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Extract taken from The Most Beautiful Job in the World (Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2020), chapter 8 ‘At Work with an Up-and-coming Fashion Designer’, pp. 193-204 Follow Giulia as she interns for independent Belgian designer, Franck, and his Sales Director, Pilar, and assists their other interns with a fashion show for the brand in a ‘prestigious’ location in Paris. The day of the show The arrival of the day of the fashion show signalled the end of my internship with Franck, as per our agreement. My day began at 9.00 am, while the interns had started at 6.30 am. They had gone to the location of the show at dawn for a first inspection before going to the showroom. Three young women I didn’t recognize were already there by the time I arrived; they were former interns Pilar had called on to help. They had come by coach from Belgium and if they didn’t have anywhere else to stay they would sleep in the studio where Sarah was staying. The collection, accessories and everything else that was needed were loaded into the van parked outside the showroom. Pilar carried out one small box then lit a cigarette and stood giving orders. Franck was already at the location where the show was taking place, keeping an eye on the decor that was being put up. Zoé wasn’t there. Her back was so bad that she had gone to the doctor. Sarah looked exhausted and smelled of alcohol and cigarettes. She had bags under her eyes and her makeup was smudged. She whispered to me that she’d been out the previous evening at a bar in the 18th arrondissement, that she’d been drinking and taking drugs until dawn. She hadn’t been home to change. Once the van was loaded up, Sarah and I walked over to where the show was being held. Sarah was in a good mood because Franck had asked her if she’d like to go back and work for him in September to build another website. ‘I love that guy, I’m so happy he asked me back, I’d do anything for him. I adore what he does, and I’ll come back in September even if he doesn’t pay me, I so want him to succeed, and what if I did too, how amazing would that be.’ We arrived at where the show was taking place and I was struck by how well organized everything was, and by the number of technicians, set designers, photographers and all the other people who were there. The events company that was sponsoring Franck’s show5 was one of the best-known in Europe. It also organized fashion shows for major labels. It dealt with every stage of the event, from the conception to the video production and photography. The contrast between the extravagance of the show and Franck’s ‘domestic’ scale of production was striking. Outside, the catering team that had been brought over from Belgium was setting up, ready to serve prawn fritters and white wine to the guests as they waited for the show to begin. The show was taking place in the evening in a magnificent rococo-style ballroom. A backstage area had been set up in the orchestra pit of a vast auditorium. Tables for the thirty-odd hairdressers and makeup artists had already been set out, along with a long table for all the workers and the area that would be used to put together the models’ outfits. The organization was so efficient that we, the small army of interns and assistants, had nothing to do, at least until it was time to start dressing the models. We sat in a corner around a large table. Because each of the fifteen models needed her own dresser, Pilar had asked each of us to find some volunteers. Sarah had asked a couple of her friends, one of whom was studying fashion journalism in Paris, and the other fashion design in Brussels. Louise, the aspiring intern who had come for an interview two days earlier, was also there, sitting at the table with the rest of us. There were nine of us in total, including the current crop of interns, and former and future interns. Pilar and Franck were nowhere to be seen, the space was huge, and there was delicious food for us to eat. All this made for a relaxed atmosphere, despite the impending show. Suddenly Louise announced to no one in particular that she would have loved to do the internship but that it wasn’t going to work out because they weren’t going to pay her expenses. A lively exchange between the interns took place about their various internships, describing scandalous behaviour as well as their rather less frequent positive experiences (three out of a total of ten) – tales of tyrannical and abusive bosses at women’s magazines, communications agencies and fashion houses. Everyone was sharing their worst experiences in tones of utter disgust, describing figures that seemed almost like caricatures. I tried to write down as much of these stories as I could. Occasionally I reacted to what I heard, but I felt uncomfortable and not altogether authorized to comment. What was clear from this discussion was that the strategies adopted to deal with these abuses of authority varied. Louise declared she would never accept such ‘abuse’, not being paid, and would insist on mutual respect. Although she claimed to be ‘super-motivated, super-passionate’, she also insisted she wasn’t ‘an idiot’: she didn’t have ‘sucker written on [her] forehead’. Anne, one of Franck’s former interns, had found a way to mitigate the power dynamic imposed by Pilar and became, as Pilar herself told me one day, her ‘favourite intern’. She explained that at the beginning of her internship she cried every day and was ready to leave because of Pilar’s abuse, but that, on the advice of her mother, she began to defer to her: I became a bit of a hypocrite, to tell the truth. I’d fake it, saying [in a compliant tone of voice]: ‘Sure, thank you so much for your advice’, you know? Then when she said something mean I’d just be like, ‘Thank you’, you know? Totally fake. And I swear to you she cried when I left. Even though she absolutely hated me at the start, or at least she was like, this is never going to work out. Though it was true that she had managed to turn the situation around so that Pilar spoke normally to her, she still had to feed the meter for Pilar’s car, hoover the floor and wash the dishes. There’d been a change in the way they interacted, but not in the tasks she had to do. When I asked her what she thought of Pilar, she said: I’ve not changed my opinion, she’s the kind of person I can’t stand [said with great emphasis], but she adores me. I managed to make her adore me and frankly it was worth it; I had to do an internship and I stuck it out for three months even though at the beginning I was literally counting the days, and I really thought I was going to quit. Louise disapproved – ‘it’s not right that you had to act like that’ – and then told us her worst experience as an intern, where her boss was jealous of her, and humiliated her in front of ‘the entire open space’, talked to her ‘like a dog’, invented ‘absurd things’ for her to do, and forced her to work ‘impossible’ hours. She cried for a month, and then quit. Everyone – former and current interns – said in unison: ‘Then you’d better not come and work for Franck!’ Anne told them that Franck and Pilar were ‘the worst. Not only do they refuse to pay, but they expect the interns to do the cleaning, to stay at the studio even when there’s nothing for them to do, and to work all weekend.’ Sarah picked up on the last point: I work all weekend, every weekend. Since I got to Paris, I haven’t stopped. Tomorrow the website is going live, and Wednesday, I don’t care what they say, I’m taking it off. I can’t stand it any longer, I’m going nuts . Even if you work all through the weekend, however hard you work, it’s never enough, and that’s the problem. Louise turned to Zoé and asked what her job was, but it was Michelle, another former intern, who answered: ‘She’s so into it, she’s really committed, she never stops, she says yes to everything, she’ll stay till 11 o’clock at night on a Friday if she has to.’ According to Louise, her attitude could be explained by the fact that she’d been promised a job: ‘When there’s a promise behind it it’s completely normal to give it everything you’ve got.’ She told us how astonished she was by Pilar’s offer. Pilar had told her to get in touch with her college to ‘sort out’ an internship agreement so that she could get away without paying her, and to find a job in a bar to make up for the fact that her expenses wouldn’t be covered by the studio:6 I’m passionate about fashion too, but I’ve got a life, I have to eat.

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