Liza Vassell is a Brooklyn-born former model, marketing strategist, and CEO and founder of Brooklyn PR, an LA based concept PR Agency. Vassell really doesn’t need an introduction as her work speaks for itself. Stylists from all around the world have utilized her unique skills to dress their celebrity clients such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Beyonce, J-Lo, Zendaya, Gwen Stefani, Ryan Gosling, Sir Paul McCartney, Sterling K. Brown, Demi Moore, Coleman Domingo, Jenna Ortega, and Justin Bieber, among countless others.
Liza was born into a big family and says she had a great childhood. She attended The Packer Collegiate Institute for her formative years and Martin Luther for high school. From there, she obtained her Associate’s degree from St. John’s University.
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She aspired to be a lawyer growing up and that went all the way through until a certain part of her life when she did a summer internship with Morgan Stanley. When she attended orientation she had cornrows, a popular hairstyle in the Black community. She would soon find out that hair discrimination was real.
“As a young Black girl, you feel beautiful and that is your best look and I was told by Human Resources that I had to take my hair out. So that was like my first corporate slap in the face where I realized if I can’t be me in this environment maybe there’s something else out there for me. So that’s kind of there the pivot happened,” she recalled.
Her modeling career would soon take her from Brooklyn to Italy. She was at a restaurant and a fashion agent saw her and asked her to take a test for a company. She agreed, took the test, did a photo shoot, and from there, they chose her and that started her career in the modeling world.
“If I wanted to see the world and someone else was going to pay for it, why not? That’s where it took me. Curious souls have to wander, have to be fed. That took me to Europe and I segued into Italy because I met my future husband, who is Italian,” Liza recollected.
Her move to Los Angeles was “carpe diem.” When she decided to leave Italy, she assumed she was moving back home to New York and gave herself three months to find a job and a home; however, what she realized is that she didn’t want to live in New York anymore.
“It was just too many parts that just didn’t fit my life anymore,” she said. “It’s one thing to come to New York for fashion week and the superficial things where you stay in a hotel, you’re with your friends, you’re hanging out, but to actually live there…”
She said those three months opened her eyes to realize that wasn’t what she really wanted. This brought on a lot of confusion until a friend of her son had offered her and her family his apartment in California while he went to Italy for two months.
“We said okay, and came out here and it was 85 degrees in December. Need I say more? It then became, what am I going to do here? That’s where it began…with the weather,” she stated.
Brooklyn PR is located in the historic West Adams district in Los Angeles. She was previously located in Hancock Park, but moved to her new location in September. Liza had worked from home, but decided that she wanted to separate her work life from home life. She was immediately drawn to her new location and wanted to be the first.
Liza never follows what others do and only does what’s right to her, which is what led her to following her gut and working with Elie Saab, who is now one of the top couture designers in the world.
“I answered a phone call that came in from this unknown designer at the time and while everyone else was saying ‘no,’ I said ‘yes’ to assist him and the rest was history. He became one of the top designers in the world. That to me was all I needed when I realized that I trusted my gut. I never follow what others do; I do what’s right to me,” she told the Sentinel.
Aside from her entrepreneurship, Liza founded the Liza Vassell Foundation, which is based around mentorship for those interested in the public relations, fashion, and marketing industries. Liza expressed that she doesn’t just take people because they want to work and learn from her, but likes to train people that have a fire and passion and who wants a career and not a job.
“For me the foundation is about giving back because I realized in this field that I’m working in, it’s unfortunately unbalanced where it is privileged,” Liza voiced.
“I’m a Black woman and the business I work in, is predominantly white and I’ve seen the unbalance between where you come from can determine if you get in the door or not.”
She wants to change the dynamic and teach kids that whether or not they are coming from USC or not college graduates at all, that they can accomplish their goals.
Liza is always looking for fresh, new, ways to be creative, which is why her creative juices inspired her to implement a shoe wall in her office. Brooklyn PR represents a lot of shoe brands, and she felt that what better way to showcase them than having a library of shoes. She describes it as massive and as high as 16 feet and as long as 65 feet. This was her dream wall and took three contractors to complete it, as the first two backed out, and the third one a charm.
Right now, Liza and her team are getting things in order for art week.
For more information on Liza Vassell and Brooklyn PR, visit https://www.brooklynprla.com/ Follow Brooklyn PR on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brooklynprla/
