By: Heather Kasunic

This year Ohio University’s Hugh M. Culbertson chapter of the Public Relations Student Society of America has the honor of hosting the 2007 National PaRtners Conference. The conference will be held on April 14 in Margaret M. Walter Hall. This year’s conference will host an array of guest speakers from all facets of public relations including fashion, entertainment, sports, corporate, agency and nonprofit.

Jena Bauer is one of the guest speakers attending the conference this year. Bauer is the Public Relations Editorial Assistant at Victoria’s Secret in New York City. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 2004 with a degree in journalism and mass communication.

Bauer’s typical day at Victoria’s Secret involves two major components. First, she works closely with the editors from all of the major fashion magazines--sending them Victoria’s Secret clothing and accessory samples that correlate to a fashion story they are working on.

“By doing this, I hope that the publication will choose to shoot a Victoria’s Secret product over all of the other samples they receive from other companies,” said Bauer.

The other major part of her job involves working on events, such as The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, an autograph signing with one of the Victoria’s Secret Angels, a launch party for one of their new products or an editor event where magazine editors come to see an upcoming collection from Victoria’s Secret.

“Fashion is constantly changing. There are always new trends, new people and new events. Although I have tried to describe a “typical day”, everyday is different. I get to meet incredible people and see exciting things. Although the job sometimes sounds glamorous, make no mistake that it is work.” Bauer said. 

Some of the challenges that Bauer faces on a daily basis include, prioritizing, time management and multi-tasking. She explains that working in the fashion industry is extremely fast-paced and that there are always unexpected issues that arise. It is her job to be able to handle these problems in a thorough, time-efficient manner.

Prior to her career at Victoria’s Secret, Bauer worked as a freelance fashion journalist at M Magazine (Milwaukee-based regional lifestyle magazine), an intern in the fashion department at Marie Claire magazine, a public relations intern at Vera Wang in New York City and served as Junior Account Executive of clothing and accessories at Factory Public Relations.

Learn more about the exciting, fast-paced world of fashion PR and meet Jena Bauer at the PRSSA National PaRtners Conference 2007. For more information visit www.ohiou.edu/~prssa