Diary of a Protestor: London Fashion Week

Pay Your Interns: London Fashion Week Protest

I have encountered many fashion dilemmas in my 20 years. Are sequin wellies a good idea (yes) how many novelty jumpers is too many novelty jumpers, and what do you wear in the snow when all you own are dresses and skirts? But on Friday I was faced with a fashion first:  how to accessorise a t-shirt emblazoned with the words ‘PAY YOUR INTERNS’ that I would be wearing to London Fashion Week.

On Friday morning as fashionistas slipped on their stilettos for the start of fashion week, I pulled on my t-shirt and headed to the University of the Arts London’s Students Union. I was meeting up with the team there that had been working for days packing ‘PAY YOUR INTERNS’ tote bags with information for interns.

“I’d say it’s probably the first time that London Fashion Week goody bags have contained information about National Minimum Wage Legislation…” said Fairooz, Culture and Diversity Officer at SUARTS, as we grabbed armfuls of bags and ran for the bus to Somerset House.

As we stepped off the bus and approached the London Fashion Week flags flapping in the breeze, I began to feel incredibly conscious of the slogan printed across my chest. ‘Unpaid internships’ and ‘fashion’ are phrases that seem to roll off the tongue together in the same breath. Yet to question the system, and to raise the question right in the face of the industry like this at London Fashion Week… Well…

My ears rang with the clicking of heels and the silence of stares.

“This is a bit scary, isn’t it?” I said to Fairooz as we approached the entrance.

There was little time for fear though as we gathered with Intern Aware and the rest of the protestors and headed together through the stone archways. We assembled in the courtyard and watched as the faces turned.

Then a moment later: “are you giving out those bags?” and, “Pay your interns. Yes. I completely agree,” and we were off.

Throughout the morning we handed out tote bags and talked to hundreds of people about the campaign. Most people were overwhelmingly supportive. I felt a rush of excitement watching the bags disappear with people into the crowd, our message carried on their arms.

When I first came to London Fashion Week it was as an eager unpaid intern. It is safe to say I am somewhat jaded now, and that coming back this time felt very different.

Despite my initial fear on turning up at London Fashion Week dressed like I was, I am not really scared. As protestors we may have been outnumbered by bloggers, editors and buyers who were far more fashionable than us, but I know that the messages on our baggy white t-shirts were right. And I know that we were representing thousands of people who feel the same way, people who dream of working in industries like fashion but just don’t have the means to work for months at a time without a wage. People who are no less determined or talented than those who get the breaks, but who just can’t afford the price of a future in fashion.

There may be a way to go but I am hopeful that one day we won’t need to wear these t-shirts because interns will get a wage, not just because it’s the law, or because it makes long term business sense for companies to have the widest possible pool of talent to choose from, but because it is right.

Suddenly some stilettos and stares seem a lot less frightening when you realise you are right, and you are not alone.

Happy Halloween

Tonight is the only night of the year when it is OK for children to mug their neighbours for sweets and when you can pass a werewolf in the street and not bat an eyelid. The pumpkins are glowing and the fireworks are fizzing: Happy Halloween.

Instead of joining the festivities I am sat at my 'desk' (in other words the kitchen table that I have claimed for my own in my shared flat) surrounded by piles of notes, elbow deep in research for my university final major project. You think ghosts and goblins are scary? This is scary.

At the moment thinking about my final project feels like standing at the bottom of a mountain in a pair of flipflops. But even scarier than the thought of how I will climb over all this work is the thought of what I will do when it is over. After three years of study I will have come to the end of what has at times felt like a trek, but really it has just been the warm-up lap before a marathon.

When I graduate I need to get a job, but the more I hear about graduate unemployment the more this prospect terrifies me. Especially when I talk to more and more young graduates who are working for free or who have had to give up on their dreams (and careers that they have trained for) because they can't afford to not to get paid for their time. This is why I am continuing to investigate and campaign against unpaid internships: because I know the thought of graduating and finding a job sends shivers up the spines of most young people, and because I don't think it is fair that wealth should be the real USP that you need to get ahead.

I am going to a fancy dress Halloween party on Friday and had been struggling with costume ideas. I now know what I'm going to go as. An unemployed graduate.

Libby

Recent writing (and how to deal with haters who hate)

My blog page on the Huffington Post

Me on the front page of the Huffington Post

"I Want to be a Journalist, But I Can't Afford to Work for Free": My article on the Huffington Post

It has been a busy few weeks in Libbyland. Last week I was on the front page of the Huffington Post and on Monday an article by me went up on the Guardian student website. 

Let me start from the beginning and with the Huffington Post. Recently I have been involved with a national campaign to end unpaid internships, and a campaign at my university (University of the Arts London) branded 'The Devil Pays Nada'. I have done seven unpaid internships and have used my student loan to support myself whilst working for free. This year, however, I am starting my final year at university, which also means the final year of my student loan. I will soon no longer be able to afford to work for free, and I don't think that I should have to. 

Last week I went to my university's fresher's fair to man the 'Devil Pays Nada' stand and talk to students about the campaign. Unpaid work experience is something that pretty much everyone at my university will either have done or be expected to do. Within a few hours I had spoken to hundreds of students and as a team we had 700 names signed up to the campaign by the end of the day. 

Although the campaign is something I believe in, I had been unsure about how public to be about my involvement. It is probably obvious why I was anxious: I want to get a job so didn't want to cut off opportunities for myself. I also feel very lucky to have had the experiences that I have had on my internships; I didn't want to seem ungrateful. But working for free is still something that I believe is wrong and cuts off opportunities for so many people.

I eventually decided that my hesitations were the exact reasons why I should speak out, and publicly. I want to be a journalist and for me one of the main purposes of journalism is to say the things that aren't being said. I may not want to be a political journalist or a war correspondent but I still think that with any form of broadcasting it still comes with a certain amount of responsibility. I want to use my voice in the best way that I can, so why was I not prepared to practice what I preach and speak out about an issue that directly affects me?

I wrote 'I Want to be a Journalist, But I Can't Afford to Work for Free' and pitched it to the Huffington Post. It went live on the site and made it to their front page last week. I now have a regular blogger's page where I will be able to post more articles in the future.

In the meantime I had also pitched an article to the Guardian student site which went up on the website yesterday. The article is very different in subject matter to my Huff Post piece, but similar in its aim. I wanted to speak openly about my experiences of university and to discuss whether students are always honest about 'the best days of our lives'. A few years ago I posted about my experiences applying to the London College of Fashion and have since then received a large number of emails from prospective students asking for advice about the LCF application process. I am always more than happy to respond, but sometimes feel somewhat dishonest when I do.

Since I wrote my post about applying to LCF, a lot has changed. The reality is that university has not been the experience that I had dreamt of. At the end of my first year I was actually very close to dropping out. I didn't really talk about the problems that I had encountered because coming to university was a decision I had made, and a decision I had been so sure of. I didn't want to admit to myself, let alone to anyone else, that I had found my time there difficult. 

This is my final year at LCF and I thought it was time to be honest about my time here. The reality is, although it has been incredibly difficult at times, if I was given the chance to do it all again I would still make the same decisions.  For a long time I worried whether coming to university had been the right decision. I seriously considered changing courses. But now I have come to realise that it was my attitude, not my course, that I needed to change. The troubles I encountered at university have made me more independent, have opened my mind to different opportunities and have made me the person I am today.

Read my articles following the links below:

Libby in the Huffington Post

Libby in the Guardian

Through writing these articles I have learnt more about the way I want to use my voice in the future. But I have also learnt another valuable lesson (even if it is one I hadn't necessarily signed up to): how to deal with internet hate. 

Overall I have been incredibly happy with the responses to my Huffington Post article. Firstly I never expected it to make it onto the front page. Then I was touched by the support from my coursemates, friends, family, lecturers and other interns like me. But as soon as it went online the inevitable 'haters' came out of the woodwork too. 

One main criticism was that I wrote an article about unpaid internships on a website that does not pay me for my work. I can understand this point of view but I still think it is missing the point. I think of my blog on the Huffington Post in a similar way to this blog: I own the copyright to my work and don't get paid. But equally I was writing about a campaign so just want to spread the word of the campaign in any way possible. My mum summed it up well: "How do you think the suffragettes got the vote? By voting? No. Sometimes you have to do the things you would rather not in order to be heard." 

On both articles there have also been the few hurtful comments thrown in for good measure. It is so easy to post an anonymous comment that this is an issue that anyone posting online content will no doubt be familiar with. Anyone can log onto a computer and tap away some words and not think that the person they are sending them to is a real, normal person who will read them and feel so hurt that they sit and eat a fish finger sandwich whilst feeling utterly miserable, until their friends and family tell them not to worry and they eventually cheer up again. (I speak from personal experience). 

I am only human so of course I read hurtful comments and take them personally. But this experience has also taught me that internet hate is just part of being a modern journalist, it is part of the internet and it is not something to carry with you into the real world. I want to be a writer and I value constructive criticism, but at the end of the day I write because it is something I want to do, so feeling confident in what I have written myself should be the most important thing. And as much as I want this to be my career, it is still just a job. As long as my mum and my friends are proud of me and think I'm fab, then that is all that really matters. 

And as they say: 'haters gonna hate'. And there's not much you can do about it, except not let it wipe the smile off your face.

Libby