FASHION INDUSTRY // TRUTH OR FICTION?
Fashion industry truth or fiction?
Over my time working in the fashion industry I have met some amazing designers and some, shall we say, not so great designers with more fluff than puff!
I always thought a good designer was down to earth, hardworking and very passionate, which I believe would then shine through to their collections, but this is not always the case. You have to give credit to the fashion world as what many assume to be a glamorous and easy job is a far cry from the reality for the people behind the seams…
Try 14 hour days stuck in a small studio, fabric cutting, constructing, trying to reach ridiculous unobtainable orders or stuck in an office with a huge amount of pressure, having anything and everything trusted to you in order to make the line, event or collection go without a hitch, and all of this for minimum wage or even in most cases an “intern” scheme.
The intern scheme… You work for free and have the privilege of working for such a high-end label whilst gaining experience. This however is a fantastic opportunity no matter how much you feel you are being subjected to slave labour. No one is going to hire you without experience, and unfortunately in the fashion industry experience is what counts!
Fashion designers – glam, rich, professional? Well that’s what we are lead to believe but unless you are very high-end the majority I have met or worked with are skint, moody, egotistical and generally not very nice people, and a lot of them treat their interns and staff pretty badly. However there are exceptions. Very few and far between but they are there. I met the most wonderful designer who I worked in PR for – she may have been lovely, down to earth and very approachable but the pressure that was put on me and staff working for her was like nothing I had dealt with before. Never having worked in PR and originally applying to work in the design studio, this designer felt I was better suited to running events, writing press releases, and organising all of her events and shows for the collection… Basically, running her whole business! For someone who had never done this before it was daunting, but was slightly rewarding to start with. “Wow, I’m being given all this responsibility?” I thought. I remember feeling slightly pleased with myself that she was giving me so much to do, however this soon faded.
image courtesy of The Devil Wears Prada
When you take on a “part time role” that is what you expect it to be, but unfortunately this was not the case. I left the house at 6.30am and would not be home until 8.30pm. You might think that’s okay. But the work didn’t stop there. You would be contacted all night to do additional work, even past midnight. I remember waking up after a few weeks one Sunday morning to more than 10 emails of tasks to be done, and this was before 10am! Bear in mind, this was a “part time intern scheme” which I was not being paid for. However lovely this designer was I could not carry on with this. Having a child, which she was fully aware of, it’s unrealistic to expect a mother to work 24 hours a day 7 days a week, especially when they have originally signed up for a 3 days a week part time role.
The funny thing with this designer was, she may have seemed pretty successful, selling in Harrods, Selfridges, Net A Porter and online but she was broke. We were constantly told there were not enough funds to pay us, and all of the events, shows etc. that we held, were done free of charge and filled with sponsors and investors. Safe to say, I was sad to leave but I felt that what was being asked of me was not justified. There weren’t any travel expenses paid, so not only was it costing me about £200 per week for that, I was constantly busy and none of this felt worth taking the time away from my daughter, no matter how well I got on with her or “how lucky I was” to have this role. To me it just wasn’t worth it.
If you are heading in to the fashion industry be wise; yes, you will most likely have to intern, even the major high-end designers have interned at some point, but when it gets to the point where you are stressed, shattered, have no life other than work and you’re constantly living on Red Bull and cigarettes to keep you awake, is it really worth it?
- Victoria Jane Watts
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Very well written.
I’ve long since thought the advantages of internship (for almost any profession) are outweighed by the parasitic mentality that takes over the industry and makes people into a ‘ten a penny’ (more quite frankly) with so many people wanting/needing jobs, it’s easy to be taken advantage of. Also being self employed is extremely difficult before any success or if there is any success/profit at all even after a long time, the same goes for running small companies but I’ve always been of the opinion that if you can’t pay your staff then you have no business being in business. There are exceptions and genuine volunteer and intern placements, but on the whole it’s walking on the backs of others to get ahead. I’ve also known many people who bypass that idea by ‘hiring’ family members and also ‘importing’ them from oversees to work for them – pay them next to nothing and keep it all in the family. Other people hire women because they’re even cheaper wage wise and in general no matter how much experience you accumulate, luck and contacts still play huge roles as to whether you will noticeably benefit from it. The same goes for higher education. We don’t live in a meritocratic society.
I’ve done a fair amount of voluntary (not intern) work and to be honest, a lot of employers see it as negligible, if it doesn’t pay, it doesn’t count to many. Even though it’s pushed by places like job centres (who are in the business of humiliating people any way they can and Common Purpose), rather than being rewarded – helping, giving and getting back/learning – it’s being used as a means to fill a need. The need being low wages and high demand as always – the bills/prices always go up and the wages stay relatively the same. That further pushes the need for low cost items, which then means low wages for the producers – like you mentioned the behind the scenes workers. Also, huge debt means that the ‘boss’ can easily be broke too like you mentioned or asset rich and cash poor – the money comes in and goes straight out on the endless business costs. It costs an arm and a leg to simply be called a sole trader or business – before you even get to be able to carry out any work, you’re usually in debt.
Business is used an as excuse to forget that it’s made up of people, not automatons or slaves or servants – people who live, breathe, eat, sleep, have families and obligations and need lives/rest/leisure/hobbies outside of work. People have become so ‘goal driven’ and ‘bottom line’ that they’ve actually lost sight of the ‘goal’, each other and their environment imo.
But anyway – it sounds like you worked extremely hard in increasingly difficult circumstances, it’s good that you put your and your baby first. As a human and as a woman (in a world where we’re practically all discriminated against in some way) she should have been more aware of your situation. No amount of either genuine niceness whether naive or scatter brained, or faux charm would make up for the stress.