February 1st, 2022
Beauty PR icon Alex Silver has just celebrated her 25th anniversary in the business with her eponymous agency and high profile clients.
A trailblazer and groundbreaker, she has been at the forefront of star-studded events, red carpet moments and headline campaigns for over three decades. From the rise in social media marketing to the influencer takeover, she has been the go-to for boutique beauty, celebrity and digital PR campaigns and she’s seen everything! All this has made her the PR guru at the top of the wishlist for brands and celebrities since the 1990s.
Not only has she been Dame Joan Collins‘ publicist for 11 years, Alex has also worked with the UK’s most loved celebrities including singers Pixie Lott, Leona Lewis and Nicole Scherzinger and TV stars Lisa Snowdon, Andrea McLean, Denise Van Outen and Gail Porter on trending campaigns, generating worldwide press.
Alex originally trained as a nurse and had a successful career, working towards becoming a Junior Sister in the casualty ward when she began helping with medical PR projects. She realised very quickly that she had found her niche and switched paths to pursue a career in PR instead. She decided to go it alone from the start – a very brave decision – and set up Alex Silver PR from her kitchen table. She hasn’t looked back!
To get her name out there and showcase her skills and passion for turning small brands into global household names she networked, networked, networked. Attending every industry event and following up on every conversation to ensure she was remembered. Keeping promises and delivering to deadlines. She worked incredibly long hours and that hard work paid off – the results began to show quickly. Launching her own magazine about the agency helped share the campaigns she was working on and the successes she had achieved. In a world before social media it was a great way to showcase what she had done for her existing clients, and give prospective clients an idea of what she was capable of doing for them and their brands.
She’s never taken any funding, always preferring to save her own money and invest it in the business. This was one of the main motivators to ensuring the business was successful. She won fantastic new brand accounts such as Caudalie and as the business began to grow organically the team grew too.
Alex’s first office was in Notting Hill and was full of her talented team of 35. As well as working on multiple campaigns, she was flying around the world organizing press parties in glamorous locations from LA and New York to Dubai. Despite the success, Alex felt the agency had lost the boutique touch, which had made it so attractive in the first place. She started to scale back the business and moved to their beautiful office space in London’s Piccadilly, complete with their own pamper room. This included a spray tan booth, blow dry bars, manicure benches and facial machines and Alex would host a monthly party for celebrity friends and journalists. As well as being great fun, it was a clever strategic move on Alex’s part as it pointed the business in the direction she wanted to go.
As well as promoting and developing brands, Alex has been able to mentor many young women in their careers in PR, seeing them starting out at Alex Silver PR and then watching them develop and achieve success on their chosen paths. She didn’t have a mentor when she set up the agency, so being able to fulfill this role for others has been a career high point.
We asked Alex for her favourite motivational quote and she told us this from Estee Lauder:
“I never dreamed about success. I worked for it.”
We love this as it completely sums up Alex’s own ethos and attitude – if you want something, go and get it. This is what she instills in the teams who have worked with her over the last quarter century.
When it comes to new beauty trends, Alex is the mastermind behind launching cult beauty and skincare brands and trending treatments having launched Botox in the UK as well as Caudalie, Beauty Blender, KISS Impress Nails and Lashes and Fake Bake.
Just ask Leighton Denny, who credits Alex for launching his career as a celebrity manicurist and receiving his MBE from the Queen in 2014 for his contribution to the nail and beauty industry. From creating real diamond manicures to going on tour with The Spice Girls and hosting at Royal Ascot, Alex created a world-leading nail care brand. Alex said:
“I’m delighted to be celebrating 25 years of Alex Silver PR and to be still at the forefront of the beauty industry’s most exciting campaigns. Since I launched the business from my kitchen table, the PR industry has had a complete overhaul from daily tasks of sending press releases by post to the quick, digital world we now know. The industry continues to inspire me.”
We wish Alex another amazing 25 years.
Follow Alex Silver PR on Instagram and Twitter.
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