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What You Don’t Learn In Fashion School!
By admins | December 4, 2008
Or, what we wish we knew before working in the fashion industry?
One day some of us were chatting (over Peartinis, of course) and began reminiscing about school and fashion classes. Rather quickly the conversation turned to all the things nobody ever prepared us for, before entering the fashion industry. So here we have compiled an informal list of all the things we wish we’d known. We’d love to hear your own experiences, whatever your profession.
- Money or lack thereof was the number one issue. Whether starting your own company or working for “the man”, the starting salaries are pitiful. Sure, eventually you make more but compared to other Manhattan professionals for our talent, education, and long work hours, the pay is borderline ridiculous. We wish somebody had mentioned the average recent grad salary (35kish) and the average NYC rent ($2,500) is not even close to doable! More than one designer has expressed this sentiment, “I wish I’d gone into apparel sales instead,” and they were only half joking.
- Working conditions in the garment center are sub-par! It may sound nit-picky but it is shocking, especially for those who moved from elsewhere to NYC. Even at the best companies, mice can run amok and bathroom conditions deserve a Dateline expose. There is also a bizarre relationship with technology, a small family run company can have the newest Macs and best programs while a certain $4 billion company uses faxes to send techpacks. Then there is the food issue which boils down to, nobody eats! Not just the fact that it can be very Devil Wears Prada around here, but even if you want to eat you can’t. Meetings and fittings are often scheduled back to back throughout the day with no breaks. If on occasion you do sneak out to eat, when you return you will often be greeted with a sigh, a glance at the clock, and a slow head to toe scrutiny. Which for those not in the business translates to: eating again?, shouldn’t you be working?, and I can see you expanding before my eyes!
- The insane hours you will work and how they will be wasted. This depends on the company and job of course, but for all of us the 40hr work week is a fantasy. In school you may prepare to spend your day draping and cutting patterns; instead, your time is spent hunched over excel spreadsheets. Or maybe you thought you’d be developing tons of original graphics and creating new logos or innovative artwork but instead, spend most of your time “tweaking” the same artwork for your boss into a hundred different variations. Maybe you thought you’d be designing fabulous new creations (possibly hand sketching) and building a hot new line, but instead you spend hours trapped in never ending bureaucratic “red-tape” meetings and line reviews!
- Competition is fierce in every category and at every level. Now anybody going into fashion knows that this is a highly desired and competitive field. For every job in WWD hundreds of resumes are received, so we were prepared to compete for a job. However, the competitiveness in the workplace was astounding. Bosses keeping employees down because they are threatened by them, co-workers stabbing each-other in the back, assistants sabotaging their supervisors to the higher-ups. For many, work must be hidden or password protected from fellow employees. The worst is when the environment is so intense that nobody dares take a day off, or vacation, or God forbid get pregnant because someone is waiting to swoop in and steal your job at a moment’s notice! The workplace is often tension-filled with competition and suspicion (or maybe everyone’s just hungry)!
Now before all you fashion students dropout, these examples are not the full story of what life is like working in fashion. These are just the gritty details left out of your design school syllabus. So please take this rant with a grain of salt and remember you are in this field because of a talent and passion you have and everything else can be managed.
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Topics: about, designers, fashion, fashion industry, garment center, rant | 22 Comments » 
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December 4th, 2008 at 7:16 am
[...] 39thandbroadway.com – The nitty, gritty, down and dirty, details of working in the fashion industry that nobody prepares you for! [...]
December 4th, 2008 at 10:04 am
[...] 39thandbroadway.com – The nitty, gritty, down and dirty, details of working in the fashion industry that nobody prepares you for! [...]
December 4th, 2008 at 11:43 am
So glad I read this! I’m contemplating getting my master’s in Fashion Design and I want the real scoop before I jump in head first!
December 4th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
Wow! Frightening but so true! I had to laugh at the absurdity of this industry. Thanks.
December 4th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
Truer words were never spoken! This is right on! So sad, but unfortunately, very, very true.
December 4th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
[...] 39thandbroadway.com – The nitty, gritty, down and dirty, details of working in the fashion industry that nobody prepares you for! [...]
December 4th, 2008 at 8:56 pm
Thanks for writing this for all of us who are getting started at the fashion industry.
I’m just a mid-time fashion student but is good to know all this to get use to how things really work.
December 4th, 2008 at 9:43 pm
Thanks for all the feedback! Hope we haven’t scarred anyone but sometimes the truth hurts :-))
December 5th, 2008 at 10:34 am
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December 5th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
[...] The truth about working in the fashion industry [...]
December 5th, 2008 at 8:00 pm
[...] 39thandbroadway.com – The nitty, gritty, down and dirty, details of working in the fashion industry that nobody prepares you for! [...]
December 6th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
[...] 39thandbroadway.com – The nitty, gritty, down and dirty, details of working in the fashion industry that nobody prepares you for! [...]
December 7th, 2008 at 1:35 am
ha, i wish i knew going to school for fashion marketing and having a great internship for experience still wouldn’t be enough to get an entry-level job in this economy! working retail and saving money for the big move to the city is going to take forever! hmm, maybe i need to apply for a reality tv show like project runway or stylista…
December 7th, 2008 at 3:54 am
Scary! Maybe I’ll just stick to blogging ;)
December 8th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
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December 12th, 2008 at 4:00 am
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December 15th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Your list is very spot on! I’m really surprised though by the money issue! It’s so insane the pennies one makes from an entry level fashion job! Even some of the highly regarded titles don’t pay enough to sustain the image and lifestyle this industry delivers it’s all quite paradoxical which makes me believe it really is an industry for the moneyed.
December 27th, 2008 at 1:32 am
[...] 39thandbroadway.com is a blog written by fashion insiders working in the garment district. Below is an excerpt from What You Don’t Learn in Fashion School: [...]
December 27th, 2008 at 7:27 am
[...] If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!This blog is devoted to fashion insiders who work in the industry and need a place to gossip, vent and network. Fashion Design School Tips [...]
March 4th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
[...] reasons we love working in fashion. Considering how often we bitch and moan about all the “issues” in our industry, we thought we’d throw in some positive as well. For many of us, [...]
March 26th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
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April 30th, 2009 at 12:22 am
[...] to tell you what you will really encounter when working in fashion. Here are some of my favorites: What You Don’t Learn in Fashion School A Day In The Life Of A NYC Fashion Designer Fashion [...]