Today we’d like to introduce you to Bailey Powell Aldrich.
Hi Bailey, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstories.
From the time I was a little girl, my journalist grandmother informed me repeatedly that I was a writer. Nany knows best! But, being the bull-headed person I am, I had to arrive at that conclusion my own way. Also, since I was a little girl, my dad owned and published Fort Worth Key, a travel guide. “One day this will all be yours!” He’d joke. My brothers and I weren’t interested in publishing. Famous last words.
I was the type of teenager who read Vogue and W cover-to-cover every month. It made sense to me to study fashion, and I spent the summer after high school in courses at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. When I went to North Texas for undergrad though, I was quickly humbled when I didn’t get accepted into the Fashion Design program. Ha! That program is a blood bath and, having since worked in fashion in New York, I can confidently say it absolutely prepares one for a career in high fashion. 10/10 recommend if you want to compete with the best of ’em. If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere. (Sorry Sinatra, your song is actually about the University of North Texas Fashion Design program.)
I switched to Merchandising and graduated 5.5 years after starting school. With both chronic mental illness and some family issues I’d been in and out of school, but I did it! Before graduating, I participated in an exchange program outside of London where I wrote fashion articles for a local, student-led publication, and when I returned home, I secured an internship at D Magazine where I worked in the fashion and bridal departments. D Magazine is where I got my first byline in print, and I still treasure it.
Before I left D I evangelized to anyone with ears that I was looking to move to NYC post-graduation, and finally, I identified a fellow Texan, a TCU grad, who worked in the PR department at Oscar de la Renta. She welcomed me to come up and intern after graduation. So, I bought a one-way ticket to New York and slept on a friend’s couch while I got my bearings in the city. After Oscar, I worked a lot of temp jobs and lived with a slew of strange Craigslist people, but I kept my head down and said “yes” to any and everything that would propel my fashion career forward. I continued to work in high fashion for a while before moving over to photography to manage bookings at Fast Ashleys Studios (now Smashbox) for a few years.
NYC was wearing me down. When my now-husband proposed, he was living in D.C. So, I left New York for 18 months to join him and worked at Special Olympics International. After that we were both homesick for New York, so we moved back. I went to grad school at The New School (a lot of people know it as Parsons) and got an MFA in Creative Writing. Grandmother Nany rejoiced. I wrote freelance for a while and then, of course, Covid changed everything. NYC is good for a lot of things, but reasonably sized apartments is not one of them. We essentially found ourselves paying a gazillion dollars for a postage-stamp-sized apartment we couldn’t leave for weeks at a time.
My husband, a native Manhattanite, surprisingly had been badgering me to move HOME home (for me) to Texas, citing it as a much more reasonable place to live financially. So, after ten years in NYC, I folded. My parents thought I was a New Yorker for life. Much to their surprise (and delight!) I texted them in November 2021 just saying, “What if I took over Key?” My dad was on the brink of selling or turning the lights off. At 67, he was done. Then, I came out of the woodwork. Again, Nany was thrilled. She and my grandfather had both worked on Key with my dad as Editor and CMO, respectively. I was coming home to be a part of the family operation and apply all I’d learned to its modernization and rejuvenation.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Well, New York City is inherently exhausting. It’s an adrenal beatdown every day, so I’d get migraines every weekend like clockwork. I don’t think I could’ve survived it if I wasn’t in my 20s. As my 30s began I was really hurtin’! It was also of course extremely competitive. People come from all over the world to battle on the ant hill that is New York City. However, that crash course is humbling and crystallizes the value of solid work ethic. Even though some people made it really challenging, I always tried to be kind and give everyone the benefit of the doubt in addition to working hard and with integrity. Hard work, integrity, honesty, and kindness will get you far.
Due to the high cost of New York City, I had to live with some Craigslist characters. One guy was really mean and would con companies into giving him money or more product. Another was chemically imbalanced and unmedicated, and she’d do things like make cake pops in the middle of the night and turn on the blender with nothing in it while I was sleeping just to be cruel. It was weird. When I finally lived in my own place, the rent was 1/2 of my take home, but at that point, it was worth it to me. It was across the street from a motorcycle club, and one night I woke up to gunshots and a guy named Frankie lying dead on the sidewalk outside. I had to stay below the windowsills to avoid stray bullets and then moved ASAP. I had no furniture except for an old computer desk I got out of the trash (it had a rack for CD-Roms!) and a mattress I’d bought off a guy moving to LA. I had a cabbie tell me he was drunk while he was driving me home. We were in a scary, unfamiliar neighborhood, so I had to decide which was safest: staying in the car with a drunk person driving or be dropped off late at night, lost in a rough neighborhood. I had men follow me and leer at me, I guess in order to feel powerful by making a woman uncomfortable.
Of course, my biggest obstacle has always been my depression and anxiety. In a place where tireless work ethic and drive is paramount, there’s no time to be crippled my depression. Sometimes it was hard to survive, let alone thrive, and I was 1500 miles away from my family. I had some family tragedies take place while I was in New York, one where I didn’t know if my brother was going to live or not, and stumbled around LaGuardia like a sobbing zombie trying to get on a plane. It wasn’t pretty. All of my experiences have taught me mercy, compassion, environmental awareness and safety tips, how to deal with and respect an array of personalities, just a ton of life skills. I brought everything I learned back with me to my life in Fort Worth.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
Fort Worth Key is the premier guide to Fort Worth, Grapevine, and Arlington for both visitors and locals alike (think “be a tourist in your own city”). It’s published monthly online and in print, available at over 100 hotels/shops/visitor centers/restaurants in the area. Primary features include a robust calendar and recommendations for shopping, eating, and things to do.
Key’s been published since 1967 and is a legacy, family operation. My dad bought it from the original owner in 1995 and has since been the main proprietor, but my mom, grandfather, and grandmother have also worked on it as CFO, CMO, and Editor respectively. I officially took over the magazine as owner and publisher on January 1, 2022, but the training wheels aren’t off yet. I’m having a great time working alongside and learning from my dad, especially after living far away so long!
Also, I’m a seventh generation Texan, not some corporate transplant! When you reach out to Key, it’s a direct line to me, which means our customer service is unparalleled. We’re approachable, we live here, and we love our city. We represent both Fort Worth’s past and future.
There used to be over 100 independently owned Key Magazines around the country, and now there less than five still in business. Fort Worth Key is one of them. We’re bringing it into the future with a strong lean toward digital offerings. It kind of feels like a startup, only my dad has rich relationships in the city that he can pass down to me and the brand itself has 55 years of equity. It’s both exciting and terrifying. 🙂
We’re always looking for the lessons that can be learned in any situation, including tragic ones like the Covid-19 crisis. Are there any lessons you’ve learned that you can share?
Well, the magnitude of how much travel and tourism informs our economy was definitely felt. My dad didn’t publish for a handful of months because our hotels were virtually empty! So, I’d definitely say Covid taught me another facet of tenacity, and the power of pivoting/re-invention to survive.
Pricing:
- Fort Worth Key is FREE!
For local businesses looking for advertising opportunities, please email me at bailey@fortworthkey.org.
Contact Info:
- Email: bailey@fortworthkey.org
- Website: https://www.fortworthkey.org/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fortworthkey/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FortWorthKey
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/fortworthkey
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@fortworthkey
Image Credits
Silent Stream Media
Fort Worth Key
