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.

Amazing Grace?

“I think there are a lot of interns that feel very entitled. 

They think we owe them something.”

Grace Coddington was my hero until she said those words at New York Fashion Week. Creative director of US Vogue, she is idolised by fashion students the world over and I was no exception. I admired her work and her attitude and I chiseled my way diligently through her brick of an autobiography.

Grace’s words echo the widespread notion that it is OK to mistreat someone because they are young and desperate for experience. Although internships can be great experiences, and mine have certainly given me an insight into the industry that I wouldn’t have had otherwise, they are exclusive and often exploitative.

I understand that the fashion industry is an extremely competitive one where experience is valuable, but I am tired of being told that to question the internship system is to feel entitled.

But maybe Grace is right, because I do feel certain entitlements.

I feel entitled to a day’s pay for a day’s work, just like everyone else.

I feel entitled to the same opportunities and access to the industry that editors like Grace had. One in five young people today have done an internship, compared to 2% of people who were my age 30 or 40 years ago. We are continually told that unpaid internships are a right of passage, but the reality is they are a relatively recent phenomenon, and not necessarily something experienced by those telling us to work for free.

I feel entitled to the same opportunities as people with wealthy parents who can financially support them for months at a time whilst they intern for free.

I feel entitled to fair access to experiences and to be judged on my abilities, not on my connections or my background.

I feel entitled to fair treatment, and I feel entitled to be known by my name, not just as ‘the intern’.

And why shouldn’t I be? Why shouldn’t interns be entitled to their basic rights?

As I read Grace Coddington’s words I felt like a phoney dressed as an elf had just told me that Father Christmas doesn’t exist. And then proceeded to slap me. Maybe it’s time to find a new hero and a new dream.

Or maybe I need to be the heroine of my own story. A better story.  

On Friday I will be raising awareness about the widespread use and mistreatment of unpaid interns in the fashion industry by demonstrating at London Fashion Week with SUARTS, NUS and Intern Aware. We will be representing interns and those who are shut out of opportunities because they cannot afford to work for free. Join us at 9:30am at Somerset House, or if you cannot be there in person, show your support online:

@LibbyLovePink @InternAware @SUARTS @nusuk #payinterns #devilpaysnada

Libby

This is my first week working at Intern Aware

Why I joined Intern Aware

As soon as I decided that I wanted to be a journalist I realised two things. One: I would need to be in London. Two: I would need to work for free. I knew that internships would be essential for my CV, I knew these would mainly take place in London, and I knew I would probably not be paid for my time.

I began my internship story at 16. Using the money I had saved from my part-time job, I travelled to London and stayed with friends of friends whose homes I couch surfed between. I realise I was very fortunate – not everyone is so lucky and there is no way I could have afforded to stay in London otherwise or to pay the fare for the two hour commute from my hometown. At the weekends I got the train back to Dorset so I could keep up my Saturday job, heading back again on Sundays.

When I applied to university there was only one place for me: London. I saw the student loan that would come with studying there as my only way of affording to live there and to do more internships (because one apparently is not enough – I was being told that in order to stand out I would have to do more and more of these placements).

I am now in my final year of university. When I graduate I will need a full-time job, and it goes without saying that in order to pay my bills and afford to eat, it will have to be paid. Yet I am astounded by the amount of unpaid roles I see advertised in my industry, and by the assumption that if you really want to succeed, you should be prepared to work for free. It has been an eye opening experience. I have always worked hard, first at school, then on my internships and finally at university. I believed that hard work was the key to success, but I have come to see that in the current system wealth, in fact, is often the most important factor on your CV.

Some of my placements I would count as work experience, and for these I wouldn’t expect to be paid. Especially when I was 16 and just starting out, these placements were my way to observe what goes on behind the doors of a newspaper or magazine. But on a lot of my placements I was doing real work that contributed to a profit making company, work that a paid employee would have to do if the interns weren’t there. The more interns I speak to (because nearly all of my friends and peers have done unpaid internships), the more stories I hear of unpaid interns keeping industries running.

Internships have been my gateway into a world I would have had absolutely no access to otherwise. A country girl from Dorset doesn’t get to interview Rupert Everett and attend London Fashion Week by staying at home where the job opportunities are close to zero.

I decided to join Intern Aware’s campaign to try and give young people the experiences I have had regardless of their background, and in the hope that in the future hard-working graduates will not be asked to work for free. 

Libby 

http://www.internaware.org/2013/01/07/why-im-campaigning-for-fair-internships/

All I Want for Christmas is a Job that Pays

Dear Father Christmas,

When I wake up on Christmas morning I will not be looking for any packages under the tree. All I want for Christmas is a job that pays.

I value my future more than any gift tied up with paper and ribbon. But is it wrong that I want to feel valued too? I have been good this year. I have worked hard; both at university and on the internships I have done in the hope that they will get me ahead in my career. But I have never been paid for my time, I am tired, and I cannot afford to work for free anymore.

I am told that if I want a successful career internships are the passport into the land of the employed. My CV should be full of them, they say. I am also told that I should not expect to be paid, even after I graduate. Does that mean I should not expect to eat or pay my rent either? Because without a wage how can I afford to live?

The only Christmas present I want this year is the knowledge that 2013 will bring me closer to my future, and that I will not be held back by my inability to work for free. I want to have the same opportunities as those with wealth to support them and send them on their way. I want to apply for a job where the criteria will be my skills, not the number of places I have interned, or effectively the number of months I have managed to scrape by on zero income.

I want to see real graduate jobs instead of six-month ‘internships’ that I could never afford to do. I want to see the government support young people like me by enforcing the National Minimum Wage laws they created that say workers, interns included, are entitled to a wage. In the vast majority of cases unpaid internships are illegal yet they are as abundant as glitter at Christmas.

I understand that times are tough and jobs are scarce, but the current system of unpaid internships set only the rich up to succeed. Does that mean I deserve to fail?

It may sound like I am asking for a lot but it doesn’t really require Christmas magic for my wish to come true. All it needs is the government and employers to accept their moral responsibility and the law.

Could 2013 be the year that my dream becomes a reality?

Yours hopefully,

The Unpaid Intern

P.S I sincerely hope your workers are paid a decent wage. Because we interns are like elves; they may not be as glamorous as Santa Claus, but Christmas would fall apart without them.

Coming home for Christmas

The sky is the colour of wet tarmac as the train sighs and pulls out of Waterloo. The towers of Battersea power station pierce the low fog that rolls as silently as a shadow across the city. A jigsaw of terraced houses and a web of streets flash past the window, then the train shrugs off the final suburbs and bursts into countryside. A forever of fields and sky.

I am sitting on the 11:20 train from London in a Christmas jumper with reindeers leaping across my chest and snowflakes falling from my shoulders. It is the 20^th of December, five days until Christmas.

My suitcases are heavy with presents and jumpers. A roll of gold wrapping paper pokes out of the corner of one bag.

It has been a long term. When I started the first week of my final year at university I was still shaky with the memories of glandular fever. I realised it had been nearly six months since I was last in class and working at my full capacity.

September was only four months ago but so much has happened. Perhaps most notably I have gone from being an unpaid intern to becoming a campaigner for fairer internships. In January I will start a new job at Intern Aware, the campaign I have been involved with for the past few months. My work so far has taken me to the Houses of Parliament and seen my name in the Huffington Post, the Guardian, the Independent and the Observer. I have met some incredibly interesting people and feel fulfilled doing something I believe in. The more people I talk to and the more campaign work I do the stronger I feel about this issue: it is not fair that young people are excluded from jobs just because they cannot afford to work for free. I am looking forward to an exciting 2013: joining Intern Aware in January and graduating in the summer.

But for now I am heading to the Dorset countryside and to the small town where my family will be waiting for me behind a wreath bedecked front door. As I sit on the train I can nearly smell the pine of the Christmas tree and feel the warmth of the Aga. I think of my mum, my sister and my step-dad and my heart glows like a street full of Christmas lights.

I may be looking forward to 2013 and getting my teeth stuck into a new job and my final university project, but now it is time to pause. Christmas is family time.

I am coming home.

Libby

Busy Libby

www.libbypage.info

I’ve been busy. So busy that this blog has become neglected and when I clicked onto my website today I realised it was not up to date with all the things I have been doing. So I have given it a bit of a makeover (although it's always a work in progress).

I have been putting all my time and energy into my final project for university, which is a film I am making about unpaid internships in the fashion industry. Along the way I have met and interviewed some interesting people, attended protests, given official evidence at a government hearing and been interviewed myself, like for today's article in the Observer about the class divide created by unpaid internships. To read more about what I have been up to, have a look at the blog I have been keeping: http://itpaystopay.wordpress.com/.

If you have two minutes (well two minutes and 57 seconds to be precise) have a look at the short film I have made, a film that involved hours spent playing with Playmobil, Barbies and Lego as I made my own stop motion animation...

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

Why I am not watching The Work Experience

It is very rare that I get angry. But my blood is boiling. Last night I saw an advert for The Work Experience on E4, a mock sitcom that follows the experiences of two interns in a fashion PR agency. Unbeknown to the interns the PR agency is a set-up and the tasks they are asked to perform (exposing an illegal sweatshop and collecting a celebrity’s sperm sample being two examples) are not real tasks. I find the whole concept for the programme, which launches tonight, not just tasteless, but offensive.

The Work Experience may be a ‘mockumentary’, but this is real. I am a final year fashion journalism student and have done seven work experience placements, ranging from national newspapers and magazines to a local paper in London. I feel grateful for the experiences I have had and for the insight they have given me into the industry I want to work in, but there have been moments when my eagerness has been tested. I am still searching to find exactly what I learnt from delivering personal dry cleaning, doing personal ironing or steaming clothes for nine hours without a break. But despite the errands I have been asked to undertake on work experience I feel lucky: my experiences are nothing compared to the horror stories that I have heard from my peers. You do the job because you want a job, and the reality is that there isn’t much you wouldn’t do. The real rub comes when you remember that you are not even being paid.

Exploitation of young people in the fashion industry is endemic, yet it is an issue that remains largely unchallenged. Who wants to be the ‘work experience’ (as we are referred to) who complained? I certainly didn’t think that it would be me.

That was until I remembered that journalism is about having a voice. Instead of investigating a real issue within its own industry The Work Experience makes a cheap joke out of a serious situation. And the only reason it gets away with it is that the group of people it represents have no way of retaliating – they have no voice. But I am ‘the work experience’, and I am not laughing.

At the end of the programme, and after the degrading tasks the interns perform, the set-up is revealed and the lucky pair are offered a month’s work experience placement at a real fashion PR agency. At least the placement is paid, but it makes me wonder what lengths I am expected to go to as a young person trying to make a career for myself. Everyone has to start from the bottom, but where does experience end and exploitation begin?

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