Eva Chen, 40, has had a rather unconventional start to her career. Chen was born and raised in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village to immigrant parents who owned a consulting textile import-export business. Chen attributes her early love of fashion to her mother’s influence. Despite the fact that Chen had an interest in fashion, she chose to attend Johns Hopkins University as a pre-med student.
Chen told Fashionista, “I grew up on the periphery of fashion because I grew up in New York, and I feel like New York is definitely one of the most fashionable cities in the world. My mom was always well-dressed; she has always been a style icon for me, but I, myself, was not really interested in fashion. I was a very late bloomer, and for me, my world growing up was books and populated by characters from books.”
Although her goal was to become a doctor, she did not ignore her passion and accepted an internship for Harper’s Bazaar’s features and beauty divisions while in college. Little did Chen know this was the foundation for what would turn out to be a fruitful career in the fashion industry.
Eva Chen Career Start
She initially worked in the credits department logging the prices and sellers for the magazine’s variety of products, but eventually, she would become editor-in-chief. She also had secured an assistant-role at Elle where she spent three years while completing a master’s degree in journalism at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. In 2005, she moved to Teen Vogue where she spent eight years in a number of different roles, chiefly as the magazine’s beauty editor.
In 2013, Anna Wintour brought Chen on board as a consultant for Lucky, and within two months, she was named editor-in-chief at the magazine she started her career with. Only 33 at the time, Chen was one of the youngest editors in history to ever head a national American magazine. Chen was faced with the challenge of transforming Lucky into a more youthful, modern publication.
Unfortunately, throughout her time at the magazine, the 1.1 million subscribers seemed to plateau, and advertising sales were reportedly falling. In 2014, Chen helped curate a joint venture between Conde Nast and e-commerce platform BeachMint called Lucky Group. This helped position the magazine as a digital e-commerce platform in addition to its print and digital content. Chen later took on the role of chief creative officer at Lucky Group, but shortly left the company after less than a year in 2015.
Less than three months later, Chen announced that she had been appointed Instagram’s inaugural head of fashion partnerships. Over the years as an editor, Chen has proven that she is a savvy social media influencer. With over 1 million followers, Chen has developed a reputation for her signature #evachenpose images where she showcases her shoes and bag in the backseat of a taxi. Although this role may deviate from her previous experiences, Chen closely works with individuals across the fashion industry in order to strategize and determine the best methods for the advertising platform. She has launched a number of different fashion and e-commerce features at Instagram, including shopping fashion pieces directly from an influencer’s feed and the Instagram Shop account.
As of 2018, Chen is also a book author who has written three children’s books: Juno Valentine and the Magical Shoes, A is for Awesome: 23 Iconic Women Who Changed the World, and Juno Valentine and the Fantastic Fashion Adventure. These books contain stories that utilize fashion as a medium for learning about important female figures in history. In July of 2019, Chen collaborated with children’s brand Janie and Jack to design clothing inspired by the books.
