Cosmopolitan - November 2016 UK

CELEBRITY
OPENING SPREAD, LEFT: DRESS, £625, COACH. HEADBAND, £150, PIERS ATKINSON. RINGS (TOP) £29; (BOTTOM) £39, BOTH ASTRID & MIYU. RIGHT: DRESS AND HEADBAND,
BOTH AS BEFORE. ‘HEART’ GLASSES, STYLIST’S OWN. PREVIOUS SPREAD: SHIRT (SOLD AS SET), £350, OLIVIA VON HALLE. ‘LOOK’ GLASSES, £225, GENERAL EYEWEAR.
‘TELEPHONE’ GLASSES, £210, YAZBUKEY X LINDA FARROW. BRACELET, ZOE’S OWN. THIS PAGE: TOP, AROUND £872, BARBARA BUI
goes. And what she recommends sells.
Tutti Fruity, a beauty collection she
launched with Superdrug in 2015,
broke company records, with much
of the range selling out on the first
day. Her first book, Girl Online, sold
almost 80,000 copies in its first week,
making her the fastest-selling debut
novelist since records began. An
Instagram post can garner hundreds
of thousands of likes (one of her
holding an ice cream yesterday got
575,000 alone) and last year it was
reported that she earned £50,000 a
month from her vlog, endorsements
and beauty lines.
Her family has also reaped the
awards. Younger brother Joe, 25,
now has a hugely successful vlog,
ThatcherJoe, boasting seven million
subscribers. Meanwhile, her mum
Tracey, a beautician, dad Graham,
a talent producer, and even her
grandfather have amassed thousands
of followers on social media for simply
being related to her. Zoe even has her
own Madame Tussauds waxwork.
“It’s crazy,” she says, taking a sip of
tea. “It all started as a hobby using my
dad’s old digital camera propped up
on DVDs with a mirror behind it so
I could see if it was still filming.” She
laughs. “It was good timing. I did
work really hard for this, but I do
feel like it was a crucial time when
everything kind of exploded with
vloggers. Brands got
interested, bloggers
started getting invited
to events… I do think
anyone could do it.
“Back then nobody
[was making money],”
she continues. “My dad
kept saying I had to look
for a proper job. He was
like, ‘Get off your laptop,
you need to go out.’ He
didn’t get it. It was only three years
into YouTube [that I started making
money] and then it was only $60
[around £45] every now and then.
The cheque would arrive on the
“It was good
timing… I do
think anyone
could do it”
doorstep and I’d be like, ‘I told you,
Dad!’ When I hit one million
subscribers [in 2013] it was the first
time I thought it could be a career.”
(To celebrate her first big pay cheque,
she treated herself to a studded
Alexander Wang
handbag. “I had the
fake version before.”)
These days it’s a
different story, and
Zoe can get offered vast
amounts of money to
work with brands like
ASOS and WHSmith,
who she runs a book
club with. As a result,
she now has a beauty
and bath range; a third book, due
to be released in November, Girl
Online: Going Solo, after her initial
two-book deal was a sellout; and is
in the middle of launching a lifestyle
range, as well as a line of merchandise
with her brother.
“Her success is because of her very
natural ability to connect with her
audience,” says Francesca Dow,
managing director for the children’s
department of Zoe’s publisher,
Penguin Random House. “She does
so through her warmth and honesty
and her instinct for understanding
their concerns.”
Zoe says she is strict about who
she collaborates with. “There’s not
really any amount you can put on
something, because if I didn’t agree
with it, I just wouldn’t do it,” she says.
“95% of stuff is turned down.”
Are we talking six-figure sums?
She looks at her manager, politely
smiles, and says, “Some figures!”
OK, but does she consider herself
rich? “Erm, in happiness!” she says,
laughing. “I don’t know what
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