Image courtesy: The Devil Wears Prada (https://www.teenvogue.com/gallery/devil-wears-prada-best-gifs)
This article may not come as a surprise to many. It is meant to shed a high beam light on the ever expanding list of bureaucracies within the fashion industry from my perspective - after experiencing the whole nine yards - from being a fashion student to a free intern to being jobless.
Clothing has been an integral part towards a transition into a sophisticated society. From being a cultural representative to provoking freedom of expression, clothing has provided tools and a mirror of various movements towards change. However, inside that industry the image is quite the opposite. Freedom of expression is enjoyed at the top level to beef up their sales.
At first it seems to be a shocker as an outsider. But once you are in it, you tend to normalize it. Certainly, you don't want to come across as a whiner, especially when you are an immigrant. That freedom of expression remains at the door.
Going to fashion school seemed larger than life. Being in San Francisco, I was introduced to being ahead of the times. It is a city of its own. From organic food to clean cleaning products, I was in a land of the future. But all of this comes at a price. Known and respected fashion schools are in big cities and privately owned. You are not only paying high rents but all your basics come at an inflated price. Not to forget, you already have drowned yourself in student loan way before you are going to even dream of getting a job. Here, we are trained to be a dreamer. Debates about fashion being a form of art to 'your collection needs to be highly conceptual', no one talks about what the real industry wants. That would remove the filter from the ugly picture that one does not want to expose especially when you are just caught in the net.
Not counting the summer internships that I did for free while in school, my foray into job hunting after graduation landed me an unpaid internship interview in New York City. When I went to the interview, the interviewer giggled looking at my portfolio which concentrated on ideas and design. I was hired anyways for the free internship which was certainly not free considering my travel cost, food in NYC and my time. But who respects one's self when you are just running towards getting a real job? Every college graduate speaks to themselves with a compromised tone and anyways being an Indian I was trained to be a hard worker instead of being a smart worker. Little did I know, that free internship required being a plagiarist and take correct (and I mean correct) food and coffee orders. No error in what kind of matcha latte or green smoothie is tolerated in this industry. Your job depends on it.
I quit the next day but that also meant I was jobless. Just like any other New Yorker, I believed that there is an endless supply of jobs. Every position required five years of work experience minimum before getting an assistant designers’ position. Not to mention it has to be a similar role. (Who wants to spend time training you? They expect you to start performing from the very first day). That certainly meant I was adding to my student debt for another five years of working for free and doing other side jobs to pay for my basic survival.
Considering today, even an intern's position requires work experience, one cannot help but think of the systemic exploitation this industry has built over time on the shoulders of fashion students and graduates that have endlessly toiled to either get credits for a class or for networking to ultimately land a real job.
Questions for the industry that remain unanswered:
1. Why are fashion schools expensive when the rate of return is lower than the rate of investment?
2. Why has there been advocacy and encouragement towards free internship?
3. Why do free interns have to deliver food and coffee orders?
4. Plagiarism. Why is there no clear-cut answer and a system in place?
Let's start from here. There is a lot more cleaning left to do.
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