Kate Frank

At this point in the school year, post-graduation jobs and internships are at the forefront of most seniors’ minds. For Gaylord College public relations senior Kate Frank, she’s already had that part down. This spring semester, Frank has been working in New York City as a public relations intern at the fashion house Hermes. While Oklahoma isn’t a state typically known for fashion, Gaylord has provided her with the personal branding, media relations, crisis communication and strategic PR knowledge that she uses every day at her internship at one of the most prominent brands in the fashion industry.

As a Norman native, Frank initially wasn’t planning to attend OU, but the national presence of Gaylord stood out to her. She had always been interested in fashion but started out college as a biology major. After realizing that wasn’t for her, she switched to advertising and then, after a month, to public relations. Throughout her college career she was involved in PRSSA and Kappa Alpha Theta, where she realized a career in fashion was possible.

“I’ve always been interested in fashion, and now that I’m working in fashion I’m not surprised in the slightest,” Frank said. “When I seriously started pursuing that career it would have been the beginning of freshman year.”

Frank said some of the most impactful professors in her time at Gaylord were Adam Croom, Sherry Kast, and Armand McCoy.

“That was a class I would never miss,” Frank said of Armand McCoy’s social media marketing course. “He was just someone who really got you motivated for your own career. He really gave us that freedom to take our projects and turn them into our own creativity. That creativity allowed me to eventually get to where I wanted to be.”

Frank also took part in a couple of study abroad opportunities in her Gaylord career, including the British Media Studies program she traveled with during the summer of 2023. She recommends this program to everyone in Gaylord, as she calls it “life changing.”

“They’re really good at teaching the course, and they really take everything you learn at Gaylord and take it outside of not even campus, not even Norman, but obviously outside of the country and show you how the things we’re learning actually make a difference in the world,” Frank said of British Media Studies professors Joe Foote and Ralph Beliveau.

Since returning from this study abroad trip, Frank has actively pursued public relations internships in the fashion industry. After completing the personal branding assignments in Gaylord’s initial PR course, she developed a love of networking. In fact, she began using LinkedIn so frequently that she set reminders on her phone to decrease her 

Through her networking, Frank approached anyone who would talk to her about working in the world of fashion. She then connected with a few associates on the PR team at Hermes. Frank  discovered that the close-knit nature of the fashion industry can be good and bad, but it is what helped her land an interview with the fashion house. After the interview she received an offer the following week and was set to start the internship in January of 2024.

Going in, Frank knew she could bring a different perspective since the state of Oklahoma isn’t typically known as a hotspot for fashion. Despite the newly-created fashion and style magazine The Campus Edit started by two fellow Gaylord students, Frank says that in her time on campus, there weren’t any clubs or classes that dealt with fashion PR. Going into the internship, she knew she had to use the general PR skills Gaylord taught her and apply them to fashion in order to stand out.

“A lot of the people who work in fashion go to Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), Parsons (Parsons School for Design), all those big fashion schools in New York,” Frank said. “So knowing that, I was like, ‘OK, how am I going to leverage being from Oklahoma and being different?’”

Since completing her coursework in December, Frank moved to New York City and has worked on the PR team since January. Currently, she is playing an integral part in ensuring looks get from one place to the other for things like magazine covers or celebrities' red carpets. Most recently, Frank sent an outfit to the team behind Kacey Musgraves for her to wear on the cover of Grazia.

“Anytime you see a magazine, say you are looking at the cover of Vogue, for example, whosoever is on the cover is always wearing something like jewelry, accessories, and a full outfit,” Frank said. “Anytime you see Hermes, that is where the press team comes into play. As a PR intern, I am responsible for managing every sample item from the showroom, and I am responsible for packaging up a look and sending it to Vogue or Elle, for example, and getting it back and getting it ready for another editorial to ask for it.” 

Frank will conclude the internship in June and hopes to stay in New York to work in an in-house fashion agency in PR.

“It’s a very different way of PR. I had no clue this is really what fashion PR was until I got here, so I love it so far. I think it’s absolutely the best thing, and this is exactly the way I wanted my career to go.”