One: he worked for people he could learn from, namely legendary fashion stylist and editor Polly Mellen. (“She taught me what it was like to have a passion for something.”)

And, two, he worked his butt off. “I won’t put stock in people who tell me they wanna work in fashion, because they wanna be glamorous. They wanna be famous. They wanna be well known,” he said. “If you wanna be those things, wrong business.”

Part 1: Elle‘s Joe Zee Puts It All on the Line for Sundance Channel
Part 2: Elle‘s Joe Zee Reveals Exactly What a Magazine Creative Director Does

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

“I work with all the visuals from cover to cover, so when you read the magazine, whether it’s the model, the celebrity, the styling, the fashion, the photography, all those things come into my play,” Zee explained in our Media Beat interview. “It’s really sort of helping to define a visual signature for the magazine.”

And @mrjoezee gets pummeled with questions daily from women trying to mimic the seemingly effortless style of their favorite celebs. The number one question he gets? No, not that white pants after Labor Day thing — seriously, are we still discussing that?

“I think the biggest question I get all the time is people want my job. How do I do what you do?” said Zee. “I love my job, and it definitely is glamorous after all these years. But there was a lot of years of no glamour to get to that point.”

Part 1: Elle‘s Joe Zee Puts It All on the Line for Sundance Channel
Part 3: How Elle‘s Joe Zee Broke Into Fashion (and How You Can Too)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.