Complicated Issues Of Internships In The Fashion Industry
More and more students than every are feeling the pressure to accept and partake in unpaid and unsubstantiated work placements and internships, weather that’s part of their academic degree or to bump up their resume in an increasingly competitive and saturated industry. Recent research suggests that over 40% of young people who have carried out an internship have done at least one of them unpaid. Many students and young professionals alike are willing to accept these kind of work placements with the hope to gain a little more insight into the everyday workings of their particular field of interest, but since fashion has housed itself in some of the most expensive cities in the world where the cost of living cannot be supported by free labour it begs the question, does this mean were removing an entire portion of talented students who simply don’t have the means to work in central London, pay for travel and living costs to work for free? The majority (58%) of advertised internships in the fashion industry are in London, where the average cost of living is the highest anywhere in the United Kingdom. .
The intern bridge research firm estimates undergraduate undertake over one million internships per year, half of which are without any pay or subsidies. These increasing numbers have raised concerns in the global media, UK government and academic institutions who teach these students as they feel the biased nature of unpaid internships against low-income students and professionals who simply cannot afford to work without pay is having a serious negative effect on the industry as a whole. “National Union of Students and Intern Aware agreed that it was mutually beneficial for employers to offer fewer paid internships rather than many unpaid internships. They claimed this would minimise socially excluding people who can’t afford to do an unpaid internship and ensure interns receive quality guidance and experience. ” There is also a massive increase with arrangements being made with the employer and the academic institutions where students work for college credits or as part of their overall academic course, this has come under public scrutiny in recent year from both the media and academic institutions alike who question the relevance and importance of such placement to the overall outcome of that students learning experience. One of the few larger corporate employers paying its interns, ASOS, the online fashion retailer claims how their internship programme plays an integral role in recruiting and mentoring talented young people in the industry.
“Paying its interns has ensured ASOS dedicates resources to providing guidance to its interns and has played a part in retaining more than 80 per cent of its interns”. These are just some of the factors related to the growth of unpaid work placements in recent years. After speaking with Claire a recent BA fashion graduate from London College of Fashion and intern at Dazed and Confused Magazine about the struggle to sustain the cost of partaking in unpaid and unsubsidised work placements, something she was doing in the hope of securing a job she said “Coming from a more working class background I defiantly feel at a massive disadvantage when trying to cover my costs when taking on an internship, like the one I am on now with Dazed, compared to somebody from a slightly more well off background. ” she continued “Because we are not being paid for our time while working here, In order to pay for my internship at Dazed I have had to use my entire security deposit from my last flat to pay for my travel costs, rail card and to cover any extra costs in have while working in central London”. “I am traveling from home which is an hour and forty five minute commute in the morning and evening outside of London, I have no choice because of the extremely high cost of rent in the city central or even suburbs, that too makes the whole experience a little more gruelling and certainly difficult from my perspective anyway. ” Two out of five (39%) of people offered an internship have to turn it down for financial reasons.
From an academic standpoint, American philosopher and educator John Dewey’s model of experiential learning can be used to help justify the theoretical purpose of internships. Dewey approach to education was “an instructional approach based on the concept that ideal learning occurs through experience. ” In contrast to the traditional educational format that puts expectations on students to memorise facts in isolation from real life industry experiences and regurgitate those facts in an examination setting, “an experiential learning system is entirely based on the consideration of students’ experiences in order to create activities that apply to these experiences and meet their personal educational needs. ”
In conclusion, Dewey claims that experiential learning helps to aid the preparation of students for future application of the material and expands future experience possibilities for each individual participant. A gain, are we holding back an extremely large portion of eager talented young students with different perspectives, opinions and viewpoints from contributing to the industry purely down to a lack of financially support? The Sutton Trust records around “70, 000 internships are offered each year, and an estimated 10, 000 graduates are in internships six months after graduation, of which a fifth are unpaid. ” Although minimum-wage legislation here in the United Kingdom makes many unpaid internships illegal, the government recently admitted that there had been no recorded prosecutions.
In a poll carried out by YouGov, 40% of those who thought about applying for an internship said that they changed their minds as they were not able to work for free.
The Structure of the Dazed Media Company
Dazed Media is an independent media group working across print, digital and video. The company's editorial and digital includes titles such as AnOther, Another Man, Dazed & Confused, Hunger, the digital creative video platform Nowness along with the company's newest division, Dazed Studio, which creates bespoke brand campaigns for clients across the luxury and lifestyle sectors.
Each subsequent brand under the Dazed Media umbrella have a small editorial team who are solely dedicated to working on content for each of their individual brands. The company then also works with a large portfolio of contributors across editorial, styling, creative direction, photography etc. who are chosen by the main editorial teams for each issue allowing a constant stream of fresh new talent and opinions passing through the magazines keeping content fresh and relevant. Each employee also works freelance in their respected fields alongside working at Dazed Media again allowing the individual to be more exposed to a wider range of experience professionally, ultimately enriching their work for the Dazed Media company. This is common company culture in America especially in the increasingly competitive creative field where creatives choose to work freelance as well as keeping their full-time jobs in order to gain more experience and an edge on their peers. According to a 2014 survey commissioned by Freelancers Union and Elance-oDesk, 14. 3 million Americans choose to work as freelancers as well as keeping their usual nine to five jobs.
Asking one of Another Man’s Fashion Editors, Jordan who has worked at Dazed Media for over 4 years, his opinion on the fact employees across all publications at Dazed Media freelance beside working for the magazine and his response was: “I definitely think the fact everyone here has there one projects their working on on the side of their desks jobs here only makes all the work they do more impactful because your able to merge the two worlds and use your contacts for both, for instance I remember my first year working here (Dazed Media) my editor asked for a list of ‘romantic erotic goth young designers’ at the time I had a friend I was working with to help style her final year show for her MA at Central Saint Martins and the stuff she was making at the time kind of fit the bill so I was able to not only give a friend starting out a platform but also deliver at work, have the freedom to do that is really important I think. ”
The company culture at Another Man and Dazed Media in general was extremely quality driven with a decreased focus on profit but instead the credibility of the work they produce, this is why they have stood the test of time after being founded in 1991. They value the quality of the visuals, editorial pieces and online content they put out, as well as the quality and credibility of their contributors. Everything is on brand and instantly recognisable as coming from a brand under the Dazed Media umbrella. This kind of streamlined approach to business means they must be vigilant in every aspect and area of the business from hiring, where they choose to locate their offices, work environment etc in order to maintain brand quality and consistency throughout all departments. These high expectations were also expected from students undertaking internships at the company. Interns were expected to quickly adapt to the fast paced high level of operating that their full time staff have adopted and failing to do so did not go unnoticed by senior members of staff. The minimum cost of living in London per month while carrying out an unpaid internship has steadily increased in recent years keeping in line with the rise in the cost of living in general across all sectors. The total cost of living in the capital per month was found be estimated at around £1, 100 a very large proportion that going towards rent and utility bills. Many internships offered in the fashion industry which are unpaid do cover the minimum cost of travel expenses, which in central London averages around £153. 00 per month, but even after removing the transport costs, a placement in London still costs a student the very minimum of £1, 019 each month, thats without feeding themselves. An amount that is expected which is simply out of reach for a very large population of young students graduating today.
The figure calculated above also make the assumption that an intern is living in inner London’s cheapest borough for combined rent and if applicable council tax, and can travel to work from there using the cities bus service. Although for anyone who has lived in the city they will know that commuting to some parts of London would involve travelling by bus for several hours per day which would also not be the most efficient mode of transport to choose. Costs would be significantly higher if a monthly travel card for the tube had to also be purchased for the duration of the placement (£153. 60 from Zone 3 to Zone 1. ) Additionally, according to a recent survey carried out by Shury J and the government’s Social Mobility Commission, 80% of people want companies to be required to openly advertise internships and work experience opportunities, rather than organise them informally and for employers to be transparent about payment prior to candidates being their internship. As internships are increasingly seen as a necessity in our industry before a young person can start their career, if they are not paid or at the very least properly subsidised, they will continue to be a barrier to social mobility.
There is also growing concerns that some employers are either blindly unaware that their interns should be paid at the very least minimum wage, or some employers are willingly choosing to exploit the lack of transparency in the law to avoid paying their interns a fair wage to work. Requiring students to work without pay has become a luxury that is, for most students, unsustainable, leaving this compulsory experience far beyond the financial means of a massive portion of educated talented graduates who are consequently unable to find a job after graduating in their desired field. This is especially problematic considering the largely increasing investment already made to pay for their education. According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, after interest rates are raised on student loans to 6. 1% students in England are going to graduate with average debts of £50, 800.
Overall, this experience has offered me the opportunity to gain critical insight into the complicated position that the corporate establishment has within the global fashion industry amidst shifting legal, social, business, and cultural norms and ideas surrounding unpaid work placements and internships in the fashion industry on a whole.