We Need to Talk About Unpaid Fashion Internships
Ok, I’ve wanted to write about unpaid fashion internships for a very long time. I avoided this topic for fear of my opinions impacting my chances of getting a job. However, I honestly believe that if a company does not at least respect my point of view on this subject, they are probably not the company for me. Also, my opinion may not be the same as yours, so I would love to hear what you have to say about this controversial topic. I don’t think I hold the truth of what’s right or wrong, but the whole fashion internship scene always bothered me a little — maybe a lot. So let’s go.
Illegal Unpaid Internships
What made me decide to finally talk about unpaid fashion internships was some recent news I received. A fashion company that I knew was scamming employees, finally lost a lawsuit filed by a former intern, which asked to stay anonymous. The well-known fashion company, which I am not mentioning the name for my own protection, scammed the former intern by lying about her right to minimum wage and not signing any contract with the employee. During the one year working there, the former intern who was not from the UK, and therefore not familiar with the country’s laws, was not paid a penny. The employee was no longer a student, thus the lack of contract and payment were considered illegal. She was actually a woman with a prestigious Master’s degree from the UK and years of full-time experience in her home country. Despite her qualifications, she settled for an unpaid internship, as this was the only way to make it into the European fashion industry
I was happy for the former intern for getting her justice, but let’s be honest here: she may have big problems finding jobs whenever she needs one again. Companies often do not want to hire someone who sued a previous employer, even if the person is not in the wrong. The truth is that most of us are scared of the consequences of questioning companies' working ethics. Unfortunately, this is how companies get away with illegal unpaid fashion internships. In the UK, these are an issue. According to a Newsweek investigation, illegal unpaid internships are still being advertised online without any consequence for the companies. In the UK, the number of unpaid internships is staggering. According to research done by the social mobility charity the Sutton Trust, most internships in retail, the arts, and media are unpaid.
Legal Unpaid Internships
But are all unpaid internships illegal? There are many countries, including the UK, that allow unpaid internships if they follow the nation's rules. So these legal unpaid internships are not an issue then? Well, at first, unpaid internships can make complete sense. In theory, companies are hiring a person who is not yet fully qualified and who will learn with the practice. Since the company will have to spend on training and this employee will be less productive than someone with experience, you could argue that it makes sense to not offer any payment. After all, the intern is the one getting something from this agreement: experience. In theory, this experience will then open doors for these interns, and give them access to paid jobs because now they have gathered experience and become qualified employees. Great right? Well, this is the theory. Unfortunately, in practice, there are many issues with this idea.
First, even if a company pays its intern, it will pay less than what it would pay for a full-time employee. This can change a lot depending on countries’ laws, but usually, governments already offer an advantage in hiring interns, such as paying less to no taxes at all for that employee. So even if a company paid minimum wage to their interns, they would still cost less than the full-time employee.
Second, the justification that interns are not paid because they have “less experience” is straightforward bullshit. Do you know why? I and many other international Master’s students at the London College of Fashion had full-time experience for years before moving to the UK. However, we had to settle for internships, most of them unpaid, because experience from countries outside Europe and the US is not considered experience. If you didn’t work in these regions, your years of full-time experience simply do not exist and you will have to start over as an intern - probably an unpaid one. And companies know that and take full advantage of it. This allows companies to hire extremely qualified people for free.
Many companies even use the visa as an excuse — “we will need a visa for you to stay here and that is very expensive so we can’t pay you”. I had a friend who offered to pay for the “expensive work visa” in the UK, which has one of the most expensive work visas in the world, and you know how much it is? Around £1,000 per year, which is less than what minimum wage workers should make in a month in the country. And if you think a European passport will make a difference because they won’t have to pay for the Visa, forget about it. If your CV does not have Europe, United States, or if we stretch Australia in it: you never worked before.
The Classism of Unpaid Internships
Now third and most importantly — being able to intern for free is a PRIVILEGE. Not everyone can rely on their family to pay their bills. When I was younger I would always say I didn’t mind working for free if that would open doors for me in the future, and I did intern for free for a short period when I was 16. But with my mindset of today, I don’t think I would feel very comfortable doing it. Not because I mind the work, but because if I do accept an unpaid position, I will be feeding into the classism of the fashion industry — and maybe I wouldn’t even have an option because is either that or not making it in the industry. Follow my logic:
If you have to intern for free to have access to higher positions in fashion, you only have people who can afford to work for free doing it and making in the industry. That ends up making those who don’t have the option of working unpaid, because their families can’t support them or they don’t want to get into debt, not being able to enter the industry. Many of these students end up going to retail jobs, even though that was not their initial plan, so they can receive for their work. This model creates an extremely elitist industry where those who come from financially secure families have a higher chance of being successful.
Don’t believe in me? Let’s check the data then. A report based on two years of research by students Draven Peña, Alexa Ream, and Elie Fermann and overseen by Liz Ricketts of The OR Foundation, revealed that “on average a Fashion Design Student at the University of Cincinnati pays $37,607.50 for the expenses related to their internship experiences.” Part of the study was focused on the University of Cincinnati, but most of it is more broadly applicable to fashion interns studying anywhere in the US. The research also revealed that 77.8% of respondents, who are all fashion interns, said they received financial assistance from their families to be able to intern. As the report stated:
“What are low-income and working-class interns to do when these resources are not available to them? The answer is that they are forced to either take out loans, adding to the debt they will likely carry with them throughout adulthood, or they are forced to forgo the opportunity all together.”
Another study, this one made in the UK, showed that 48% of the employers who offer internships admit to offering them unpaid. In London, where most of the fashion jobs are, data shows that unpaid internships cost more than £1,000 per month to the interns, and this number doesn’t even include transport costs.
Unpaid Internships May Not Even Pay Back
But disregarding the whole classism and excluding a large portion of the population from growing in the fashion industry, unpaid internships are great because they open so many doors right?
Well, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers, paid internships lead to full-time jobs 65% of the time, while unpaid internships only 39% of the time. Many of these unpaid opportunities consist of menial tasks that don’t provide any real job training. It’s only free labour. Of course, we can’t say all unpaid internships are not worth it. I met people who worked for free for a while and their unpaid internships opened doors for them. I recognize that unpaid internships are the best way to climb in the industry when you are fresh from university, but should it be?
This Is a Government Responsibility
There are many countries such as Italy and Spain, where legal unpaid internships do not exist. Then you have other countries such as the US and the UK where the laws are too broad and open space for this type of employment. Now and then, we have a small scandal of a well-known company getting involved in a lawsuit related to illegal unpaid internships, but the industry does not seem to change. The truth is that, if the governments allow unpaid internships to continue, they will continue. Governments need to be more strict with unpaid internship laws — or, in my opinion, even abolish them as a whole. Few companies will be open to spending more money to fight classism in the industry, even though they are also losing a lot by not doing it.
Whenever a company decides to keep using unpaid labour, they also choose to don’t have a diverse team. Fashion companies that keep hiring unpaid interns are also missing the chance to work with a whole group of talented people who may have a different perspective to contribute, just because they can’t afford to work for free. If you only select people with a specific financial background, you will limit the profile of your workforce. As TFL perfectly put it:
“This is likely part of why it has taken (and continues to take) so long for the fashion industry to truly acknowledge the need for representation and coverage of individuals that do not directly mirror those inside of its small circle, and also why fashion publications and brands consistently offend — either by way of cultural faux pas or an overwhelming sense of exclusion — those outside of its immediate ranks.”
The unpaid internship problem is not limited to the fashion industry, but oh boy the fashion industry has a big unpaid internship problem. In some countries, it is almost impossible to get an opportunity in fashion if you don’t first work for free.
And I keep asking myself: what is the point of all these fashion brands talking about inclusivity, diversity, and fair trade while they don’t even pay their own teams?
So what is your opinion about unpaid internships?
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