Emily Kochanek: Fierce and Fabulous

Emily Kochanek, senior, is the fierce and fashionable Managing Editor of POLISHED, Lasell’s fashion magazine,, with goals in mind and a drive to get them accomplished. 

Kochanek has been involved with POLISHED since the first semester of her freshman year, rising steadily every year from her talent, drive, and a little help from a friendly professor. 

“I actually came to Lasell because I wanted to do POLISHED,” she said. 

After discovering that her initial major, Fashion Communication, didn’t have enough focus on journalism, Kochanek switched her major to Journalism and her name was mentioned to the then editor of POLISHED by Professor Barbara Meltz. She was asked to edit the magazine by her sophomore year, a challenge she readily accepted and successfully completed. After successfully editing for a year, she was asked to become Managing Editor of the magazine, a job she accepted with excitement and surprise.

“After a year if editing, I was asked to be the Managing Editor. I couldn’t believe that I was going to be the Managing Editor after only a year of editing. It was such an amazing opportunity,” Kochanek said. 

Since becoming Managing Editor, Kochanek has improved the magazine by a whole, instilling a Style Guide for writers and changing the look of the magazine. She hopes to recreate the magazine to be more “magazine like” by changing the trends format. Kochanek has been working closely with the art director and creative director of POLISHED to make her vision a reality. 

Her work in the fashion industry doesn’t end with just the magazine. Kochanek has a background in modeling, giving her a unique insight to how to style a magazine. 

“Modeling has really helped me understand how the fashion industry works, especially putting on fashion shows. While running a magazine is totally different, being a fashion magazine, I took aspects I learned from modeling in the fashion show to how fashion articles should look and how they should feel when read. It’s an exhilarating experience, modeling, and it’s good to be a part of the fashion world as a whole,” Kochanek said. With the recent success POLISHED has seen in the year as Kochanek as editor, Lasell’s campus is excited to see what else she has in store.