Lisa Arbetter started Syracuse University as a psychology major, thinking she was going to be a therapist. She then discovered the world of magazine editing, and now years later, Arbetter was recently named the editor of StyleWatch, a magazine founded in 2007 that originally started as a special newsstand edition of People. The Daily Orange spoke with Arbetter, a class of 1985 alumna, about her career and her path through the fashion magazine industry.

The Daily Orange: How does it feel to be named as the newest StyleWatch editor?

Lisa Arbetter: I feel really proud. I’m very excited to be working on this brand. I think it has a lot of potential and it’s really a fun brand and it’s about shopping and looking your best.

The D.O.: What is it like to run StyleWatch? I know you have only been there for two weeks, but how has it been?

L.A.: Honestly it’s been incredibly invigorating. Like I said, I’ve spoken to everyone on the staff and everybody here loves each other and gets along and works really well together. It’s really rare in a workplace, but everyone is really excited to take this brand to the next phase. They are working really hard in giving me tear sheets and sending me things from the Internet that they’ve seen that they think we should incorporate into the magazine. I think we are entering a time of real creativity here that doesn’t feel like work at all. It feels like a big brainstorm session, so it’s exciting.

The D.O.: You originally majored in psychology at SU. What contributed to your decision to switch to studying fashion and eventually magazine journalism?

L.A.: I was always really interested in psychology. Then I started studying it. It wasn’t satisfying as an academic pursuit. I felt very distant from actually talking about people. I felt like writing about humans, like actually finding out people’s stories was more like what I wanted to do, because at the time I really admired what Tina Brown was doing at Vanity Fair. She was kind of mixing pop culture and celebrity coverage with crime coverage and highbrow coverage. I also always loved reading fashion magazines, and I didn’t really know until I got to Syracuse that editing was a job. And once I found out, I moved over into the (S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.)

The D.O.: When you were growing up, was becoming an editor for a fashion magazine your dream job?

L.A.: I always read fashion magazines. I was constantly reading fashion magazines, and my mom was the hugest shopper — she was incredibly stylish. I was always interested in fashion and style, but being a therapist was my dream job as a kid. When I was really, really young, I wanted to be a giraffe, but then I later found out that was impossible.

The D.O.: What about fashion makes you want to work in the industry every day?

L.A.: I like the idea of helping women feel more confident in the way that they look so they can think about other things. Also I think women have fun when they are putting together an outfit. It’s a form of entertainment and also something that women talk about. It’s a common point of interest for women and I think it’s become part of our culture when we talk about celebrities. We talk about their style and I think there are many touch points where women can talk about style in many different ways.

The D.O.: What has been your favorite career experience?

L.A.: I think of two things. One, when I worked at InStyle — every year we got in all the jewelry the celebrities would wear to the big red carpet events, the Oscars and the Golden Globes, and these pieces — the television doesn’t do them justice and when we shoot them for the magazine, it doesn’t do them justice. It’s not just one piece. It’s so many jewels in one room at the same time. There are armed guards who accompany them and we get to touch them and put them on. I can remember actually wearing the big emerald that Angelina Jolie wore. They were so big and so clear and the green, it was just like nothing I had ever seen in my whole life. That was kind of fun.

Then, the first time I went to the Golden Globes for InStyle. It was a bit of a fairy tale, Cinderella kind of moment. I had a dress that was fine, whatever. But I got there and there was a stylist working on an InStyle event for us, and she had all these dresses with her. She was like “come back stage,” and she put me in a dress — it was a Donna Karan dress from the runway — and she styled it. She found shoes to borrow and actual diamond jewelry that a guard had to bring over and I really felt like Cinderella. It was a dream outfit, and it was really fun.

The D.O.: What advice would you give to aspiring journalists and writers, both in and out of the fashion field?

L.A.: I think the best thing to do is just don’t be afraid to be curious, like ask the dumb questions. Keep pushing — don’t take the easy route. People can easily Google things and get the surface of something. If you want a really interesting story you have to dig. To do that, you kind of have to either be annoying or keep at something and I think that is the only way to get something that no one else has.

Published on March 16, 2015 at 12:01 am

Contact Lauren: ljporter@syr.edu