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Nikki Ogunnaike never had a particular position in her career that she was working towards.
After graduating college in 2007, Ogunnaike knew that she liked to write and loved fashion, but thought that she’d be a market director for the rest of her career.
“That’s sort of what I imagined,” Ogunnaike said. “I was like, “I’m gonna be a market director by the time I’m 30 and then I’m gonna be there forever.””
The internet changed that. As bloggers were becoming a more prominent force in the fashion industry, Ogunnaike decided that she wanted to go after a digital job and landed a role at Glamour.
As they say, the rest is history.
Since then, Ogunnaike has gone on to hold positions at Harper’s BAZAAR, Elle.com, and GQ, just to name a few.
In August, Ogunnaike started a new role as Marie Claire’s editor-in-chief.
For the latest episode of Who What Wear With Hillary Kerr, Ogunnaike sits down with our editor-in-chief, Kat Collings, to share how her career has evolved, how she’s developed her personal style, and more.
For excerpts from their conversation, scroll below.
How has your transition been like so far? Are you still in the learning and listening phase would you say?
I mean definitely. I think I’m going to be in a sort of learning and listening phase at least for the next two years, honestly.
I sort of have this game plan and my inclination is to want to get everything done at once, but I just got here. It’s only been two months.
Not everything has to change—or needs to change or should change.
I just want to be sort of cognizant of not rushing everything at once.
Your previous role was as senior digital director at Harper’s BAZAAR, but your resume is long and impressive. I’ve admired your career from afar for a long time and I’m hoping you can tell me a bit about your trajectory and your aspirations. Was it the editor-in-chief position that you were always working towards?
I don’t think in my career I’ve actually ever been working towards one position.
I graduated from college in 2007 and my dream was to work in fashion. At that time, I knew I liked to write and I knew I liked fashion.
The only sort of fashion job I knew or understood after all of my internships was a market director.
A market director is the person who sort of helps logistically when it comes to getting photoshoots together and working with stylists.
That’s sort of what I imagined I was like, “I’m gonna be a market director by the time I’m 30 and then I’m gonna be there forever.”
Then, I was working at InStyle. This was sort of around the time of when the internet was just starting to get big and it was becoming a thing.
I saw all of the opportunities that my friends who were budding bloggers were getting, but I knew I didn’t want to go out on my own.
I knew I didn’t want to become a blogger myself, so I figured I would go after a digital job.
That’s how I ended up at Glamour. I was the style editor there. I wrote fashion and beauty posts.
From there, it’s just sort of grown and grown—my career has.
I took a detour back into print when I went to GQ, but I really wanted to try something new.
I’d been a little burned out at my job previously and I think every job that I’ve had I’ve always been like, “I don’t want that job.”
When I was a fashion editor, I was like, “I don’t want to be a digital director. Seems like too much work.”
Then I was like, “I don’t want to be an editor-in-chief. Seems like too much work.”
Here I am having done both.
Despite your best efforts, you just keep climbing that ladder.
I just keep climbing that ladder. I think that in my last two jobs—this job and the one before it—I was approached for the jobs.
In being approached, I’ve realized that I could do the job and I could do a good job at the job. So that’s sort of how the trajectory has occurred.
Honestly, when it came to the Marie Claire job, I really wanted to work with Hillary [Kerr]. I think that she’s so incredibly smart and prolific and has built an incredible brand in Who What Wear and the many other brands that she’s helped launch.
I really wanted to just be able to learn from her. That’s generally how many of my jobs come together.
As a digital director at Harper’s BAZAAR, I wanted to work with Leah Chernikoff and I wanted to work with Samira Nasr.
I think it’s more so for me, the team that I’m going to be around and the team that I’m going to be able to build. The exact job itself is great, but it’s more so about the team.
Can you describe how you’ve developed your personal style and which designers you can’t stop wearing right now that you have on your radar?
My personal style is always and has always been rooted I think in comfort and functionality before anything else.
When I’m trying to sort of figure out what I’m going to wear for the day—especially during fashion month—I know that it has to be an outfit that’s going to take me from 9am to 9pm.
Comfort and function are always two things that are top of mind.
The purple top that I was wearing was Dries Van Noten and I wear a lot of Dries, because I think that he really creates beautiful clothing that can actually be worn.
I think a lot of designers create beautiful clothing and sometimes they look like showpieces or they can’t be worn every day or whatever it is, but Dries does a really good job of sort of addressing I think all of the things that a woman has to go through and her day to day and really just makes me feel just put together and beautiful, but also concretely myself.
You see the art on my walls. I love color. I think it’s a really great way to make an impact with like a very low lift. So lots of color in my wardrobe.
I wore a lot of Dries this season. I wore a lot of Tibi. Amy over at Tibi is just doing such amazing things and really just addressing a woman’s day to day.
J.Crew, obviously. I also have always been a fan of the brand from the Jenna Lyons days to Olympia [Gayot].
Now I think she’s doing amazing things and really has sort of revived the brand.
Margiela. Everyone has a Tabi boot, Tabi shoe sort of story.
I just got Tabi boots two years ago I want to say. They’re surprisingly comfortable, but they’re the same sort of thing as I was saying. A simple sort of shoe that you can wear with anything—simple I say in quotes, because it’s literally a camel toe shoe—so it’s a kind of funny simple shoe, but maximum impact, low-lift.
Then Kallmeyer. Danielle Kallmeyer is a designer that I met in New York, but I finally got to see her pieces up close and break bread with her over Paris Fashion Week.
I’ve wore on a lot of her stuff, as well. She’s an amazing New York-based designer who I’m really excited to support.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. Next, check out our interview with Mario Dedivanovic.
