A Swedish girl we know landed the kind of internship students will kill for (and then want to kill themselves afterward) at a super fancy European design house. She kindly agreed to keep a diary and sent us two weeks’ worth of entries. Starting right now you’ll get a daily look at how working in this glamorous world is more degrading than collecting rubbish – you ARE rubbish to them. Internships are for being treated like dirt, yes, but this is of a certain Rococo stink-line variety. Of course she couldn’t let us use any real names or places as those queenie fashion houses make everyone sign pile after pile of papers guaranteeing their secrecy…
Illustration by Luca Deasti.
Monday
I was late again, got in at 9:30. I dreaded waking up, knowing there was a fitting today. Fitting days are the worst. The only way to get through them is to look busy. I did pretty well, for a while I pretended to search for brushes, knowing I was searching in the wrong cupboard. They’re much calmer if you look busy doing what they want, even if it’s fucking pointless. All the bigshots are present. Everyone’s super nervous and edgy, running around looking for paint, brushes, lampshades, insects and whatnot. The excess of incense burning and expensive fragrance candles makes it impossible to breathe. After pretending to look busy for a while, they let me work on a project I like. It didn’t take long until Tony, my overseer, came running in gasping for air (as usual), shouting at me to drop everything I was doing and instead colour an embroided piece of fabric. It was SUPER URGENT (as always).
I thought it’d only take an hour but it took me all day. First we were out of paint, then I bought the wrong shade and went back to the store but got the wrong nuance again. When I finally got it right, they didn’t need it anymore. So they sent me out to get chocolate. It had to be this specific exclusive brand that was hard to find, which felt nice and meaningful. NOT. I hate those small tasks, they’re the ones I always fuck up and end up feeling like an idiot. Oh, it was TWO sugar and SOY milk, oops. Last week they sent me out to buy lunch and were miraculously happy with it and complimented me. It felt as if I had actually accomplished something, which disgusted me.
On the way back from my important chocolate mission I bumped into Alex, one of the designer’s assistants, in an elevator. He was on the phone talking loudly about how it’s better to let interns do stuff since they get it done while tiptoeing around the studio. I felt like screaming, “Hello? I’m standing next to you?!” But we’ve been told never to speak unless we’re spoken to. By the way, a friend of mine who interns at a fashion magazine told me something hilarious this weekend. It’s actually rather sad. Apparently there’s this unwritten law in the fashion industry, that if you have to eat, you should do it by an open window in consideration of those on a diet or suffering from anorexia.
Reader Comments
March 24th, 2009
12:18 pm
I hated being seen eating when I worked in an office, just felt guilty…
How does being by a window help when your eating, are you meant to chuck what your eating out the window if it upset somebody important…
Oh I guess it might be the smell
March 24th, 2009
12:20 pm
its a fuckin scandal that the industry gets all these keen/eager/capable/talented people to work for them for free but being an intern i understand it is all part of the fashion food chain and one has to pay ones dues. Also it is a good way to see who can actually be fuckin bothered to work hard (even at the shit jobs) and who only lasts two weeks after realising they wont be hanging out with Agyness Deyn and sipping free champers at all the high profile events daaaarling!
My fashion internship is luckily with bunch of guys who are not actually that fuckin up themselves and actually have a fuckin laugh too. so im happy with that.
March 24th, 2009
12:21 pm
to housecat… i think u were supposed to throw yourself out of the window if somone fashion important saw you eating…
March 24th, 2009
12:30 pm
This whole fashion and eating thing is bullshit. Most of the people who work in fashion are of normal weight because it takes an enormous amount of effort and restraint to be a proper anorexic. I’ve tried, it’s too hard!
March 24th, 2009
12:33 pm
Just because you’re a size 6 or 8 it doesn’t make you an anorexic. I’ve seen only one proper anorexic in my whole life, and that was in fucking Venice.
March 24th, 2009
12:34 pm
and anyway most people do eat… they just puke it up later or they eat on week days and then take so much coke on the weekends that they dont eat for three days which kind of evens things out.
March 24th, 2009
12:35 pm
errrr… louise it doesnt matter what size u are… if u starve yourself ur a fucking anorexic! you dont have to be thin to the point of dying to be anorexic!!!
March 24th, 2009
12:40 pm
There’s no such thing as an anorexic who isn’t underweight
March 24th, 2009
12:48 pm
no its like an alcoholic isnt necessarily drunk out of his face all the time, but he drinks everyday even if it is one beer! someone who has an eating disorder doesnt necessarily have to be skinny as fuck, they just have to starve themselves. Some one could be fat as fuck then develop an eating disorder and it would be fuckin ages before they were dead skinny.
on a slightly seperate note… Do u reckon someone could stil die of starvation even if they were really fat?
March 24th, 2009
2:45 pm
essentially fashion and anorexia are the same thing.
March 24th, 2009
2:46 pm
who the fuck is dumb enough to work for free and be treated like a piece of shit like that just so they can say they work in fashion!!! BULLSHIT!!! Get a real fucking job where they pay u… like being a hooker!
March 24th, 2009
2:47 pm
i am keen to see what happens to this girl next… and how long she lasts in this place where everything is Super Urgent!
March 24th, 2009
2:47 pm
not.
March 24th, 2009
9:14 pm
fuckin brilliant. keep on!
March 25th, 2009
11:04 am
like it
March 25th, 2009
12:31 pm
Sounds pretty much the same as my job. Assisting photographers. I bow to ego’s and hide my frustration at my sense of achievement over something menial like getting the fussy bastard the right sandwich filling. Then go home tearing myself a new asshole because I let someone like that talk to me like Joseph Fritzl in an orphanage.
Oh, I also have to clean an unholy amount.
March 25th, 2009
2:46 pm
[...] Fashion slave diary, day one [...]
March 29th, 2009
9:51 am
[...] Magazine currently features a series called “Fashion Slave Diary” the first of which is here. It’s an exceedingly interesting look into the world of a fashion internship and I found it a [...]
March 29th, 2009
5:30 pm
Hilarious - check viceland’s jobs section (http://www.viceland.com/issues_uk/jobs.php) where you will see that they are advertising for unpaid interns! You couldn’t make it up…
March 31st, 2009
1:41 pm
Could you all of you please get back to me - I’ m thinking seriously about making a film about this! THANKS.