Amber Venz

Women and men from across the world (some as far as Bombay) were sitting on the edge of their seats at our first ever "How to Make it in Fashion" conference a few weeks ago. The topic? How to network (the right way) in this competitive industry. Trust us, the advice was good--and that's because it came from industry pros like Melanie Bender, co-founder & partner of communications firm Post+Beam, Alisa Gould-Simon, co-founder of style sharing app Pose, Amber Venz, president & co-founder of affiliate link program rewardStyle, John Jannuzzi, a contributing editor at Lucky, and Ruthie Friedlander, the senior digital manager for The Row. They may be young, but they still have years of experience and had much knowledge to share. Read on to see what we learned.

It sounds cliche, but to succeed in this biz, it isn't just what you know, but who you know. Don't have any great connections as of yet? Fear not! We've rounded up some networking masters to show you how it's done at our "Right Ways to Network" panel, happening during our first-ever conference. Here's what to look forward to: