Founder of DH-PR Daisy Hoppen On the Art of Sustainable Public Relations

Public relations has long since occupied a role within the industry that has been shrouded in mystery and misunderstanding. How do you build, sustain and cultivate the image and perception of a brand? For a long time, the mechanics of the industry were well established: a traditional understanding of the PR landscape spanned a closely-guarded network of connections, and a familiarity with the rhythms of the press and the seasonal opportunities of covers, front rows and events. And then everything changed; how to tell a brand's story, changed. Daisy Hoppen spent nearly a decade working at major, established fashion PR agencies Purple and Karla Otto, before taking a leap in 2013, establishing her own company, DH-PR. Over a decade later, while DH-PR has evolved and expanded, it retains a tightly-curated roster of clients and talent, including long-standing relationships with Hannah Weiland of Shrimps, Ganni, Simone Rocha and Molly Goddard. DH-PR’s highly personal, bespoke approach to every client’s unique needs, along with their company value statement to always “be kind, conscious and inclusive”, remains at the heart of their work. Here, Daisy kindly took time out of her hectic Fashion month schedule to share her reflections on how far fashion PR has come in the last decade, why people come first, and why measures of success remain ever-changing and beautifully individual.

JW: Let’s talk about your agency, DH-PR. How has your ability to build a team, your ability to delegate, your ability to grow, to build your roster evolved over time? Is ‘roster’ the appropriate word for your client list?

DH: It is a roster. I don't shy away from the fact that we’re a PR agency, and the word ‘PR’ definitely has slightly mean girl, spin doctor, Ab Fab connotations, but I don't shy away from that. I think we do a really good service. And yes, we have a roster of incredible clients, talent, creatives, designers. We work with them in a really personal way.

JW: How did it begin? How do you balance the seeking out and the handpicking, versus the people who come to you, versus the introductions? How does that get triaged to end up with you having a new client?

DH: To be transparent, we don't or can't take on around 90% of the business that approaches us. For me, people from different worlds that expand our point of view are important. We’re known as a fashion agency, but we’re doing more and more in terms of the worlds of design, food and drink, lifestyle and music. For example, we've just taken on Stone Island, so I feel honoured to be looking after that legacy, and this is opening up all kinds of subcultures for us, which is exciting to me. We’re working with the River Cafe, we're doing special projects for Whispering Angel (Rosé), we’re working with Christopher and Tammy Kane on a special consultancy and the next steps and chapters for them, and we’re working with Dover Street Market, Paris, which opens this year...so it's really varied in terms of breadth, and then obviously from the talent division, it's very broad as well.

I never take on a project or a client without talking to the team because it's not about just my vision; it's about a wider vision. One word that comes to mind with any client we take on is that there’s a certain degree of ‘elegance’. And that's not to say it's a polished brand, but it's an elegance in their approach or how they conduct themselves.

JW: Despite there being different companies, I can see your taste reflected in the people you work with.

DH: Many of my clients I've had for over ten years now – most of our journeys started together. Tekla for instance, I sit on the board of, and I've been with them from the very beginning. There’s a long relationship with Susie Cave and Nick; Molly Goddard I’ve been with since the very beginning. It's easy to launch something, but it's really hard to sustain the story, to keep people coming back and back again. That's what I enjoy the most.

JW: You've referenced in the past how your creativity is different to that of your clients. Nonetheless, in what you've just described, part of the art of what you do is being able to tell that story. I was thinking back to when we first met, and I was curious about the influence of being around your father’s gallery (Michael Hoppen Contemporary), the presentation of those images, and whether that, consciously, or subconsciously,  developed a love for thinking about how to build out an ‘image’?

DH: Honestly, I started my business on a whim, and my logo – I typed it in Word and took a screenshot of it. I'm not creative in that way, but I love and appreciate the visual form, and photography in particular. We've been doing some special projects with Belmond specifically around photography, and I love that.

What I really appreciate about my father is that he has quite an unusual photography taste, which has really opened my eyes. He has quite an outsider's point of view, as well as representing some very well well-known photographers. Photography is the one thing I collect and buy. I just bought a really beautiful work by Jacob Lillis, and I've got some really weird Japanese stuff as well. I love Jet Swan. So, yes, definitely influenced, definitely a collector, but I don't know if it's necessarily influenced my business because I don't have the eye of a creative director, for example. I'm just an admirer.

JW: Thinking about your early experience working in public relations – you were at Karla Otto and Purple  – do you remember the certain codes and practises being taught to you at that time, and how did those central principles differ from when you started your own endeavour? How have the rules of publicity changed over time?

DH: It’s changed a lot. When I was at Purple, I learned so much. Before that, I was with this tiny jeweller in Tooting and literally flipping through magazines, buying phone numbers and going up to Vogue hand-carrying jewellery to see Lucinda Chambers.

I was lucky, because I had a few fairy godmother PR queens who taught me a huge amount. I wouldn't say my way of working differs much now from how it was twenty years ago, but it used to be that fashion was your life. I would work the most insane hours, and I waitressed part-time as well. Happily, my team have healthy lives outside of work, and one thing that we’ve implemented is that we don't have a company WhatsApp. That came about after one staff member said “WhatsApp is what I use for friends and family. I don't want clients messaging me, and I don't really want team members messaging me”. 

Now we only use Slack, and it’s really helped create boundaries. It’s something I didn't necessarily have when I was starting out. I remember going home at weekends and being so upset and overstressed that my family would ask, “Why are you doing this job?” I never want anyone in my company to feel that way. And if they ever do, then something's wrong. It's hopefully a business that is a nice place for people to work. And we service our clients during working hours (hopefully) exceptionally well. 

JW: What a beautiful sentiment. And, yes, certainly a very different working culture and environment from the one you and I both grew up in.

DH: I  have a huge amount of respect for this new generation coming in and establishing boundaries in their lives. So, I'm very happy that the industry has changed. But back then, perhaps because email hadn’t completely taken over, there was a lot more face-to-face interaction, and we weren't just computer robots. I always encourage my team to physically spend time with people; to be away from their computers as much as possible. There are elements of the old times that I’d like to bring forward: like that joy in fashion, which it sometimes feels like we've lost; that fun, frivolity, and personal interaction. I want to bring that with us, but I don't really want that kind of mean girl mentality to come with us in any way.

JW: Fashion is quite unique in many respects: the rhythms of it and the seasonality. It’s similar with publishing – you're forced to fall into that cycle as well, because that's how advertising is structured...When you left your job to start the company, was there a kind of foundational mission statement?

DH: No, in all honesty. At the time, I was really burned-out; I was doing a lot of fashion weeks – London, New York, Milan, Paris...I'd reached breaking point. But after working somewhere like Karla Otto, there are only a certain number of places you can go. There weren't really any other freelancers in PR. It was quite a weird place to be. 

My father said to me, “I'll pay you once you start getting print coverage in the FT and in The New York Times”. I hadn't ever done photography press before, and it's quite a challenging world to get into, but it was a good challenge. And then I met Dover Street through Adrian Joffe, who I'd known for many years, and they wanted less traditional PR as well. And then I met Hannah Weiland from Shrimps and I was introduced to Molly Goddard through her stylist sister, Alice Goddard and that's where it all started. I didn't have a plan. I was doing my own receipts for the first five years. I was really doing everything. There was no big business plan. 

I do think I was very lucky with the initial clients I got to work with because we became collaborative friends and our businesses grew together. Even when larger brands approach us now, that kind of personal connection is still really important. I don't just want to be reporting to a suit. I want to be able to have a point of view.

JW: So after the gallery, Dover Street was technically the first client?

DH: I was very lucky and I still am. It’s an honour to work with them. I learn different things every week, I get to work with so many different brands, young and old, and it's a very different way of doing traditional PR. It's an amazing company. My sister actually works for them as well – she's a director, and she's been there for nearly fourteen years. So it's a real family affair. I love it.

JW: As a founder, how have you managed the pressure to be a figurehead, to be at your events, to be ‘on’, not performing, but just to have a smile on your face. Does that element of hosting and bringing people together remain paramount?

DH: Well, it’s not just me. I have an incredible team. And actually, I love my job, so I really don't find it hugely taxing. Perhaps pre-baby, pre-husband, I might have been out four out of five nights a week, and now I try and limit it to the nights I have to be out. My social life is probably far less exciting than other people's, though it looks like I'm out a lot when it is for work. When it comes to weekends, I'm really at home.

If I think about the evenings I was out for this last week...it was Max Rocha launching his cookbook at Rose Bakery with all these incredible people from the food world I’ve admired for forever, Simone Rocha, at her show, and then this incredible design project. So it is just that logistical juggle with childcare more than anything. It’s like I've got two babies.

JW: Yes, the figurative baby of having your own company.

How organic has the cultivation of a community around DH-PR been? Did it begin as a close network – friends, acquaintances, etc.? Or was there a strategic, evolving set of targets, like editors, influencers, VIPs, or a mix of the two?

DH: It is definitely a mixture, but that world of influencers and press has changed so much over the last ten years. Recently, after clearing out our office that we've had for six years, you realise half of those magazines don't exist anymore. The nuance of PR and what it means has changed hugely. There are people that I was friends with twelve years ago who are still in the industry, but it's kind of wild – if you were to look at a seating plan from fifteen years ago as to who's still around,  it's not really the same. So I do also think, in terms of community, and again, those horrible words: ‘talent’ or ‘VIP’, has all changed.

That question of taste – that's what's actually hardest to talk about. Each brand has their own taste, and as an agency, we need to challenge ourselves to always be expanding that. They can't always work with the same people time and time again, but then that's why you have a team from different backgrounds, different ages. The reality is, I'm not in Peckham at 3AM on a Saturday night or Sunday morning. I don't know who that person is who's really cool, that's DJing whatever club it is, but my clients want to know. I don't want to be a gatekeeper. And clients' tastes evolve, people change, so what makes sense for one season might not make sense for the next. It's forever changing. 

JW: Nostalgia is dangerous, but there still remains a healthy mix of brand and talent enthusiasm for legacy and print media. Like your father mentioned when he spoke to the value and prestige of coverage in the Financial Times or The New York Times. How do you personally reconcile that? The visibility in readership isn't there, but it still has this funny prestige associated with it.

DH: When you say to a client, what newspapers or magazines do you actually buy? Most people would probably say Apple News! But, when they have a story in The FT, they go and buy ten copies. What I think is interesting, is that there are certain publications over the years that have navigated the paywall; people have to pay for subscriptions for online and digital print because it has the context and information that can't be found anywhere else. They employ the kind of journalists that are worth paying for. The New Yorker or The New York Times are examples that people buy, because they know the journalism is going to be so good. And I think, if you don't have a point of view anymore, your title is redundant. That's why you have all these print titles that went online and kind of went nowhere.

But any client we ever work with, they want T: The NY Times Style Magazine, but they’d also love The Financial Times How to Spend It. The most interesting thing is, twelve years ago – let's say my father was doing a Sarah Moon exhibition, or something like that – I could have got coverage in every single UK supplement because there were dedicated pages to arts, to culture. But those pages don’t exist anymore.

These days, it's more saying to the client, where do you want this story to be? Where is most important to you? Do you want it to appear on Apple News? Do you want it to appear in The New York Times, or do you want that cover in Vogue? I think there's less bandwidth for having your story everywhere these days, and that applies to talent, to collaborations, to profiles, but I would say, if you do everything at one time, you'll have nothing to talk about next month. So we really try to build strategies that don't only look at the here and now, but the longer term. And that’s across social, digital, print.

JW: Do you have a protocol for measuring success, or is it really a dialogue with the brand to gauge their happiness? How codified is setting milestones and goals for you, if at all?

DH: It’s always part of the initial conversation with the client, and what success would look like for them. Maybe they want the cover of How to Spend It. For others, it's about wanting X celebrity to wear their clothes. For others, it's about hitting certain targets in terms of sales and revenue. And for some, it's about repositioning their brand. So I think the measure of success is very much dependent on the brand. 

But broadly, for us, measures of success are sales, stockists, yes, impressions, yes, press, but also, word-of-mouth. We always include notes and word-of-mouth feedback within our monthly reports to clients. It's very personal. I actually think word-of-mouth is probably one of the most important elements of measuring success, because there are certain people who are never going to post or write about certain things. But when you get X product in someone's hands and they say, “I really love this. I'm using it or wearing it every day”, then that’s really special. There are different ways of running an agency, and I've been told many times I over-service, but it's because I really care, and my team cares as well. 

JW: The ultimate compliment. With something seasonal like fashion, generating or engineering news stories that feel relevant at a particular moment in time,do you find it to be a challenge? Or is that a slightly more reactive thing and a finger-in-the air sense of where the culture is? Do you have to constantly find yourself revising your way of working season-to-season, year-to-year or redefining a brand’s story?

DH: The thing is, customer engagement moves fast. A strategy that you presented a year ago might be totally irrelevant. And that's not necessarily just because of taste, but it could be geopolitics, it could be so many things. So, anything we do is formulated quite close to the time. 

And again, it's the people that I work with who inform creative ideas and business proposals. We work very collaboratively in that way as a team. It's never just what I think. For example, there was something yesterday that I thought was the most genius idea. I said, that place used to be so cool back in 2002. I got totally taken apart by my team. They were like, It's a bloody shit nightclub now. What are you talking about? Time moves fast, and the customer, the viewer, the reader, they're far more savvy than you think they are. You can't just dictate. 

JW: If the pace of fashion does need to slow, and let's argue for the sake of this question that it does, what benefit do you think that would bring holistically across-the-board?

DH: To be honest, I think people have tried to do that before. Everyone said it during COVID, and it really didn't happen. I'm not sure about slowness, but I think there's too much product out there; there's too much boring fashion. I thought it was really interesting the way that Margiela couture show last year really got this fire burning, and we need more of that, more excitement. Consumers are spending less, whether for sustainability or economic reasons, but I think they do want to be excited, and I think a good product will always sell.

JW: Do you not think that by slowing the process, you can halt the homogenisation that stems from not having time and room to breathe and actually be creative?

DH: But I don't think that's necessarily about the product lines. I think it's the marketing on top of it. It's part of this bigger conversation – the idea that designers can't just be designers anymore. They're kind of stars in their own right, so I really feel for designers. And there's also obviously an element of greed, from other businesses as well. There's this emphasis on growth, growth, growth, growth. 

Small can be very beautiful. You look at brands out there like Egg, Elena Dawson, Daniela Gregis, Casey Casey: these brands know their customers inside-out, have incredible sales, and it's not all about constant growth. I don't think growth should always be the barometer for success. There are many ways to be successful, and I really admire brands like Hermès and Chanel that do grow and have their point of view and identity, but I also really admire small brands; brands like Bella Freud, Penelope Chilvers, that just know their customers inside-out. 

JW: Speaking of collaboration – and given the ways in which there's been this extraordinary opening up re: the possibilities of ways to collaborate with people – I saw you speak about the opportunities in television, for instance with Molly’s pieces in  Killing Eve. Do you find yourself engaging in surprising and unexpected ways as things are shifting and evolving so much? Are you finding yourself learning about new opportunities and new vehicles to tell stories?

DH: The Molly Goddard (Killing Eve) dress was actually bought in Dover Street Market. And the costume designer is still an amazing contact who is often in-store buying things for other films that she's working on and someone that we will always support in any film or show she works with. That's what's so exciting about the job, right? There are different mediums for different clients, for different team members. I subscribe to The New Yorker and The Week and the FT, and I love that. Other people just read up on an app. Print is not dead. I think online will continue to change. I'm interested to see where the landscape will go next.

JW: Do you find that there's any pressure personally to cultivate an image of some sort given that we are all beholden to having a personality that says something about the company we run?

DH: No. Because I'm not in the zeitgeist. I'm not traditionally cool, I'm a massive geek, and I feel quite comfortable being that kind of person. I'm happy to do interviews where I've got something to say on behalf of the business – but I'm not a celebrity, I'm not a traditional influencer, I'm a PR. More than anything, what I want to do is to try and remove that kind of nasty view of what a PR is, and to show that there's a more human side to it. So that’s why on socials, I'll sometimes post a picture of the team if they approve; I think the human side is really important. 

The way that people used to talk about and to PRs back in the day, was like they were subhuman. We're people. And I think it's really important that that gets seen. We work incredibly hard to look after our clients. It takes a special kind of person to be a PR. Because the client is right, the editor is right. It’s such a delicate balance, but I sometimes think people don’t realise that. So more than anything, I want people to see me and my team as people and not just robots with clipboards standing at a door. 

JW: And you mentioned the work that goes into getting B Corp status, and your value statement to always be ‘kind, conscious, and inclusive’.

DH: That was a motto that we made. We tested a number of different ideas together; the whole team suggested ideas reflective of the business, and it was during COVID that I decided I really wanted to get the B Corp status. It felt like an important time for businesses to realise how important PR is, so that we weren't disposable; like a stamp of approval. It’s also really helped us make informed business decisions that perhaps I wouldn't have thought of if we weren't B Corp, in terms of what external partners’ morals or finances are, the transparency we have to have with our finances with the rest of the team, volunteering, pro bono work, using organic cleaning materials in the office, encouraging clients to not use plastic hangers etc. It’s expensive, but it actually does make for a better business, so I'm really glad we did it.

JW: Where would you like yourself and the business to be in, say, five years' time? And, perhaps in opposition to that, where do you think the industry will be in five years' time?

DH: I’d like us to be relevant in five years' time. I'm very aware that it's hard to maintain your brand position, so if we are still relevant in five years' time, and still with some of our core clients, then I’d be very happy. Where the industry is in five years, it's hard to say. I think publications that have their point of view will still be here. I hope that The New Yorker will still be here. I hope that The FT will still be here, and Hearst and Conde Nast.

I hope that our industry will be in a happy and successful place in five years' time. It's also nice to see companies and brands that are familiar and loved by people continuing to have success as well, whether it's the likes of the River Cafe or Rochelle Canteen or St. John's. I hope that those brands are still here and still beloved. And I also hope that some of these new brands that have a really important point of view, manage to retain their business as well. There are too many brands that come and go.

Follow @dhpr_London and @daisy_hoppen