Amy Astley has been the editor-in-chief of Teen Vogue for seven years. She started her career as an assistant at House and Garden; she joined Vogue in 1993 and became beauty director the following year. It was Vogue editor Anna Wintour who suggested Astley as the editor-in-chief for Teen Vogue when it launched. Astley, who has edited the new Teen Vogue Handbook, spoke with Bookshelf from Teen Vogue Fashion University, a series of workshops and seminars for teenagers interested in fashion, held in New York City.

What were you hearing from your readers that gave you the idea for this book?

I'm always around high school and college-age girls, and they all ask me the same questions: How do I get an internship? What should I study in college? Should I go to design school? What kind of education do I need for different jobs? And I've tried to address this in many different ways over these years in the magazine, at Fashion University, through a scholarship, and finally I thought, We need a book that encapsulates advice about how to break in, how to stand out, how to get an internship—really just inspiring people so they can read other people's stories in the fashion industry.

You interview people in the business such as Stella McCartney, Pat McGrath and Mario Testino. How did you decide who to include?

It was hard to decide because we work with so many people. I tried to find people who had worked with Teen Vogue. That was my first parameter. So a famous photographer like Steven Maisel who's so well-known in the fashion industry, he doesn't shoot for us, so I thought let's just take that person out.

We tried to work with people who we felt were of interest to teenage girls, or who had something about their business that was modern. Like Stella is vegan, without animal products. To me, even though we don't work a lot with Stella because her clothes are so expensive, I think that's a very modern and interesting point of view that teenagers would be interested in.

Or Net-a-Porter. We profiled Natalie Massenet who founded Net-a-Porter, which is a luxury online retailer. And again, I think she's someone who's created a business out of a need, so I thought she was interesting and modern.

Was it a conscious choice to write about fashion and not add beauty advice as well?

We did do a beauty section, actually. We have hair and makeup people in there. We profiled about four or five people. I think hair and makeup is incredibly important. It's true we don't really have [beauty] advice. The whole book is about careers rather than how to dress or how to do your hair and makeup. So we included hair and makeup people as an example of careers, [to show] their career path.

Do you think the reality TV shows have distorted teens' views of the fashion industry?

No, I think it has just lifted the veil on fashion a little bit so that people are more aware of it as an industry and as a career. So I don't think there's been a horrible distortion, except that sometimes it's over-glamorized.

Did the book come out as you had planned? Was there anything you were sorry to see end up on the cutting room floor?

It came out the way I planned, and it came out better than I thought. I think it's really cute, and visually yummy to look at, which I wanted, so I'm really pleased with it. There were a few designers we weren't able to include. And we didn't commission a lot of photography because that's so expensive. We used existing photos often from our own archive or Vogue's archive. So for example, retail—people who run stores and who do buying—that’s not a very visual story and I was disappointed that we couldn't tell their stories better visually. Or PR. You know PR's a big part of the industry and a lot of people work in fashion PR, and again we weren't able visually to tell the story. And I'm disappointed, because I think they're really important careers and talented people.

Who do you see as the ideal reader for this book?

Anybody who wants to work in the fashion industry. Could be a teenager, high school kid, college kid, out of college. Anybody who loves fashion and is curious about how to build a career in it, or simply curious about how other people built their careers, even if they don't really aspire to a fashion career. I think it's inspiring to read about creative people who've realized their dreams.

Do you have ideas for more Teen Vogue books?

Yes, I want to do more. I knew going into it that there were tons and tons of young women who want information about fashion and it just wasn't there, so I think our book has a long life in libraries, in design schools. I hope it will become a reference point for students.

I feel like this one could updated in a few years. It could be a whole new crop of people. I also think the jobs change so quickly. Like I mentioned this job earlier [in a Fashion University seminar] with a girl helping fashion companies do social networking.

And I just had someone hired away from my own Web site to do exactly that. It's a new job category, for young people especially. So I feel like there could be a new book on new kinds of jobs.

Such as how blogging is really new in the fashion industry.

Yeah, yeah. Or it could have a whole different point of view. But the reason I liked doing this book is because it's about education, and helping people achieve their goals in life. And that is part of what I've tried to do with Teen Vogue's projects, instead of making it all about how to look cute, or what to wear. I'm not really interested in doing a book about clothes or how to dress yourself. I think the girls who read Teen Vogue know how to do that, and do it really well on their own. I'm more interested in giving them tools to achieve in their lives.

The Teen Vogue Handbook: An Insider’s Guide to Careers in Fashion. Razorbill, Oct., $24.95 ISBN 978-1-595-14261-0