VIEW FROM ABROAD
T ALL sounds suitably glamorous.
I
When we speak, Marie O’Riordan has
just returned from a whirlwind trip to
the international fashion shows, from
Milan to Paris. “It’s all very inspirational
and exciting,” she admits. “But I find,
the more I travel, the less I like it. Unlike the
fashion team who really go along and
concentrate on fashion, as the editor I have
to rush to my room every evening and check
my laptop for page proofs from the office. It
is great but you need a lot of energy!”
O’Riordan has been at the helm of the
self-styled ‘glossy with brains’, Marie Claire,
since 2001. So how did this UCD-educated
Dubliner end up in one of the most coveted
roles in UK publishing?
On leaving school, O’Riordan spent three
years working in an insurance company in
Dublin, “about the dullest career you could
imagine,” she laughs, before returning to
UCD to study for an Arts degree in English
and History. Teaching was the plan, but a
brief stint as substitute teacher quickly
confirmed that this was not the career for
her. So she joined many of her
contemporaries and headed for London,
where the plan was to sleep on the floor of
her brother’s flat and pursue a job in book
publishing. “That was about as vague an
ambition as I had.”
Fashion
A role as a copy editor in a company that
published a directory of UK public schools
ensued, where she learnt “the nuts and
bolts” of publishing. A stint as production
editor of a computing magazine was
followed by a job as production editor on
PASSION
More! magazine, published by the Emap
group. “That was my first job in a magazine
you could actually buy in WH Smith.”
Leap of faith
O’Riordan spent the next 10 years at Emap,
As thinking-woman’s glossy Marie Claire
where she was promoted to editor of More!
and subsequently appointed editor of high-
celebrates 20 years in existence, Ann O’Dea
profile fashion glossy Elle. With no fashion
background to speak of, it was quite a
speaks to its editor, Dubliner Marie O’Riordan
challenge, she says. “It was an extraordinary
(BA ’84), on life in the fast-paced and
move really. They took such a leap of faith in
giving me that job. I found out afterwards
competitive world of fashion publishing that the person they really wanted had
PAGE THIRTY SIX UCD CONNECTIONS
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