This time we are back with Dominika Perek, Chief Editor of fashion and lifestyle magazine MESS and has just finished touring Dubai for the promotion of MESS. We caught up with her to find out what her intensions for 2016 are, how she feels about empowering women and what more can be done.
Hey Domi, Can you give me an insight into Mess Mag and what you do as Editor in Chief?
Working as Editor-in-chief mainly involves gathering material for content on daily basis and managing a team of editors to deliver the most engaging and inspirational content for our MESS MAG audience.
How much did you research the market prior to starting and do you feel you did enough?
Well, when I started over 2 years ago, the market was a bit different than now. Digital era is growing so rapidly that in few years, print will be totally exclusive and very expensive and only few publications will remain on the market.I think in order to truly deliver readers needs, Mess Mag team needs to keep researching about new stuff almost every day. Measuring our performance and constantly looking and researching for new topics and trends is part of our job. I started when I was 17-18 as a fashion blogger and then quickly turned into being editor as I believed blogging was not something that I wanted to do.I used to write for over 16 publications all over the world at age 18. I used to manage editing for other magazines and websites and then kind of wanted to try myself in PR&Marketing. I got my first real fashion job when I was 18 as Managing Director of big online store with designers, because of my unique approach to work and high performance.
We started in digital and succeeded after publishing the first issue, we were in top 10 online fashion publishers in one of the leading online platforms and then expanded to print in Asia first, then exclusively in London, Paris, LA and Middle East.This is how Mess Magazine was born
Did you finance this all yourself?
I saved a lot of money and invested every single dime that I had into building my own international platform that would have features of online magazine.
Talk to me about the high and low points when embarking on this new venture, did you feel at any point you wanted to give up?
Well, every job has its pros and cons, but the key is truly loving what you do.Low points are definitely the moments when you’re physically and mentally exhausted after working a lot on new concepts. Especially, because since MESS MAG started I had to manage international collaborations time difference sometimes can kill you. High points are a lot of travels, meeting new people and artists, collaborating and seeing how creatively the magazine is expanding.
Who do you look for, for inspiration and do you travel a lot to find content for Mess Magazine to offer exclusive content to your audience?
I travel a lot. Maybe even too much.Sometimes my travels have nothing to do with finding inspirations as I usually have a lot of meetings to attend or photo shoots to work on, but wherever I go I produce something exclusively for MESS MAG and try to establish new beneficial collaborations. My inspirations come mainly from every day life, architecture, design, people that I am surrounded with, places that I go, art exhibitions and my MESS team.
Where can you see yourself within the next 2 years then further 5 years?
I started speaking a lot recently and I am really enjoying it. I’ve shot also my first fashion trainings so this is definitely something that I will continue. In 2 years, I want to open Agency that would work as part of magazine, get involved more in start-ups, consulting, speaking, training and doing more exciting creative audio and video projects.In 5 years I definitely wanna publish 2 of my books. Everyone tries to encourage me to write a book about my crazy life, but I’d rather write about women empowerment, self-improvement, travelling or entrepreneurship.
You are also a Blogger, how long have you been doing this for?
I am not a blogger, Instagram is just my personal diary.
Do you feel like the market is over saturated and how do you keep the motivation going to find something new and innovative?
If we look at repetitiveness of the content or data in the Internet, it looks pretty oversaturated and overrated, but it doesn’t mean that I should stop expressing myself. I think about my own ideas and its implementation. There is always a gap on the market for some extraordinary ideas, projects or new people. I do not copy, I create.
What is your target audience at MESS and how did you find your Niche?
Our target audience are both women and men who are passionate and interested to know more about the latest fashion and lifestyle news, style tips, the best and most luxurious travel destinations and also ambitious photography or bloggers collaborations.
I found my niche by observing what really makes people go crazy in fashion and also by following my own passion and aligning that with audience’s needs.
Can you share your tips for success?
Working smart and hard, trying to constantly grow, learn and improve, going with your gut feeling, being extremely passionate and excited about what you do and connecting with people who are better than you!
How important do you feel it is to inspire other women out there on a mission and how do you feel you do this?
I think women were born to do more than men. We can multitask. We can work, raise children, care about home and still be fly. We can do a lot.I think empowering women is very important, same as the right education and trainings that we can all pursue. There are no chosen women. We choose what we wanna do and how our lives should look like.
How would you like to continue empowering women?
I would like to continue in 2 ways, first off by giving an example and inspiration to all women to start their own businesses and becoming self-made owners and entrepreneurs, but also by giving opportunity to all of the female writers, bloggers and contributors to be a part of MESS Magazine team and truly fulfilling their passion for writing.
How do you feel fashion empowers women?
I Believe fashion is much more than just clothes that we wear every day.
It can be amazing opportunity to express your creativity and build career or business in fashion industry.
I think everything that makes you grow, truly empowers you and everyone around you and helps you to become fearless.
What more do you feel can be done to help young women feel inspired to go out there and start their own business?
There are many ways, first of all we should increase awareness of women abilities and try to push away old stereotypes of women who sit at home and cook.
In fact, women in one of the biggest cities in the USA outperform men in executives and directors positions and tend to earn more.
I think if we could start some social media campaigns about women empowerment, convince celebrities to talk more about it and give an amazing examples of self-made female entrepreneurs, that would help a lot.
