee involved. It was just like send you a watch and I'll post. And it was so fun. He even sent me to the US Open of Surf and I had to get it on all like the surfers. It was a really fun job. I still love my architecture. I still wanted to do that. But then I enjoyed this. I always wanted to work in pop culture. I was wanted to work with different people that like I admire and that I respect. And I was on my home from the US Open of Surf and I sat next to the girl named Michelle Steinberg and she had a PR firm that I emailed her. I was like, hey, I want to enter it by you. I ended up interning by her for one year. Wow. It was a whole room of like six girls and me. But like, you know what? I'm going to suck in everything and learn as much as I can because I started loving PR because I am a people person and it's just me. Like even if they told me like, go find this paper clip in this room and there's 75 boxes. I would literally dig and it just felt so good to find that paper clip. I felt like I was doing something even though it was nothing. It wasn't a job for me. It was so fun. They would have events. There would be editors there. Celebrities. I'm like, I would be the one vibing with them and talking to them. And I always tell people that are interning really the way to grow in this industry is you have to just say yes because that's just part of the growth by saying yes. They would invite me to like do the red carpet for this event for Tau or this event for L'Oreal. I don't know. I just always just stuck through and just always said yes and never said no because people want to work that they could rely on. Exactly. I feel like saying yes proves your reliability and I think a lot of times people forget that. They think about themselves and like the tasks specifically more like I have an example from my past of finding an earring lost in a fashion closet that like I knew just wasn't there but I did the same thing. I went through, opened up every single pair of socks and put in the effort even if I thought it was stupid. And so I totally understand you and I think it's a great reminder to people that that work ethic clearly pays off. Yeah. So like I worked for this PR for a year. I didn't want to leave those earning out of right press releases. I had an export list and had to find contacts and I was just on the calls and knowing what to present to a client and I realized that a big part was events. So when I left it works for Norma Cohen and she was the most amazing human in the world. She's like the hottest party planner. Basically she does destination weddings and she does events and she does corporate events and it was just so cool to learn the organization side of things because when you're in PR a lot of clients will have like a store opening or press preview and you need to know how to order a bartender or get the bartenders outfits to wear or tables and rentals and a mixologist. I don't know this certain things that you need to know and obviously how to organize the list and how to send out invites and follow ups and not be too annoying and no one to follow up. And if they say no, it doesn't mean no forever. It just means no now. You learn so many different things and I feel like a lot was from interning but also a lot of it. I learned myself just because I wasn't emailing anyone so it was just like listening or invited to an event. So after I went to Norma Cohen, I got a job at spray ground where I was there for four years and I led all PR and communication and it was the most major experience in my life. I would email everyone and anyone from these lists and I would get decision and find people myself from like what they write about and what they cover. They would send me back. They would never email me again or like this is great. How can I see more? So I really learned different personalities. How to like find someone's beat and make sure you're not pitching backpacks to someone that covers beauty and obviously you know as an editor. Yeah. And I just want to say how grateful I am to whom I wear because all your editors are so responsive and are so fun and are so easy to talk to especially you like it's just so cool. How good you guys are to like brands and PRs and you guys are on top of your game and you guys get clicks so the clients are really happy so I just want to give a little shout out. Oh that's so sweet. No it's fun to have known you from the beginning and I think that's why I do it where it's so excited to always support you because we just have loved your journey. Thank you so much. So from PR how did up next designer come to be? So basically I left spray ground after four years I was head of global PR and communications I built a team under me and I was really spearheading every campaign collaboration every press release I was traveling around the world it was so cool but I was thinking about I'm young I want to see what else is out there you know and I'm afraid to use a bunch of different places I felt like I was qualified they still didn't accept me and later was really all a blessing because God was telling me like start your own PR firm but I met with Nicole Miller she was a good friend of mine. We met at the Joseph Abucho and we became really close and she's like so what are you doing that you left spray ground I was like I don't know I'm contributing with all these corporations and she's like no average you start your own PR firm are you sure I want to do it when I'm 30 like I need more time I need to learn to know average now is the time you're young do it so I consulted with her I helped her but my first full client was this brand called Cross where they weren't launched yet and they brought me on to launch them it was so cool for me because I usually worked with brands like we're ready to develop then that were launched so I was like let me try let me see like if I could do anything here and just from their launch I was able to secure a repress coverage and celebrity police means and I was like this is sick we're odd to something here and when Cross with Mention where they work they would mention Helmut Ling and Onya so I would send the articles to Onya be like hey look and then from there they brought me into console and they became one of my clients and from there it took on talentless and I took on Mirapalai and I there's so many more addedidas jewels and called Gaya just such cool brands that I just loved and it was just so fun to do it was unreal yeah
And then I started this account up next designer like in December before COVID, just because like I was finding so many cool designers on Instagram that I wanted to represent them for PR to help them get their name out there. Obviously I love helping as I fear everything in the world. And I would reach out to them and I'm like, hey, like I wanted to do your PR on your eckbick. And they're like, we have no money. I'm like, I totally understand. We can all right, let me figure this out. So I started this account up next designer where I would post these designers that I would find. And the way I would grow followers in the beginning, every designer that I found, if I'm not messaging them, I would like their pictures or comment on their pictures, just to show them exist. Like we're here to support you. We want to support the next generation. We want to give you a spotlight. It looked like they weren't really getting much support just because they weren't really posting their looks. And I was like, no, no, you're amazing. You're going to be huge. I don't think you can. Because they're so humble and they're so nice. And they're just designing what they love and they don't realize they're superstars. And I wanted to be their cheerleader. And I was so happy that I was able to do that. And I would really just message them and just connect with them and like their picture or comment and save them. And I saved everything in folders. I probably have 300 plus folders. Add folders by like green or velvet or pink or hearts or ripped upcycling or just so many different folders because I wanted each row to tell a story. That's what my viewed looked like. And yeah, it's just doing different fun. And then once COVID hit, all my clients would call me every other day. Like, hey, by the way, we don't eat PR anymore. There's not really much to do with my company. It was slowly like shuttering, I guess. And I was fine with it because the whole world was home. And everyone was just not doing anything. And I was like, okay, I guess this is a break or this is the end. Like, I didn't know what was going on with the world. I'll just like stay on Instagram all day. And I'll just work on this Instagram account that I started in December. So I just started like working on it more, posting more. And I didn't want to tell anyone about this page because I started maybe 100 pages in the past where I just like said to my friends, like, hey, by the way, new page, like follow and they would be so annoyed at this point. Like, how would you start another one? So many different things like another one. So I'm not telling anyone about this. If it's supposed to be in front of them, they will see it. So I just kept on posting. And I had a bunch of stylist relationships and editor relationships. But I didn't want to tell anyone yet because I wanted to make sure it was established and developed before. People were seeing it on their free page, which was cool. So we started gaining traction. Traction, I mean, like just a few hundred followers building the UND family. I don't call them followers because we're a freaking family. Like literally, I'll do anything for the UND family. Like, that's what I call them because that's what they are. And they're the only reason why I have what I have is because of them. And I just want to see them thrive and win. Oh, I love them. Anyway, so yes, that's basically how it started. Amazing. And I love that you didn't tell people about it because it differentiates maybe the other accounts that you were starting from this. It kind of says to me that you had a good gut feeling about this and you wanted to see what was happening with it. And maybe we're like a little more precious with it. If I remember correctly, there was a moment where Kylie Jenner spotted your account. And that definitely, I'm sure it helped it take off. Can you tell me a little bit about that story? Yes. So that was the crazy story ever because that's when I realized that this account is coming towards the reality that I dreamed of it to be. I really dreamed of it to be a place for like stylist editors, celebrities, students, fashion designers to see the hottest new things in fashion, learn from professionals, find job opportunities. Any way I could help the next generation of fashion to make it easy for them and really just be of guidance in any way. That's what I wanted to account to be. And I only realized that once people were actually using the account. So what happened was Kylie stylist followed us on Instagram and requested a look from our page. She said, "Oh, my, I love this. So I connected them directly." So she got the look for Kylie. Kylie wore this look while she was on vacation. I posted a look on my page and then I got 10 new followers. I was like, "Oh, sick. This is great." And all of a sudden I'm looking at the followers and I see Kylie Jenner started following you and I'm like, "Huh, it's a joke." Yeah, of course. No way. That if I be two R's or two ends or two ease and I'm looking through and there was no two R's or two ease and I'm like, "Wait, this could be Kylie Jenner." So I didn't want to click on it. I just gave it like a second and then I click on it and it says 200 million followers follow back. I'm like, "No way." I go, "Ma!" She goes, "What happened? What happened?" I said, "Konne, we Jenner just followed us." She was like, "Wah, wah, wah. This is crazy. My dreams are coming true. People are seeing all these designers and I couldn't believe it." The followers just kept on coming in and coming in and it was so cool. Just from her following I gained a few thousand followers overnight. I just kept on looking. Every second to see if she still follows. Oh my gosh. I was like, "Oh my God, I have to do more care for it. I have to be careful." But I posted and I was like, "You know what? I can't be like that." I just posted them doing because obviously she'd like to know I was doing that. Just started to follow. So I just kept on just posting and then next thing you know, this amazing girl named Jamila Stewart, which is my really good friend and I actually connected her with Vogue and she's now the party editor at Vogue and basically she wrote my first ever story for Pop Sugar about the next designer and then from there was just a domino effect of Kylie to Pop Sugar and word of mouth and then BLF did a big story and then the whole fashion industry started to know what we are. And then once people were starting to find out what it is, I was like, "You know what? Like, great guys, it's me. A bunch of my friends were like reaching out to me and a bunch of people that worked in PR that, "No way, this is sick. I could go on and on more." And it was on the today show and I'm just so grateful and it's just so cool because I would never think that just by an Instagram post, someone's career was changed. We have so many designers that we've worked with and that we support that their careers were changed and like that's my dream for anyone. Like, no matter what career you're in, I just love seeing people succeed. Like every time I had any opportunity, I always made sure that someone's involved. Like if I was on the today show, like I'd make sure like one of my designers were involved. So I picked three designers that we've helped like George, he's a designer from Greece that we just posted his collection on Kendall Jenner, Ward a day after and do a Leibon, my Lisa Iris and they literally said it was from up next designer. When he was just 18 years old and he had his first fashion show and Amelia Gray walked his show and it was just so cool. Like this guy Kim Menches, which is like my really, really good friend, he basically was making these cool sculptural pieces and I posted about them and Cardi B wore them for her front cover with Normani and I was so happy to see him have this attention for his work because like an artist and the designers just focuses on their craft. It don't have time to focus on the PR. It don't have time to focus on getting on celebrity as you know and they want to and they dream about it. So thank God like we have a beautiful list of people that have really life changing careers from the page and I couldn't be more grateful. No, I think it's so amazing and you should be so proud because you've taken your people skills which is such a gift and I think just your character and how well you love people and to be able to have something so successful be an extension of just who you are in this way is so amazing to me. Oh my gosh. I want to talk more about the people that you are currently excited about. So I know ahead of this recording we tasked you with identifying a handful of designers that are up and coming that you're really excited about right now that you think are going to do big things. If you want to highlight a couple of them and just give like top-level bullet points of who they are, why you're excited about them and like what to keep in eye on. I don't know. Can you name you like 20,000 people in my state about last night. I was up to like four in the morning. I found a hundred new designers from Vietnam. Oh my god. I'm so impressed. They're literally ahead of the game with all their designs. I can't wait for like everyone to see what they're making. There's a school called Van Hung or something and basically I was like stalking the school yesterday and I was just going to every someone of their followers because no one posts pictures. Only some will post their work. I had a lot of bits in their highlights but I was going through their whole school profile and I was just messaging all the students to send me their work who was really jaw dropping. What I saw the most beautiful sculptural laser cut pieces. I was just like, wow, like I can't wait to do a highlight on Vietnamese designers because they deserve it and the world needs to see who they are and I can't wait for them to have like a fashion week one day. But anyway, let's talk about that list. Okay. So Dixon Lim, I'm just so obsessed with how he's like upcycling and really just reconstructing menswear suits. I feel like a lot of the red carpets, no one's really so impressed with menswear but if you wear Dixon Lim piece, they will be obsessed with you because he basically like takes a lapel and puts it across the waist or takes one of the sides and makes it longer. Like really, really beautiful pieces. I think just people need to know more about who he is. So Riesfeld then actually wore Dixon Lim on the carpet once and people were going crazy like, what is that? What is that? What is that? It was so great because he's a UND designer and when I say UND designer, it means that like we were the first to like put them out there and to promote them and support them and there are friends and our fam. So Dixon Lim, you and the designer and we're so grateful to see him thriving. Mark Kong. Oh my god.
Mark, he had his first show in Shanghai and he made these huge metal boat tops and people were like, what is this? What is this? And from there, he gains a lot of attention. And actually the video we posted of him went viral. Basically, he was him constructing the models what to do. And it's so funny. He's like telling the model, like, do this, move your hand there. Look that way. And people really fell in love with this personality and not only his designs, his designs are immaculate. They're so fun. Every single one of his collections tell a story. So he's one of my highlights at Shanghai Fashion Week. His latest collection was inspired by sex in the city. He's so cool. I think you'd be obsessed with him as well. And Rihanna wore him and he's fire. I love that video. I know exactly what you're talking about. It's so funny. I'm sure people don't even realize who it is. But you have to go see that video and you'll be like, oh, I've seen it. Iconic. He's so great. Andrea Broca. He's an Italian designer. He's so awesome. I love Couture. I really do. And there's so many Couture designers that I want to tell you guys about he's one of them that I'm really obsessed with. His gowns are beautiful, like his embellishments, such intricate details, but it's beautiful. And everyone wants Andrea Broca. I think Cizzo wore one of his pieces. We posted about his work a while ago. It's just really cool to see him succeed. And he's actually gaining a lot of great traction. Van Jouy is a new Vietnamese designer. Six six six six six six. I posted about them. People are going crazy. I'm sure we're going to see him on the carpet. It's like, I know it's going to be very soon because his stuff is so beautiful. The fabrics he uses and like, he's just awesome. Like it's pieces that he would dream about seeing and he makes them come to life. The layering of color pallets, the structure and gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous, plarative, win. Great. She's from Paris. She makes such cool light up pieces. So she makes beautiful gowns and jackets and shirt. Like not cheesy light up. Like cool light up where it's like glowing, glowing illusion shaped lights. When you walk it moves. People have the wearer for their music videos. And she's on a fashion show. And she's awesome. Wow. I know there are so many, which is why your account exists. And I know we're grateful to you for doing the Lord's work over here. Thank you. It's so fun for me. It's like finding it in gems and totally mining gold. Exactly. Obviously, a lot of this discovery comes from your own research that happens at three four in the morning. But when you're traveling for a fashion month, I'm curious how you kind of pick and choose which cities you go to and what are your plans for this coming February, March season. So I usually do Berlin Fashion Week. I love Berlin Fashion Week. It's a really hot place for emerging designers. And they also have a hub where they have all the students present their work. And that's my favorite because I get to interact with the students and see all the work in person. And I get to see new discoveries or even people that I'm already talking to that I get to meet in person and see their stuff in person. I love Berlin. They're bringing a lot of new people. Their shows are great. People are great fashion street styles. Great. I usually do New York, Paris, Milan, Berlin, Barcelona. And then I cover Shanghai. I never been yet. It's my dream. I cover Dubai Fashion Week. I cover Saudi Fashion Week. I cover Australia Fashion Week, Brazil, Sao Paulo. We cover all the fashion weeks. I don't know which one is I'm going to for sure yet coming up. But definitely we try to go to as many as we can because we love to see new designers and meet new people and visit the countries and cities. And it's great. I love that. Okay. I'm curious because obviously I've seen you at Fashion Week and at shows and events and I've seen you interact and you're just so comfortable with people. But obviously I'm sure over the years you've grown your network so much. So I'm curious if there's one celebrity that had you star struck that now you're just like chill with. They're like, hey, what's up? It's no big deal. Oh my god. It's so crazy because when you live a dream like you just don't believe it. You know, so like it's so amazing and I'm so grateful to be able to connect with people that I dreamed of connecting with a really cool story, which I never shared with anyone. I was in Australia and I was my best friend. He actually just got married last week. Crazy. He's so excited. He's the best. He's the real hype to hear this. But I'm finished. Let's go. Congrats Dennis. But it was her Instagram story and I wrote like Margot Robbie's here and UND's on the way manifesting a Margot Robbie meetup and all of a sudden her cousins wiped up and goes, I can make this happen. I believed it because I know she's cousins with her. But I didn't want to say anything until I knew it was confirmed and I was like, I'm not telling him. I go, no way. Like when watch was where you staying at told her I'm staying. She was, oh, it's right near us. She sent me the invite and it's the Papa Salt private launch, which is like five industry people. That was like, okay, it's legit. So, Dennis, we're meeting Margot Robbie. Let's go. Crazy. And he was tripping. We were like figuring out where we're wearing. We're like, okay, perfect. Like this is great. So now we pull up to this hotel. There's like no signs of Margot Robbie's zero. We go upstairs to the rooftop and we see this like five people. There's like Margot Robbie right there. We're bugging her. We go, oh my god. And like Margot Robbie's our dream. Like Welfel-Post dream. Margot Robbie. Yeah. She's it. She's a movie star. She'll be screaming. We go to the event and they cover our phones. And it's just us. Margot Robbie's there. And all of a sudden Margot Robbie's alone. The cousin introduces us to her and we talked here for one hour about every single thing in the world. It was her husband. It was me. It was my friend. It was her cousin. We're all just chatting, drinking, vibing, laughing. Like it was just such a cool moment. Like I'm still in touch with her husband. I talked to him all the time. I was actually going to dress in for the movie premieres. Wow. He's great. The nicest person ever. I couldn't imagine that I'm on the new kid. But yeah, we keep in touch. And it's so cool that like just from posting the story saying like, "Madifest single Margot Robbie, you as you meet up, it happened." It happened. Crazy. So crazy. I love this. This story was incredible. Glad I asked it because I knew you had something crazy like that up your sleeve. Thank you. I just want to share one thing before I leave. So I have a group chat called Fashion Ops where there's 14,000 plus people that are looking to get into the fashion industry and that are looking for jobs to volunteer to work at fashion weeks to get jobs, senior level, junior level, whatever it is. We post about it all in the chat. It's like a broadcast in our Instagram. And basically, we've been posting a lot in New York Fashion week opportunities. So like, if you want to work backstage or whatever it is, and you guys could really have a chance to work backstage because I literally go to shows and I'll meet like 20 people and they're like, "Oh my God, I'm not going to work out. We got this job because of you." And I literally start crying because it's just unreal. And like I'll send to share their story and like they all come from different cities and blue and just to work backstage and they're living their dream and like, "Well, I'll take a group picture and like, well, videos." And it's a dream. So it could be one of you guys and obviously if you apply and like, no one answers you, just DM me and I'll just tell the person, "Hi, please look at their application." Wow. That's incredible. That's like such a crazy resource and I didn't know about that. So I definitely am glad we spoke about it. But thank you so much for chatting with us. For those of you listening, if you haven't already followed up next designer, you absolutely must. It's so informative and it's a great way to celebrate the innovation in our industry and we're just so grateful to you, Albert, for owning that and championing people and we can't wait to see what's next. Thank you so much, Lord. A huge thank you to Up Next Designer founder, Albert I.L. Make sure to subscribe to our show wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss an episode. And while you're there, I'd also be so grateful if you could rate and review us. If you have guest suggestions or any other feedback, drop us a line at
[email protected] or you can find us on social at HuwaWare. See you next Wednesday on the HuwaWare podcast. This episode was produced by Hillary Kerr, Summer Hammeres and Natalie Thurman. Our production assistant is Claire Schmidt. Our editor is co-takasugi churnivan. Our audio engineers are at Glenn Canyon Audio and our music is by Jonathan Leighi.
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