Sarah Zlotnick comes rushing into the hip Filter coffee shop in Dupont Circle. She marches down the concrete steps, walks over to the coffee counter asking the young barista for his recommendation. The shabby-chic young man dressed in a black t-shirt and thick black framed glasses slowly starts discussing the benefits of the various beans from Kenya and Columbia. After listening for a minute, Zlotnick decides to just stick with a latte, walks over to the high chair next to the counter, throws down her bag and stack of Washingtonian magazines. It’s clear she’s a little frazzled.
“We’re shooting a gift guide next week for the print magazine,” Washingtonian Associate Fashion Editor Zlotnick, 24, says as she slumps down in chair and takes a gulp of her latte. “Next week what we’ll do is get on set with an art director, prop stylist, and figure out a puzzle of photos to create the pages. It’s a lot of fun though, but it’s intense. I wore the wrong shoes for today.”
Showing off her black high-heeled Michael Kors booties, Zlotnick talks about her life leading up to her job at Washingtonian. Growing up in the Washington D.C. area, Zlotnick finds new ways to cover the city’s fashion scene for her blog, Shop Around, on the Washingtonian’s website. Zlotnick earned the job after putting more than 14 months of interning at the magazine while studying at Georgetown University, earning her degree in American Studies. She landed the job at Washingtonian, which has a paid circulation of 137,000 and is one of the most successful magazines in the country, after graduation. This isn’t a Miranda Priestly from the fashion film The Devil Wears Prada. Her take on fashion journalism is one that focuses on the practical aspects, fitting for a city like Washington.
“Washingtonian is known for food more than anything,” Zlotnick says picking up two Washingtonian magazines out of her bag, “It’s just me running Shop Around and it has become the second most popular blog, after the food blog, on the site, so I’m really proud of that. I do a series ‘What I Wear to Work.’ People look for it and send nominations and are super excited when I contact them about it. Having found a way to do fashion in this city that works and that I believe in is great.”
In her J. Crew neon yellow skirt and black and white striped top, it’s easy to see that this young editor likes to have fun with her fashion. She credits finding her niche in fashion while interning at the Washingtonian and her dedication to the internship with her success in landing a job. Originally starting out as the associate web editor, Zlotnick runs the blog Shop Around and has made it the second-most read Washingtonian blog.
“I look at the shopping and fashion journalism at Washingtonian as service journalism,” she says. “It’s information that the reader will find useful.”
In addition to finding stories for the Shop Around blog, Zlotnick says she usually has assignments for the print magazine as well. In a typical day, she’s in the office early, hopefully with the first story of the day finished the night before, she’ll publish her first blog post by 9:40 a.m., promote it on Twitter and Facebook, and if all goes well, have her second blog post written by 2. After lunch, she says she tries to work on any print stories she has coming up.
Zlotnick works on her “service journalism” by writing stories that her readers will find helpful in navigating the Washington D.C. fashion world. She goes to events, hunts out local boutiques, and finds ‘real girl’ stories to post on her blog. She also spends time every month on a print feature, which means right now, she’s working on the Washingtonian’s gift guide, a local guide to the best boutiques and unique gifts for every Washington DC resident.
“I’m literally sending hundreds of emails to hundreds of press people,” Zlotnick says, with enthusiasm and an edge of panic. “It’s like a real-life Pinterest. I have foam boards where I tack up things that are working and what’s not. I’ll end up having 120 products from all different people. Fashion is more logistics than most people think.”
Born in Pittsburgh, Pa., Zlotnick’s parents moved to Reston, Virgina when she was in the sixth grade. Zlotnick’s mother, Maria, says that she wanted her children to “see what the rest of the world was like,” and knew from previously living in the city that Washington D.C. could offer that. Growing up, Zlotnick was “spoiled” says Maria, who would take her and her sister, Margo, shopping for clothes, and whose father was known for his love and many subscriptions of magazines, including the Washingtonian. These two things combined are what her family contribute to Zlotnick’s fashion obsession.
“I consider myself sort of a tom boy, and when the girls were growing up I would put them into boy clothes because we’re a sports family and it made sense,” Maria says, laughing. “I have no idea where this thing came from. The only two things I can think of are spoiling Sarah with shopping when she was younger and she has always had a fascination with magazines.”
After high school, Zlotnick went on to Georgetown University where she earned her degree in American Studies. Maria says the family was proud of her when she got into Georgetown, especially because her dad called the school his alma mater, and its currently where her younger sister is finishing her senior year.
“We had always hoped that they would go to Georgetown,” says Maria. “That day when her father found out she was going was probably one of the proudest moments for her father.”
Her junior year she studied abroad in Copenhagen. Her brown eyes light up when she talks about the culture’s appreciation for creative careers and deep interest in design. That semester, she decided to apply to an internship at Washingtonian’s online department. Her interview, which was done over Skype, introduced her former editor Catherine Andrews to her quirky personality.
“I interviewed for the internship in some sheisty internet cafe in Barcelona,” Zlotnick says, laughing. “The guy next to me was like watching porn and I kept thinking to myself ‘please don’t hear this guy.’ I remember she asked me if I had any experience, and I kid you not, I answered ‘Well, I’ve written a lot of postcards since I’ve been abroad and I feel like I’ve learned to be short and concise writing them’.”
The interview worked, and Zlotnick landed the position of the web intern. Her brown hair in a messy bun, she talks about the internship that summer, and says she realized pretty quickly that it was what she wanted to do. She changed around her class schedule her senior year to fit in the full time internship at the Washingtonian her senior year. She worked at home when she could, and took classes at crazy hours to fit it in. She says she “dressed to the nines” at the office, hoping to brand herself as the fashion girl.
“I knew I wanted to stay on for as long as possible,” she says, her eyes wide and serious. “I had it in my head that if I was always there and always had a presence until I graduated, then they would hire me.”
And they did. After interning more than 14 months, she was offered a job as an online associate editor the August after she graduated. Zlotnick says since she began at Washingtonian she wanted to carve out a place using her fashion sense as a niche for herself.
“I’m most proud about landing the Washingtonian job,” she says. “I’ve always worked really, really hard and needed to understand how to make myself valuable. I remember I dressed weird in college but toned it down for the office usually, but the day after I got the job, I went out and dyed a section of my hair pink and was like ‘Ha! you guys gave me the job and you can’t take it back now’!”
In January she was given the title of Associate Fashion Editor and officially BECAME was in charge of running the Shop Around blog, although it had really started a couple months prior when she was working on mainly fashion stories, she explains. Since then, it’s been a process figuring out how to report on the world of fashion and shopping into the Capital bubble. Pausing and leaning back in her chair, she thinks about the best way to describe the fashion scene in Washington.
“Fashion is never going to be a priority to this city, and if you want a career in it you need to understand that,” she says half smiling. “That being said, it’s not that people here aren’t individually stylish. Women here get dressed to look great for that speech their going to give, but it’s not the main priority, and I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing. I take a more pragmatic approach to fashion. It’s fashion with a purpose.”
Zlotnick may only be 24, but she is confident and intelligent as she talks fashion and how to make blogging on fashion and shopping practical. She laughs and swears, talks about being notorious for coffee stains on her shirt and mascara on only one of her eyes. She gets excited when she’s talking about magazine design and is passionate about traveling. She knows she’s not the typical magazine fashion editor, but her passion and hard work have made her successful. Her mood noticeably drops when she talks about a lack of mentors in the realm of journalism, but it has made her work harder to learn to navigate online journalism on her own.
“I remember when I finally found out that she was my age—I was shocked,” says Melissa Romero, health blogger for Washingtonian’s Well+Being blog. “She had been at the Washingtonian for so long and she exuded such confidence that I had always thought she was older. Also, I don’t think people realize how hard she works at her job. I’ve known her to stay at the office until almost 10 at night.”
Break time is over and Zlotnick deposits her red Filter coffee mug on the counter, gathers her things, and begins her high-heeled trek back to the Washingtonian office on the other side of Dupont Circle. As she walks, she talks journalism and the best ways to break into the industry, its well-known lack of salary and that yes, eventually she does want to get out of Washington but no, she isn’t quite sure where yet. But for now, Zlotnick is content working on mastering the art of the successful internet blog.
“This has honestly been my life for so long and it consumes me,” Zlotnick says, running her grey-polished hands through her bun. “That’s the thing with the internet. It constantly needs to be updated and there constantly needs to be new stories. I don’t want to put up shitty stories that don’t have any substance to them. I want my articles to be useful. As a young journalist, I want my name to be put on good stuff.”
Kendal (Gapinski) Kloiber 