Meet Julia Kim | Founder, Creative Director

We had the good fortune of connecting with Julia Kim and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Julia, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
I majored in Psychology at UCLA and had thought my path was to become a psychiatrist for adolescents. However, my drive has constantly geared me towards marketing since graduation. After much thought, I decided to put my foot into the fashion industry and to specialize in marketing for a B2B fashion online platform solely, connecting designers/manufacturers to retailers. Strategizing marketing tactics and handling the advertisement aspect, I’ve realized that I really enjoyed presenting fashion visuals to our clients when uploading e-commerce images. I’ve started to notice how great or how horrible styling was on certain images and realized that we really need to emphasize on better quality images for these products to actually SELL. In the year 2016, I’ve decided to start my own fashion studio with my boyfriend at that time, who is currently my husband. The process was quite long prior to the launch of the business due to creating my own website, cold calling clients, and doing 5 person’s job by myself.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
Our team is very proud of story telling and really taking quality time to visualize what the client(s) really needs in their upcoming photoshoots whether it is ecommerce in-studio shoots or campaigns. We really conceptualize on the type of products we are shooting and we try our best to scout appropriate models based on the brand’s imagery. This planning process really sets us apart from others I would say. It definitely isn’t easy and it is a lot more investment on our end, but at the end of the day, we want to feel rewarded and proud to see what is being uploaded. We try our best to create a positive energy environment because if we don’t have that, our creative outlet can be let down. We ofcourse don’t see the greatest results all the time or the proecess of the photoshoot doesn’t go as planned. From here, we learned that tweeking things around from what we currently have and making the best out of it is the only way to make it really work. We want the world to know that positive practice makes a positive difference; that anyone can get to where they want to if they truly put in their best effort in the most passionate way.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
If my best friend is visiting me from outside of LA, I would definitely take them out to some scenic spots to start out with such as Elephante, an Aussie rooftop bar in Santa Monica that has the best view of the ocean with the best cocktails and bites. From here, I would show them around Venice and take a bite of ceviche at Chulita and drink some aperol spritz at the Great White. Venice Canals can be another spot to visit in between our drinks and bites.

I’d also take my friend hiking to the hollywood sign and a drive-thru the streets of palm trees would be a LA vibe. From here, we can grab brunch at All Time with some natural wines. Grab some coffee from Maru a few stores down from here, and a drive to downtown LA and a little tour of the Grand Central Market to the Arts District and Little Tokyo would also be a vibe for a different day.

Highland park and Echo Park is another East Side vibe. I would start out with the West Side and slowly ease into the east side to show both sides of LA:)

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
Firstly, our existing clients whom have been with us since day 1 is the reason we are still here today. The word of mouth is the biggest challenge in this industry and we are so grateful to so many clients referring us to one another. Secondly, our models have really been spreading the love for our studio to their own agencies and to other clients. Lastly but most importantly, our employees really create such a positive atmosphere and we would not have come this far without Alice, our marketing director and Lauren, our stylist and our photographer ofcourse, William. Especially this year, our social media coordinator, Paulina, has really been creating as much content as possible to express the personality side to our fashion studio. We are so loved by everyone around us and we are so grateful:)

Website: www.wstudiola.com

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Facebook: wstudiola

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Image Credits
Photographer: @wilcho @wstudiola @heejuliakim