VCU news

By Dina Weinstein

With a flair for fashion, a mind for media and a calling for the climate, Virginia Commonwealth University alum Sophia Li is melding her interests and raising her profile.

Based in New York City, the 2013 graduate, who majored in fashion merchandising in the School of the Arts, had her first professional editorial role in the Big Apple at fashionista.com, and she later served as entertainment media editor for Vogue. Li now works as a multimedia journalist and environmental advocate, focusing on climate justice, and she has landed some notable roles.Li’s work has included hosting events related to the U.N.’s Conference of the Parties climate change initiative, the Global Fashion Summit in Copenhagen, the Earthshot Prize with founder Prince William, a Disney+ panel with actor Michelle Yeoh and Meta’s Climate Talks podcast. Her recent articles, connecting fashion and the environment, have been published in British Vogue, Family Style, Porter magazine and The Cut.

Vogue even featured Li’s earth-themed summer wedding in rural Montana, which included environmentalists speaking to guests as well as her friends and family pitching in at the farm.

“I have a multitude of things I do, but I think that’s the whole point,” she said. “I try to tell every college grad now that you’re going to be a multi-hyphenate, and that’s a great thing.”

Li, who addressed VCUarts graduates at their December 2019 commencement, spoke with VCU News about how her interests have continued to come together to define her work and life.

Where did your interest in climate come from?

I say everyone has a climate story. Ever since I was young, I was always watching documentaries as much as I watched Disney movies. I would watch “An Inconvenient Truth,” even though it came out when I was in middle school. 

I didn’t even realize my climate story until my late 20s. I come from a long line of farmers and Buddhists, and we always had this symbiotic relationship with all living things, with soil, with food. I’m first-generation, my parents are immigrants, and I think anyone who’s first-generation understands the necessity of sustainability. It didn’t even have a term then, but it was a necessary thing to do to be sustainable.

How does storytelling fit into your world view?

Climate is the biggest crisis our modern-day humanity will ever go through. I also believe the climate crisis is a storytelling crisis. That’s why I’m involved, because I feel like I have a role to play. And I think in a few short years, everyone’s role will be in conjunction with sustainability and climate.

The climate crisis is called a “super wicked problem,” meaning it has so many interconnected layers to it. So I don’t have a three or five-year editorial plan. I’m focusing on how to bring climate storytelling into the cultural mainstream through long-form content – and galvanizing the next generation of climate optimists.

Tell us a bit about working at Vogue – and how it set you on your current path.

It was the best boot camp and foundation to understand the fashion and entertainment industry. You’re always working against the deadline. You’re very immersed and work becomes your life, at least in the role that I was in. And that’s OK. It can be beautiful, but it’s definitely not a 9-to-5.

We didn’t just cover fashion at Vogue. When I went freelance, I didn’t know that I would necessarily go into climate. I just knew I wanted to do impact storytelling, and it kind of just led to climate itself as a natural thing. I think the world also was waking up to the extremities and the time sensitiveness of the climate crisis during the pandemic, and us being so close to 2030 and reaching its goal of net zero carbon emissions.

Do you still categorize yourself as being in fashion and entertainment?

I think it’s all intersectional. I don’t put myself in a box, but I work in climate and adjacent to fashion. I lobby for a sustainable, viable fashion industry. I've worked in fashion media. Entertainment is part of the long-form content I’m working on, but it has to do with climate. I work on fashion, climate and entertainment. Sometimes they collide.

How is your freelance work reflecting your passion?

I have long-term contracts with Family Style magazine as its impact editor and a long-term working relationship with the Earthshot Prize as its global correspondent. My short-term projects include the Global Fashion Summit in Copenhagen, the biggest sustainable fashion conference in the world, where I’m going to be on stage and in front of the camera for two days.

There’s an ebb and flow between short-term and long-term projects. In the climate space, there will be times of the year when there are big climate cultural moments, and that’s a lot of work. Climate Week NYC, the Conference of the Parties that the U.N. hosts – they would be a very intense time.

Let’s go back in time: What was your favorite VCU class?

The fashion show class with professor Deidra Arrington. I was the director my senior year. It was super hands-on. You got to build, sell and put on multiple fashion shows. I loved that hands-on experience.

Now let’s look ahead: What advice would you offer VCU students now?

What I’m doing now wouldn’t have even existed when I was a student. I couldn’t have even studied it in school. From 2009 until 2013, social media kind of existed, but not a lot. So I would say whatever you’re studying, just lean all-in. Be passionate and curious about the things that you naturally gravitate toward. Don’t worry about “I want this job title” or “I want this salary.” The world is changing at such an exponential, accelerated rate with the climate crisis and the decentralization of so many things that I think a lot of roles that will happen in the future, they don’t even exist. In school, you can’t even study it.

And that’s OK. But you will have the tools, and all the tools you learn at VCU are so pivotal. Harness those tools and make those as strong as possible, and then you’ll be ready for the world whenever these roles appear.