What’s in a Fashion Editor’s Handbag? Brit Olivia’s Must-Haves for Surviving the Big Four
Updated: Sep 7
Eight weeks. Five cities. Three continents. Hundreds of collections, countless deadlines and more hours spent writing on a laptop than any Fashion Week itinerary will ever admit. Paris Runway Official Editor and fashion journalist Brit Olivia opens her handbag and her itinerary to share the beauty, fragrance, hair and snack essentials traveling with her through New York, London, Milan and Paris.
Fashion Week is a slightly misleading name.
Can we call it Fashion Month? Even that doesn't quite cover it.
For those of us working behind the scenes who are moving between runways, backstage areas, press rooms, airports, cars and whatever surface can temporarily accommodate a laptop... the season stretches far beyond a single week.
For me, it will be nearly eight weeks of fashion.
When your office is essentially wherever you can open your laptop, what you put in your handbag becomes surprisingly important.
The Paris Runway Official Team Takes on Fashion Month
My season begins in New York, before moving through London, Milan and Paris—fashion's celebrated Big Four.
After Paris, it's back to New York for Bridal Fashion Week before the journey concludes in Porto, Portugal, where IMC Models will host a large-scale fashion event expected to welcome more than 1,000 guests, complete with a red carpet, runway and live television coverage.
And Fashion Month is very much a team effort.
Paris Runway Official's PR Assistant, Gena Aspinall Martin, will report live from Porto while also helping cover London, Milan and Paris, including Paul Costelloe's opening-day London Fashion Week presentation on September 17.
Sangeetha Menon will work across London and Paris, coordinating with more than 100 models and 20 designers between the two cities.
Across the season, the Paris Runway Official team will move through a calendar that includes names such as Christian Siriano, Sergio Hudson, Frederick Anderson, Burberry, Paul Costelloe, Richard Quinn, Prada, Gucci, Giorgio Armani, Chanel, Dior and Ottolinger, among many more.
From the outside, it sounds incredibly glamorous.
And sometimes, it is.
But Fashion Week is also 12-hour days, airport security, schedule changes, dead phone batteries, writing articles from the backseat of a car, changing shoes between venues and suddenly realizing at 4 p.m. that the protein bar at the bottom of your handbag has become lunch.
You learn quickly: what you carry matters.
So what actually earns space in a fashion editor's handbag when every inch counts?
These are coming with me.
The Skin Prep: YISE Beauty
Fashion Month is brutal on skin.
New York in September followed by London, Milan and Paris means airplanes, trains, changing climates, long days, late nights and more makeup application and removal than my skin would ordinarily experience in months.
So hydration gets priority.
Molly Sims created the moisturizer she couldn't find. After decades spent in makeup chairs, she watched makeup artists layer products to create both hydration and the right canvas for makeup.
That experience ultimately informed YISE Beauty's approach to skincare.
For me, the appeal during Fashion Month is simple: I want something that can help my skin recover from travel while also preparing it for makeup.
When you need to go from an overnight flight to an appointment and then directly to a show, multitasking beauty earns its place in the bag.
The Scent: D.S. & Durga
A perfume born in New York traveling with me to New York Fashion Week?
Count me in.
D.S. & Durga approaches fragrance almost like storytelling, creating scents inspired by everything from music and literature to places, memories and imagined worlds.
There's something about fragrance during Fashion Month that feels particularly personal.
We spend weeks surrounded by clothes, beauty, art and other people's creative identities. Your perfume can become a small signature of your own.
A spray before leaving the hotel. Another before the evening schedule begins.
It's a tiny ritual, but during eight weeks of constantly changing cities, those rituals matter.
The Emergency Snack: MISFITS
There is lunch.
And then there is Fashion Week lunch.
They are not always the same thing.
Sometimes Fashion Week lunch is whatever survived in your handbag between the 10 a.m. show and the 3 p.m. backstage call.
That's where MISFITS comes in.
Plant-based, high in protein, low in sugar and—most importantly—easy to carry, the bars are exactly the sort of snack that can be thrown into a handbag in the morning and rediscovered several hours later when you realize you haven't eaten.
Healthy is wonderful.
Healthy and actually enjoyable? Even better.
The Beauty Discovery: GOOD Beauty
Some products are researched extensively before they ever make it into your routine.
Others simply find you.
GOOD Beauty was one of those discoveries for me.
Initially, it was the branding that caught my attention: clean, natural, beautiful and raw. Then I became interested in the brand's approach to concentrated skincare using raw, organic ingredients alongside dermal actives.
Then I tried it.
Somewhere between curiosity and actually seeing how my skin felt, it became one of those products I didn't want to be without.
That's exactly what I'm looking for during Fashion Month.
When your skin has survived an airplane cabin, several layers of makeup, weather changes and not nearly enough sleep, anything that helps it feel revived is no longer simply sitting on the beauty shelf.
It's going in the handbag.
The Five-Minute Face: Charlotte Tilbury
There are Fashion Week mornings when there is time for the complete routine.
And then there are the mornings when you have approximately five minutes.
For the latter, Charlotte Tilbury Hollywood Flawless Filter has become exactly the kind of product I want nearby.
It can be worn when I don't want a complete face of makeup but still want my complexion to appear smoother, brighter and more awake. When there is time for full glam, it works beautifully as part of the base.
Fashion Month products need to adapt to the day you're having—not the day you hoped you were going to have.
This one does.
The Hair Rescue: Redken
New York after running between shows.
London rain.
Milan humidity.
Paris after a long train ride.
Hair has its own Fashion Month itinerary.
Travel-sized Redken products allow me to carry what is essentially a miniature emergency hair department without sacrificing half of my luggage.
Dry shampoo can rescue a morning when washing and styling simply isn't happening, while a lightweight hair oil can help tackle frizz and restore some much-needed shine.
My strategy isn't particularly complicated: take a handful of travel-sized options and let them follow us from city to city.
Because the schedule doesn't stop for a bad hair day.
The Supporting Cast
Beauty might occupy the glamorous side of the handbag, but snacks and drinks are doing some very important work behind the scenes.
This season, LOVE CORN, Simply Gum, SmartSweets and GORGIE are part of the team's rotation.
They're the things we reach for between appointments, in cars, backstage or during those moments when the schedule has left considerably less room for a proper break than anticipated.
Pack for the Fashion Week You're Actually Going to Have
And perhaps that's the biggest lesson I've learned from covering Fashion Week:
Don't pack for the photograph. Pack for the day you're actually going to have.
We'll have our notebooks open, phones charged, press credentials ready, beauty essentials packed and snacks tucked somewhere between a lipstick, charger and whatever invitation we need next.
Eight weeks. Five cities. Three continents. One very carefully packed handbag.
As the Paris Runway Official team prepares for the season ahead, follow Paris Runway Official @parisrunwayofficial as our photographers, videographers, models, stylists, creatives, journalists and producers report live from fashion's biggest cities.
See you on the runway.
CREDITS:
Writer: @onceuponatimebrit Brit Olivia
PR Firm: @parisrunwayofficial Paris Runway Official
Runway Photos: @sashurako @parisrunwayofficial Shooting Tony Ward, Tamara Ralph, Zuhair Murad, Georges Hobeika
Product Photos courtesy of: @Redken @charlottetilbury @yisebeauty @dsanddurga @simplygum
Coordination: Stella Arbel, Assistant at Paris Runway Official
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