The Devil Wears Prada is for real
The UK fashion industry is rife with harassment, abuse, low pay, and nepotism, according to a new survey
“No one should have to work for free”, says hairdresser Sam McKnight, speaking about the findings of the Bectu union’s Fashion UK: The State of the Sector report, which features eye-opening details about poor working conditions for fashion creatives in the UK. And yet, according to the report, this practice is only all too common in the fashion industry.
The UK fashion and textile industry contributes an estimated £62 billion to the UK economy, generating tax revenues of about £21 billion, and supports more than 800,000 jobs, according to the British Fashion Council. Profits are reportedly set to grow by five per cent in the industry over the next year. However, for those working in the fashion industry, insecurity, long hours, low – or no – pay, bullying, harassment and nepotism are widespread.
Fashion UK, which is a relatively new branch of the Bectu union, is Britain's first and only trade union to represent both freelance and employed fashion creatives. Its report is based on a survey of 500 people working in these roles, and it lays bare the grim reality for fashion creatives including stylists, hair and make-up artists, fashion and accessories designers, nail technicians, photographers, tailors and their assistants.
Poor pay
On pay, the survey found:
Almost 8 in 10 fashion creatives have felt pressured to work for free, and more than a third have to supplement their income with non-fashion work.
Nearly a quarter said that they work eleven or more hours as a regular working day
Half (51 per cent) of fashion creatives are earning under £30,000 a year before tax. For comparison, the average salary in London is £44,370.
“As a photographer working in fashion, you are expected to spend a lot of money every season on unpaid editorial work that often doesn’t bring new commercial work”, said one respondent. “It’s like a Ponzi scheme, bankrolling and supporting these powerful magazines”.
“It’s like a Ponzi scheme” - Anonymous photographer
Fashion creatives from Black and minority ethnic backgrounds were more likely to be in low-paid work and to have experienced workplace discrimination than their white counterparts.
Abusive working conditions
It seems that the culture of abuse depicted in the Devil Wears Prada is alive and well in the UK fashion industry. “Abusive ways of… working are so normalised that it’s rarely questioned by the companies I freelance for, but it has really taken its toll”, said one freelance producer. “The wealth and power disparities within fashion are getting more extreme and the things that people are able to ‘get away with’ feels like it will get more and more. I strongly feel that this culture needs to change”.
“My boss left me locked in apartment for two days” - Anonymous assistant
Fashion creatives spoke about sexual harassment, having objects thrown at them, and being verbally abused by senior colleagues, managers and talent. One celebrity stylist said, “When I was an assistant, my boss left me locked in an apartment for two days because the celebrity we had been shooting talked to me more than they did him”.
Key findings on working conditions include:
83 per cent of survey respondents said that behaviours that would be considered toxic and inappropriate in public life are often tolerated in the fashion industry.
Just 20 per cent of survey respondents said that they considered the fashion industry to be an inclusive place to work
One in three (30 per cent) said they have felt discriminated against at work and a quarter (24%) have experienced harassment, bullying or discrimination at work during the past year.
With so many freelancers working in the industry, respondents reported an almost total lack of formal reporting mechanisms. Instead, staff rely upon word of mouth and Whatsapp groups to inform against perpetrators of abuse. Fashion UK is now working on a guide to good practice for employers and creatives to standardise hiring practices, and terms and conditions. It will also help inform creatives about how to check their contract and terms, and chase payments.
“Underpaid, under-respected and have no-one to tell this to because HR is in the pocket of the CEO, who is our boss.” - Anonymous senior creative assistant
“It is very clear that fashion has a culture problem,” said Philippa Childs, the head of Bectu. “From workers facing psychological abuse and unreasonable demands, to excessive hours and no or little pay, no one should have to put up with these conditions to ‘make it’ in an industry”.
This report reveals in stark terms what luxury and fashion insiders have always known about the industry - that employment within it is an unregulated Wild West, where abuse goes unpunished and ignored. Highlighting these injustices is partly why we started Dark Luxury. If we want to have a better fashion industry, with fairer working conditions and pay, and for perpetrators of workplace abuse to be held to account, then it’s time for workers to get organised with unions such as Fashion UK.
Have you experienced abuse or bad behaviour in the UK’s luxury fashion industry? Drop us a line or contact us via encrypted messaging service Signal at conradqh.14 and we’ll look into your story.
Dark Luxury is investigating working conditions for employees in the luxury business. Check out these stories and consider becoming a subscriber or paying for an annual subscription to support our work:
News round-up
Burberry is bourgeois again - and all the better for it
In one of our very first articles, Dark Luxury analysed Burberry’s problems and argued that Burberry should be bourgeois. We described how Burberry’s success under the creative direction of Chistropher Bailey and corporate leadership of Angela Arhendts, hinged upon an idyllic and whimsical idea of Britishness, which industry expert Peter Howarth described as “bourgeois.”
Alfred Tong wrote, “(Bourgeois brands) are led by ‘style’ and ‘quality’ and a romantic fantasy of national identity - think Richard Curtis not Mike Leigh - that plays well outside of their home markets”.
This week, after a well-received catwalk presentation at Tate Britain, the Guardian’s Jess Cartner Morley wrote, “Richard Grant recently starred in one of a series of Valentine’s Day-themed Burberry short films. These mini rom-coms located the brand in a Richard Curtis-esque version of Britishness. Think photogenic pastel-hued London terraces, Kate Winslet and park picnics, scruffy dogs and Shakespeare quotes”.
Burberry Creative Director Daniel Lee said that his latest collection presented an “idyllic view of what Britain means in a global sense and how the world sees the UK”.
The result? Burberry’s sales in the crucial pre-Christmas period were better than expected, the share price has doubled since September, and at current rate of growth the brand would return to the FTSE 100 in March.
You’re welcome.
New status symbols in a post luxury world
Some of the cleverest brand strategy and trend forecasting in the luxury business is coming from Australian Eugene Healy on Instagram. His “Post-Luxury Status Symbols” series of short videos argue that status is no longer about owning material objects such as cashmere jumpers from Brunello Cucinnello or Hermès handbags, because their ubiquity on social media has rendered them basic. Instead, status is now increasingly defined by behaviour. The new status symbols are having children, gatekeeping, a decent night's sleep, wasting time, and creating IRL community (or throwing a great dinner party), according to his logic.
Kering enters the travel business
The Pinault family, which controls Kering, recently acquired a majority stake in Aqua Expeditions, a boutique luxury cruise line which operates trips to such exotic locales as Indonesia’s Raja Ampat archipelago and the Peruvian Amazon in ships that are dubbed “floating hotels”, according to Bloomberg News. This follows moves by Kering’s arch rival LVMH and its $3.2 billion acquisition of hotel group Belmond in 2024, which owns Venice’s Cipriani hotel, the Orient Express brand, and high end sleeper train, The Britannia.
Books: the new luxury?
These new forms of behavioural status mongering have made their way into reading books. “The ubiquity of tech has made old-fashioned reading a way to signal luxury”, according to the Wall Street Journal. This trend has even spawned its own book. Commissioned by Prada, Ten Protagonists, is a collection of short stories by Ottessa Moshfegh, the author of cult novels My Year of Rest and Relaxation and Eileen. The author took inspiration from photos of actor Carey Mulligan wearing Prada’s latest designs, according to the Italian fashion house.
SAKS memo to brands: Wait even longer to get paid
Meanwhile, back in the pell mell, bricks and mortar, real-life business of selling luxury goods on the shop floor, Saks Global CEO Marc Metrick says his brands will now only pay for inventory 90 days after it is received. The memo, sent to all vendors of Saks Global, which owns Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman, reportedly managed to insult and alienate every single fashion brand the group stocks, in one fell swoop .“This is really disgraceful, and I can’t imagine what it will do to some of the smaller brands it carries,” said one source speaking anonymously to Vogue Business.
A day in the life of a watch dealer
Our favourite luxury substack discovery is ScrewDownCrown, which reveals what watch collectors really think about their hobby. His fictionalised account of the day in the life of a watch dealer is very entertaining, from complaints about the customers, to eyebrow raising (and surely invented) anecdotes about insurance fraud. For further reading, try Orlando Whitfield’s British GQ profile of one of the characters featured in his Insta post, Perezcope, aka Jose Perez, who is systematically and relentlessly exposing vintage watch fraud.
More links
The relentless churn among top fashion jobs is disruptive for investors, in part because it can take 18 months to get a new collection on the shopfloor (WSJ)
Porsche’s family owners are diversifying away from its struggling car business (FT)
Here’s how much you have to spend to become a VVIC (very very important customer) (BackRow)
A Turkish-based maker of high-end fake Birkin and Kelly handbags has waiting lists, and he’s giving the Hermès legal department a hard time. Although his Instagram account seems to have gone offline since this story went out (Glitz.Paris)
Dior China execs embezzled nearly $3 million in an eight-year long scheme (Jing Daily)
The Dynasty traces how those close to Hungary’ Prime Minister Viktor Orban have become “miraculously” wealthy. Pay close attention to the segment on his eldest daughter and her husband, Istvan Tiborcz, 38, who has become the country’s 15th richest man by buying and renovating luxury hotels (Le Monde)
One of the most luxurious things we’ve ever experienced is the Windsor private terminal at Heathrow — how about a private car to your flight, sir? It’s had an upgrade along with a much higher price tag, as far as we can remember (Bloomberg News)