I did an internship for a PFW designer. Here's how it went...

Now that the fashion shows are all finished up, I can now freely reveal that I interned for a Paris Fashion Week designer! It wasn’t paid. It wasn’t glamorous. But it taught me more than any runway ever could - although I walked a runway too AHH (still not over this!)

Picture this: it’s the 24th of August. I'm scrolling on Instagram when I spot a story from a London-based designer:

“EMBROIDERY INTERN – London based, starting ASAP. Send photos of your work to this email.”

Now the designer in question I have to give some backstory to. I first heard of her through modelling.  As a model, castings are a regular thing. But nothing compares to the chaos of Fashion Week. For those who are unfamiliar, a casting isn’t a booking. It’s basically an audition,  typically involving:

• Hours of waiting

• No food, no water

• Hundreds (if not thousands) of equally beautiful, slim people

• An overwhelming air of rejection

• Either 100 degrees or -100 degrees

I’m talking castings 9am - 9pm. It’s rough. 

Now, this particular casting was last year. I was studying my absolute brains out when an email came in from my agent asking if I could attend a request casting for a S/S25 London Fashion Week show.

As usual, I looked up the designer’s Instagram - about 7k followers, quirky but cool. But with exams just starting that week, I made the smart (but painful) decision to stay home and study.

Since then, I've followed her account. The show I turned down ended up being a hit -  her brand grew to 30k followers and got featured in Vogue Runway. (Naturally, when I saw the models in Vogue, I hated myself a bit.) Now, roughly a year has passed and I haven’t thought about her since… until I saw that Instagram story. Which is where the truly captivating part of the story begins. 

The questionable hiring process -

Upon seeing the advert for the intern position I was elated because I love adding to my CV and knew it would be a great opportunity! I figured, why not? So I emailed her with the details she requested. No response. Being the impatient character I am, I waited 20 minutes, got antsy, and texted the number on her website. Oops.

To my surprise, I got a reply in 15 seconds, saying:

“Hired. Come Tuesday to trial for a day.” 

Um Iconic. My pushiness paid off -  I had an internship. She was vague on details, but I knew the show was for PFW, so the max duration would be around six weeks.

We agreed I’d start at 1pm Tuesday. I spent the remainder of Sunday and all of Monday religiously practising my embroidery like my life depended on it. I barely slept Monday night from anticipation. After a mere 5 hours of unsuccessful sleep it gets to Tuesday and I get ready to leave. 

It’s 11am. I’m ready, makeup on, hair done, bag packed. Then I get a message:

“I’m really hungover. Can you do tomorrow? Really sorry.”  (The first red flag.)

I was initially annoyed by the situation but said sure. I asked what time.“9am.” Great. Thanks for the peak-time train ticket. 

Day 1: Wednesday the 27th of August.

I’m up at the crack of dawn, heading into central London. I arrive at 9am. Only to be greeted by no one. I wait. It was 9:30 when she finally showed up. Not exactly what i was expecting if i’m being honest. Her hair looked... lived-in (let’s say that), and the studio was the size of my bedroom. There wasn’t much wiggle room if you know what i mean! 

I’m greeted by two other interns, the designer, her assistant, and the dress we’d be working on: a structured silk gown with built-in exaggerated hips, a metre-long train, and it was being covered, painstakingly, in poker chips. 

said poker chips (sewn by moi)

Poker chips! It was actually a pretty cool concept, but the execution? Beyond tedious.

I was given barely any instruction. One of the other interns, a kind Japanese student, explained the system: sew the chips with minimal white fabric showing, following a specific colour pattern - yellow, white, blue, green, red, repeat.

I threw myself into it, and got a whole row done on the bodice by the time the designer managed to tear herself away from her phone. She came over, inspected it, and decided I had sewn them on a little bit too low to the row previous. She cut them all off. Fair enough. Let me do it again.

An hour later, she looked again. Now I’d apparently sewn them too close to the row above. She cut them off. Again.

Bear in mind she has spent the last hour organising the details of the PFW show. Complaining about having to pay her hair stylist, calling models “too ugly,” “too beautiful,” or “a nightmare but cheap,” and finishing with, “Models are all dramatic and full of themselves.”

Lovely. 

Observing this as a model myself, and one who had rejected a casting for her - I felt very at peace with that decision after hearing how bad she spoke about models behind closed doors! Although it was shocking to hear this from a designer, I didn't let it totally put me off because I was doing this to expand my CV, nothing to do with my modelling side. 

Still, I kept sewing. Third time’s the charm. Sewing them on in pretty much the exact same place as I did the first time. And guess what? She says it is perfect, so I move onto my second row. Finally! We broke for lunch. I finally worked up the courage to ask if the internship was paid. Nope. I asked if travel could be covered. She agrees and says that is completely understandable. (Yay - or so I thought.) 

my evidence of sewing...

After lunch, we stitched poker chips for another 5 hours. By the time I get home it's 9pm, my family of course harassed me for details, and even though I know It wasn't the best I said it went well to avoid any concern.

I message to ask when i'm next needed in. She doesn’t respond to any of my messages for about 24 hours! Ridiculous. Finally, she said I could come Friday.

I messaged to once again confirm she’d cover my travel, just so I had it in writing. No response. (As i'm writing this the show has come out and when I messaged to congratulate her, only then did she reply to my message and offer to cover my travel - 6 weeks later - but better late than never!)

Day 2: Friday, August 29th 

I arrived at 10:45am. She wasn’t even there. She and her assistant were at Notting Hill flea market, selling items to raise money for the show.

It’s just me and a new intern - a sweet Chinese student who didn’t speak much English. Due to this it was fairly difficult to communicate on who was working on which bit of the dress.

She worked on the back of the dress, I took the front. I browsed her section and she was sewing the agreed poker chip pattern completely wrong! Fully going with the beat of her own drum.

It still looked cool. Just… not fully symmetrical. I knew judging by how strict the designer was my first day she wouldn’t let this slide. The garment looks really cool and 95% fine to me but it isn’t strictly following the pattern because of the working on different sides.  

By 4:30, they had returned. She was wearing a sweat and coffee stained t-shirt. She praised our progress, which was short-lived, as she then began loudly criticising the work.

She was criticising everything! Then she took scissors and started cutting everything off. Eight hours of work. Gone in seconds.

My blood felt like it had actually boiled. She goes “why didn’t you follow the pattern?”, “there is too much white showing!” “why didn’t you pin the chips on?” 

Excuse me??? I’m an unpaid intern. You’ve barely communicated with me, never even describing the task at hand, and only a handful of times looked up from your phone. You’re shouting while doing the absolute least. I had had enough by this point. So I stood up for myself. 

1. We can’t pin the chips on first before sewing because they fall immediately off the dress when it moves. She tries to do it. They fall off the dress - like I said. 

2. She says why didn’t you follow the pattern, I said I DID! I explained that also the dress’s shape made it impossible to keep it perfectly even.

3. And in response to the white comment, I didn’t even dignify that with an answer because tell me right now how there is too much white showing in the image?

I already was outraged by the blatent disrespect and was fed up with being talked to like that. I decided then and there - I wouldn’t message first. If she wanted me back, she’d have to say it. 

She never did. Neither did I.

THE dress!

Show Day:

Now when the show came around I was of course curious to see the dress I worked on make its debut! The show happened on September 29th at 9pm, the first day of Paris Fashion Week, it was held in a private club and actually looked really cool! That made me jealous and wished I had stayed and had a good experience.

But what made me more jealous was that Vogue Editor Julia Hobbs unexpectedly made her runway debut for the designer! Crazy! I love Julia Hobbs and seeing her walk in a show I could have potentially been at, was a hard pill to swallow!

Final Thoughts

Unfortunately the fashion industry glamorises struggle. Unpaid internships like this one have been far too normalised. I took time out of my week. I worked hard. I redid every stitch that wasn’t my best, and still wasn’t acknowledged. Instead, I was met with disrespect, disorganisation, and manipulation.

But I stood up for myself. I pushed back when criticism was unfair. And I chose not to go back. Because no experience, not even Paris Fashion Week, is worth lowering your self-respect.

The funny thing is I thought something like this might happen that day,  so I stitched my initials (in the white thread we used) very small into the dress under one of the poker chips. Good luck finding it! 

With love,

Mimi x