Work It

The fashion
time and I was turning up to do these internships for your CV?
these internships for free, in any Very essential. I was advised by CAREER DILEMMA

A
spare days and any half days that my course that you go off and
I could. get additional experience to meet n alternative way to get close to

food chain
What’s the worst internship people. the catwalk is to make a career in
you’ve done? There’s a lot of networking, fashion journalism. Advice from
I finished one internship early seeing how people work, getting industry experts is that work experience
and I left it in tears. help from them with the work we is essential. Marie Claire’s Fashion Di-
When I do. rector, Jess Wood, admits that the six dull

‘I finished one
was there You get to months she spent in a fashion cupboard
The fashion industry is famed for I think just know more kickstarted her career. We talked to one

internship early
about eve- people and fashion intern to learn what life was re-
its glamour and glitz, but what’s it ry mem-
ber of staff
then the jobs
will come to
ally like interning on the fashion desk.

really like if you’re starting out at the that were

paid to be
and I left it in tears’ you if they
want to keep
I was stuck in a window-
less box room made even
bottom of the fashion food chain? there, I you in their smaller by accessories
saw them crying at least once and studio. and clothes stacked to the
We talked to fashion intern, Stephanie I was there for 2 months and even You start to shadow a machinest ceiling and crammed in
though they were being paid to or a cutter and then maybe that’s every corner and centime-
Price, for a behind the scenes look... be there, a lot of them were being the kind of job you can get into ter of space. It was stuffy
paid less than minimum wage. but it’s a really difficult process from the summer heat and

Y
ou’ve done multiple in-
ternships across the sec-
tor, what type of jobs
did you have to do?
Generally it’s things like helping
cutting out fabric, bits of hand
sewing. Depend-
afford to do that and live that way
that it narrows it down. There are
so many creative individuals that
can’t even be in the industry be-
cause they can’t afford to - I was
quite lucky that I’ve had some
there’s a level of maturement in
the things you do.
But in terms of me doing an in-
ternship now, I’ve got a degree, so
I was doing it as a bit more expe-
rience to get to know a few more
people in the industry, and
It was the tasks they give you
that sort of wear it down. I felt
under a lot of pressure there in
that I was asked to do some tasks
that I hadn’t done before,
so I put my best effort in
to learn how to do what
they’re asking me to
because there are so many people
and then there are so many grad-
uates that are working in studios
for free.
Do you there think intern-
ships are useful or too ex-
ploitive these days?
A bit of both. To a certain
the only people who ever
entered would be one of the fashion team
looking in the mirror to see how big a spot
had grown on their foundation-caked faces.
I walked in with expectations higher
than my heels to work on a fashion desk
for a national publication, little did I
know that I would be paying hundreds of

‘It made me really hate

ing on the studio the kind of tasks I was being do – things like hand extent they are useful to be pounds in travel and wasting two weeks
they might give you asked to do I wasn’t learning embroidery, and then able to see what the industry of my life to sort a fashion cupboard.

the fashion industry that it

slightly more inter-
esting tasks to do.
At the last intern-
treats people that way’
ship I did, it was en-
tirely interns cutting
out fabrics, there
was never a paid employee doing
that and in that sense they just use
their interns as free labour.
I’ve heard of other studios where
they’ve had to walk the dog, there
are other places where you’ll just
be there to make tea. You’re not
really learning anything from be-
ing there, apart from eventually
you get to put a name on a CV.
How many other interns were
you working with?
There were roughly 10 interns;
none of them paid. They didn’t
pay for travel expenses and they
didn’t cover any food either, so it
was all entirely self-funded.
There are so few people that can
inheritance that I’m currently liv-
ing off.
Although it’s not just the interns
who aren’t getting paid properly.
There were two people who
were actually on a wage in one
studio, aside from the designer,
and everyone else who was paid
was on a freelance wage.
What’s your experience of the
fashion industry and its use of
interns?
There are a ricidulous amounts
of studios, not just in London,
where there will always be un-
paid interns.
I think you can get a lot out
of them when you’re young and
anything new. I was literally
just going there to help them
out, to do the jobs that ap-
parently they don’t want to
pay anyone to do.
What are the hours like?
They are ridiculous, as is the pres-
sure you get put under.
When it’s getting nearer to
fashion week and the shows then
there’s a lot more to get done and
it’s much longer days.
I was doing 12 hour days and
then you have your travelling on-
top of that.
You don’t get proper breaks ei-
ther, you don’t get a designated
15 minutes after 4 hours, you
don’t get an hour for your lunch,
you get time to eat your lunch and
then it’s back to work again.
I was already pretty tired any-
way because I was doing a mas-
ters part-time and working part-
I didn’t quite do it is like, to work in a studio I couldn’t eat a sandwich because
right and then that and see how things are run, they’d look at me in disgust as if to say
‘do you know how many calories are
made me feel awful and that side of it is quite a
that I hadn’t done it nice part of the experience, in that?’ They sipped their soup and
right. you do learn from that. gave me elevator eyes every morning.
To be honest, I I just think that the thing They thinly disguise it under the word
volunteered my- about the fashion indus- ‘work experience’, but it’s far from it. It’s
self to do these in- try is that it goes about just work and it’s the work that no one else
ternships because it in a very exploitive wants to do. You don’t learn how the desk
I had a spare few manner. works, you just learn who to return items to
days to do it, so They do take advan- and yet there are so many of us willing to fall
I brought it on tage that people will victim to the fashion industry. Adverts are
myself but at work for free and frequently placed online looking for fash-
the same time if someone was ion interns, many of which are open about
it made me a bit to stand up and you spending the week in the wardrobe.
angry. say no I don’t Why do we do it then? Because it
It made me want to do this looks great on our CV, so we smile and
really hate the and work for pour the money out from our savings.
fashion in- free, then they I used to take the two-hour journey home
dustry that it would just be every day and as my body would slump
treats people like well that’s into any available seat, it felt like they had
that way. fine we’ll get sapped a bit more of my will from me.
How es- someone else Now not only was my bank balance zero,
sential are to do it. but so was my enthusiasm for the industry.