The true cost of unpaid fashion internships

“Inces­tu­ous net­works need to be dis­man­tled. Black books need to be opened up. We need to start recog­nis­ing that those who look, feel and sound dif­fer­ent to us are prob­a­bly the great­est gift the fash­ion indus­try could ever receive.” For an indus­try that has tra­di­tion­al­ly relied on recruit­ing through cliques and unpaid intern­ships, fash­ion has a sav­iour in Far­rah Storr, the edi­tor-in-chief of Cos­mopoli­tan, whose impas­sioned words reflect a mis­sion to open up oppor­tu­ni­ties in the indus­try.

Last month, the women’s glossy mag­a­zine launched a com­pe­ti­tion in part­ner­ship with flat­share site Spare­Room to offer four peo­ple a month-long paid schol­ar­ship with accom­mo­da­tion in cen­tral Lon­don includ­ed.

“One of the biggest crit­i­cisms of the media, and by asso­ci­a­tion the fash­ion media, is that it is pop­u­lat­ed by those from a cer­tain socio-eco­nom­ic back­ground,” says Ms Storr. “You gen­er­al­ly need to be in the cap­i­tal to take up unpaid intern­ships. That means you either need to be based in or around Lon­don, or have suf­fi­cient means by which to sup­port your­self. So right there you are exclud­ing large swathes of tal­ent because of the class and post­code into which they were born.”

Unpaid internships have long been a staple for the arts 

The reac­tion from a for­mer fash­ion pub­lish­ing intern, who spent sev­er­al months at Vogue on an unpaid intern­ship, was hap­py dis­be­lief. “They get free accom­mo­da­tion? And the Lon­don liv­ing wage?” she asks. “I had to sleep on friends’ sofas and get help from my par­ents. Once Vogue was on my CV, I start­ed to get loads of requests from oth­er mag­a­zines to do unpaid intern­ships. I thought a job would be just around the cor­ner, but after 18 months my par­ents said enough was enough. I remem­ber my dad say­ing that the indus­try was fund­ed by the par­ents of intel­li­gent young women.”

A recent study from The Sut­ton Trust, which aims to enhance social mobil­i­ty through edu­ca­tion­al oppor­tu­ni­ty, found that 86 per cent of intern­ships in the arts – TV, the­atre, film, fash­ion – were unpaid.

“For young peo­ple try­ing to break into the fash­ion indus­try, tak­ing on an unpaid intern­ship is often their only route in. The sheer preva­lence of them is a major road­block to improv­ing social mobil­i­ty,” says Rebec­ca Mon­ta­cute, author of the report, which found that it costs an intern £1,100 for every month they work unpaid in Lon­don.

“These sums are out of reach for any­one with­out fam­i­ly who can foot the bill,” adds Dr Mon­ta­cute. “Our research found high lev­els of social seg­re­ga­tion in the indus­try, with work­ing-class grad­u­ates sub­stan­tial­ly under-rep­re­sent­ed.”

Those who look, feel and sound dif­fer­ent to us are prob­a­bly the great­est gift the fash­ion indus­try could ever receive

Protesting unpaid internships can jeopardise interns’ futures

Legal­ly, an intern’s rights depend on their employ­ment sta­tus. If an intern is classed as a work­er, asked to com­mit to set hours and per­form the same tasks as a mem­ber of staff, they’re due the nation­al min­i­mum wage. But employ­ers don’t have to pay it if an intern­ship only involves “work shad­ow­ing”. Not only is this a huge grey area, but car­ry­ing out work is one of the main rea­sons for tak­ing up an intern­ship. Who wants to pho­to­copy when they could write?

“Things are chang­ing, but it’s long over­due,” says Tanya de Grun­wald, founder of careers blog Grad­u­ate Fog and a cam­paign­er for fair intern­ships. “Although the law is on interns’ side, the com­plaints process means the weight of respon­si­bil­i­ty is on for­mer interns to take action against their employ­er once the unpaid intern­ship is com­plet­ed, some­thing few are will­ing to do, as they need a ref­er­ence.”

One fash­ion mer­chan­dis­er, who com­plet­ed a paid six-month place­ment at Stel­la McCart­ney two years ago, says she reg­u­lar­ly worked 13-hour days and most week­ends. “I was burnt out at the end,” she recalls. “I had to get addi­tion­al finan­cial help from my par­ents. And it’s not just the place­ments them­selves that make you think twice; there’s no guar­an­tee of get­ting a job after­wards, so you don’t know how long you’ll have to live this way.”

A state­ment from Stel­la McCart­ney says the design­er label, which recent­ly launched diver­si­ty bias train­ing across its glob­al busi­ness, last year began work­ing with The Girls’ Net­work, a char­i­ty that part­ners girls from dis­ad­van­taged com­mu­ni­ties with a pro­fes­sion­al, female men­tor.

The culture of unpaid internships is damaging the fashion industry

Lux­u­ry online fash­ion retail­er Matchesfashion.com says it ensures there is a clear struc­ture in place for devel­op­ing young peo­ple and is look­ing at new ways to attract a diverse pool of tal­ent.

“We offer an annu­al paid intern­ship where can­di­dates are paid above the nation­al liv­ing wage,” says Hei­di Cop­pin, chief HR offi­cer. “They enter the busi­ness as an entry-lev­el employ­ee so are enti­tled to the same lev­el of care, sup­port and com­pa­ny ben­e­fits. We only accept appli­cants who are in their sand­wich year at uni­ver­si­ty. What we have seen is that this is a real­ly nice way of fram­ing what an intern­ship is about and we often go on to hire peo­ple once they have fin­ished their degree.

“This year we are part­ner­ing with the Mayor’s Fund Access Aspi­ra­tion work expe­ri­ence pro­gramme, where we take on four stu­dents from under­priv­i­leged back­grounds who wouldn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly have the means to find their own work expe­ri­ence.”

This is key. Work­ing with exter­nal part­ners helps to get the word out that oppor­tu­ni­ties beyond unpaid intern­ships exist. That’s why Ms Storr is also work­ing with the Prince’s Trust, on-the-ground organ­i­sa­tions and using social media to get Cosmopolitan’s schol­ar­ships in front of as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble.

“We need to dis­man­tle the cold, cool image that some of the fash­ion indus­try has and still insists on cre­at­ing. Most of the peo­ple I know who work in it are incred­i­bly warm and fun­ny and down to earth,” she says. “But from the out­side it doesn’t always look that way. It looks per­fect. And per­fec­tion is intim­i­dat­ing if you’re a kid from Sal­ford, like I was, look­ing out at this world.”