"You belong to me and all Paris belongs to me
and I belong to this notebook and this pencil."
—Ernest Hemingway
...The short of it: My name is Alexandra Elizabeth Schwartz Balbes. I live in Miami after spending many years in New York City and Los Angeles. I started my career in print publishing (you’ll never find me reading a kindle) and am now focused in creative production. On a good Sunday afternoon you'll find me on the beach with a paperback or listening to live music, on a really good Sunday afternoon you'll find me by the Lennon Wall (a la photo, Prague 2015).
...The longer version: My creative path began while studying abroad in Paris, 2009. Charmed by life in the city of lights, I began penning "Tales from Abroad" columns that were sent to and published by my college newspaper, The Trinity Tripod.
Once home from Paris, my spark for writing helped me land a contributing writer gig at Hartford Magazine and then onto New York University’s Summer Publishing Institute after college graduation.
I started my career in New York City with a communications internship at ASSOULINE, a luxury art book publisher founded by the Parisian/Moroccan (like my mother) Prosper and Martine Assouline. I worked in PR for a couple years, but was always more drawn to all things editorial.
In 2012, I started at Condé Nast as the assistant to Cindi Leive, the editor-in-chief of Glamour Magazine. The answer to your Devil Wears Prada question is yes, and I met Anne Hathaway on the job (we exchanged a knowing glance). I loved every moment of the few years I was an entertainment editor. The exposure was incredible, and I worked alongside some of the industry’s most fashionable and influential editors (I luckily still work with a few from these early days). But life in Manhattan with that teeny tiny salary was tough.
So, I moved around a bit, eventually to Los Angeles with a job at YouTube. Turns out, casting talent + creative producing videos is a smooth evolution from curating talent and editing magazines. I’ve been fortunate enough to work with some of Google + YouTube’s top brass and have been involved in creating incredible, Emmy winning programming with the platform’s biggest creators.
I’m currently creating, casting, producing, and consulting on my own via my company, Balbes Agency and simultaneously on contract at YouTube.
Get in touch, let’s work together.