A Day In The Life Of Mecca’s Head Of Content, Zara Wong
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For millennials who grew up eaten with print journals and the increase of electronic content material, you are going to know of Zara Wong, and her aspiration occupation.
Commencing out as an intern at Vogue, Zara immediately landed a career at Harper’s Bazaar, just before doing work her way up the ranks at Vogue Australia.
Zara in the beginning analyzed arts, commerce and intercontinental small business – places that are all capitalised on in her latest function as head of material at Australia’s attractiveness and retail huge, MECCA. ‘I’m genuinely delighted that this role is leaning more in the ‘numbers’ side,’ Zara claims. ‘Even when in style editorial, I was actually interested in the business and monetary facet, and even though there are way extra gifted figures men and women at MECCA, it is some thing that is necessary in my position as very well.’
This multifaceted situation sees Zara functioning across the advertising, style and design, and visual merchandising groups, with each day duties that variety from composing for the MECCA Memo, arranging new episodes of the MECCA Talks podcast, and developing social media articles. Her favorite portion of the task is conceptualising new campaigns (to be rolled out in-keep and throughout multiple digital platforms) and devising the once-a-year trend report. ‘This encompasses magnificence of study course, but also the zeitgeist, tradition, design and style and way of life,’ Zara states. ‘I’m normally fascinated in what’s common, and why it’s well known (even if it’s not to my particular taste, I’m even now intrigued as to why men and women are into it) – fundamentally what can make folks tick.
With Covid hanging all-around and a baby on the way, Zara is at the moment doing work from property most days, which is where we joined her for a day in the life!
To start with issue
I wake up involving 6.30am and 7.15am. I try not to glance at my cellular phone, but I conclude up searching at my mobile phone. I do the Wordle, and check out the weather (I do not comprehend men and women who can stroll out of the house devoid of examining the weather conditions!)
I’m not a early morning individual, but I’m a ‘get on with it’ person! I’m much better when I’ve had time to ‘ease into’ the early morning.
Early morning
I begin get the job done about 8am either at my dining home table, right next to my kitchen, or I get to the place of work by driving. I employed to wander to get the job done pre-Covid, but truthfully, I’ve just turn into a lot more and more lazy.
My initial duties are normally checking email messages, going via my calendar, and creating absolutely sure I’m prepped for every little thing coming up. Depending on the day it could be reviewing the forthcoming week’s worth of EDMs, Memo stories, the website homepage, or acquiring capture-ups with teams to see how campaigns are progressing.
If we have major shoots happening I go to them, typically in Melbourne or in Sydney. This comes about close to each and every 4 to 6 months based on the scale and focus of the campaigns.
Afternoon
The afternoon is typically lots of conferences! We might at times take a look at merchants way too to see how a campaign has rolled out, and discuss to retail outlet group associates in our MECCA merchants for their opinions. We consider to understand from each and every campaign and boost on them each time.
I finish up whenever in between 5.30pm and 7pm, but sometimes it implies catching up after several hours as properly.
Night
I get bored effortlessly, so I check out to cook a vast variety of different kinds of food items for evening meal. It might be baked salmon with salsa verde, lemon and citrus sheet-pan hen roasted with olives steamed eggplant with rice and hen soup or stir-fried beef with eggs and peas with rice that my mum would make for me and I enjoy. I cook a great deal of Chinese food items as properly simply because of my heritage, so I check with my mothers and fathers for suggestions, or there are good Chinese cookbooks by Fuchsia Dunlop for essentials or Cecilia Chiang’s amazing e-book which is no extended in print, but I identified a secondhand duplicate on-line.
My partner and I get pleasure from cooking so we do some food prep on the weekends and freeze portions that can be utilized later on, so if we’re both active for function and want anything immediately, we’ll defrost one thing we built in progress like ragu, meatballs, or jiaozi dumplings.
I genuinely take pleasure in cooking, and even when I’ve experienced a demanding working day, I’m typically delighted to cook dinner since I find it pretty meditative to just emphasis on the task at hand and get a wonderful consequence. My loved ones often knows when I’m a little bit stressed when I just randomly whip up a banana cake!
Last matter
To swap off I pay attention to tunes, study a novel or feature content online, browse TikTok, or work on my Substack e-newsletter Screenshot This that comes out after a week. I commenced the publication in a single of the quite a few Melbourne lockdowns because it served me depend down 7 days by 7 days It’s a compilation of what I’ve not long ago liked to study/watch/practical experience/pay attention to.
I go to rest among 10 and 11pm. I did more than enough all-nighters when I was in large university or uni, so eight and a half hrs of sleep is my suitable!
Ideal now I’m listening to, seeing, and reading…
Listening: For audio, Haim, Caroline Polachek, Maggie Rogers, and Thelma Plum. For podcasts, Celebrity Memoir Reserve Club, Freakonomics, How To Construct A Pleased Existence, The Fantastic Women Artists, and Second Existence.
Observing: The Dropout Succession (I genuinely really feel like it is a single of the most effective tv shows in a long time) and How I Fulfilled Your Father (this is rather terrible but I like Hilary Duff so I’m persevering. I’m really into high-small culture!)
Reading through: At the minute I’m reading through The Other Black Lady by Zakiya Dalila Harris. I also on a regular basis go through newspapers via Apple News and longform article content in The Atlantic, The New Yorker, New York Journal, and Vox.
I’m the type of person who is constantly sending guidelines or recommendations to mates if I view/read/see a little something I consider they may like, so I started out a publication to pull it all alongside one another! I have also obtained guide recommendations saved in my Instagram highlights.
One thing I have uncovered the tricky way is…
Accomplishing perform very last minute with your back again up from the wall offers you an remarkable result, but it is commonly an unpleasant working experience!
Also, that I definitely have to have to eat thoroughly in purchase to perform. I made use of to travel thoroughly in my final position overseas (New York, Paris, London, Milan) and since I would be on the operate, jet lagged, and weary, I’d be all around the spot with my foodstuff. I would grab a choc chip cookie for breakfast (I’d be up considering the fact that 5am mainly because of jet lag or doing the job, and be imagining ‘sugar, electricity!’) as I ran out of my lodge area to meetings and exhibits. Lunch would be whatever and anytime I felt like (grilled cheese toastie? Positive!), right before a large, abundant meal at 9pm. Then publish-function/supper beverages with friends? Confident! Then I’d appear back to my lodge room for a late evening with my laptop as which is when Australia would be awake. I’d go tough and quick – I’m a pretty ‘work really hard engage in hard’ variety of human being – and then, I’d come to feel terrible, get actually ill, and just wouldn’t be equipped to purpose at my ideal. You could do that a little bit in your 20s, but I seriously couldn’t preserve on going like that. I really enjoy food so I’m undoubtedly no overall health nut, but I really have to try to eat sensibly with loads of protein, fruit and veggies with a lot of snooze to operate!
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