It was my first real job so I had no barometer for what was appropriate-all I knew was that it was a cutthroat industry and ‘paying my dues’ was going to be hell. I guess when you’re trying to get your foot in the door anywhere, it’s easier to shrug off the warning signs. “There were so many red flags I’m surprised I didn’t run for the hills. What were some red flags you noticed early on? I had grown somewhat close to her during my internship and felt guilty about how it all went down-not quite Andy Sachs taking Emily’s trip to Paris, but it was uncomfortable.” When they fired one of the editorial assistants, I got her position. Near the end of my internship, I started picking up the slack on writing articles. was considered lazy, and they made a show of firing people that wouldn’t ‘go the extra mile.’ They once fired an editor who had a pregnant wife at home because he wasn’t working enough unpaid overtime. They made it clear that they only respected people that would devote their whole life to the job. “They rarely hired interns onto the staff, but I was determined and had the post-college inertia to start working crazy overtime to make an impression. Internships were three months long and unpaid (of course), but they skated on the resume-building appeal and the lure of working on set with talent. Even if I said the name of it, you probably wouldn’t recognize it, but it had enough holdover clout from the late 90s to nab some A-list cover stars. “Fresh out of college in 2018, I worked as a video intern at this indie arts, fashion, and culture magazine. How did you land your first fashion magazine job? In a post-#MeToo, post-Vogue intern revolt landscape-has anything really changed? Here is Lizzie’s* story: Īfter our inaugural segment of FHS featuring Gabriel’s experiences working in Fashion PR in the early aughts New York, here is a portrait of a small, independent LA fashion magazine from 2018. From former fashion interns to magazine assistants to models, we’re compiling an oral history of fashion workplace experiences in the series Fashion Horror Stories. Somehow, even in this relatively progressive era we’ve entered, the fashion industry remains one of the last bastions of unchecked and wildly inappropriate behavior. Often dismissed flippantly as part of “paying our dues,” fashion veterans and current employees alike are re-examining their experiences with newfound clarity. With our generation’s waning patience with abusive workplaces and megalomaniac bosses, these stories from our collective past are taking on a new light. If you ask anyone who’s worked in fashion or at a magazine if it’s like The Devil Wears Prada, they will likely tell you that’s a G-rated shadow of their lived experience. The fashion industry is known for its volatile creatives and unshakable self-seriousness.
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