A new book by academic Giulia Mensitieri, laying bare the working conditions of stylists and young designers, has sparked controversy. Will it lead to improved conditions for those forced to work for clothes vouchers instead of cash?
Giulia Mensitieri takes little to no personal interest in clothes. So it is likely to have been an ugly surprise to the French fashion industry that her PhD – now a book entitled The Most Beautiful Job in the World – has opened up its secretive profession in such a dramatically public way. In France, the book’s findings – that fashion, the country’s second-biggest industry, exploits most of the creatives who work in it – were quickly picked up by the media when it was published earlier this year. The resulting headlines included: “The ruthless world of fashion”; “Fashion’s dirty underside”; and “An extremely wealthy industry founded on unpaid work”.
The reality of fashion was illustrated by Mensitieri’s chance introduction, eight years ago, to her subject matter. She met “Mia”, a successful Italian stylist who had moved to Paris: “She was wearing Chanel shoes and carrying a Prada handbag, being flown across the world in business class. I never would have imagined that she was in the situation she was in.” Mia couldn’t afford to rent a room, so she was couch surfing at a friend’s house behind a screen in the kitchen. “Sometimes she had no money for her phone bill. She was eating McDonald’s every day. She never knew when she would be paid for a job and how much she would get. For example, for a week’s work, a very big luxury brand gave her a voucher for €5,000 (£4,500) to spend in their boutique.” True, Mia could have sold it (and, among hard-up fashion workers, there is a lively market in reselling luxury goods). But Mensitieri points out that working in fashion means being seen in a constantly updated uniform of beautiful, expensive clothes and accessories – paid for by vouchers such as the one Mia received instead of a salary. “This situation is nothing exceptional. Mia is just a paradigm of what is going on.”
Continue reading...from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2Pvdv93
via
0 Comments