Fashion assistants reveal horrifying details
Fashion assistants reveal horrifying details about what their 'glamorous' jobs working for the industry's elite are REALLY like
Working as a stylist's assistant means frequent celebrity encounters, constant proximity to luxe designer fashion, and plenty of international travel - but anyone who has seen The Devil Wears Prada knows that when you're at the bottom, it's not quite as glamorous as it seems.
And the nitty-gritty details of the job can be even more horrifying than Meryl Streep's Miranda Priestley giving Anne Hathaway's Andy a withering once-over and saying she regretted hiring 'the smart, fat girl'.
Vice France talked to some anonymous people in the industry to learn what it is really like to be a fashion assistant, from completing totally unreasonable tasks to feeling no sense of job security.
Their first assistant is a 26-year-old named 'Alice', who works for a 'world-famous stylist' and has been doing similar jobs, sometimes for free, since she was 20. She describes her relationship with her boss as 'Stockholm syndrome'.
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'This job is an addictive nightmare,' she admitted. 'I just can't say no to anything they ask, no matter how absurd the demand is.'
One such absurd request: A former boss had her reply to her boyfriend's sexts.
And while her current boss' crazy demands may be more professional, they are no less stressful. Alice described one Friday when she was up all night begging PR friends for help after her boss completely changed the concept for a photo shoot set for the following day. She nearly cried when she couldn't get a dress her boss wanted, knowing it could mean she was out of a job.
'If you fail, you're fired,' she explained, adding that that means flawlessly obtaining designer pieces, preparing the outfits, befriending brand publicists, dressing models and celebrities, and cleaning. 'What you can never forget is that you have a job everyone wants, so you are totally replaceable.'
Fashion Week can be a particularly crazy time, Alice said, since an assistant has to be her boss' 'brain', following her everywhere and memorizing everything. Being so busy, it's 'easy to starve' - not because these assistants are trying to stay skinny, but because they literally don't have time to eat.
'Juliette', a 25-year-old assistant to another big-name stylist, called her gig 'a dog's job'. To be fair, she added, her boss did warn her that she was 'really strict' and had 'no patience for lazy people' at the interview.
Juliette's job involves preparing for photo shoots, much of which she does independently - until the day before the shoot. That is when her boss typically comes in with 'all sorts of remarks and tricky questions' seemingly designed simply to remind Juliette that she is the employee and her boss is in charge.
Her boss will 'cut her down' if she doesn't respond correctly, and can often act like a child who needs to be comforted, have her whims indulged, and be almost constantly accompanied.
Another anonymous assistant who spoke to Elle recalled her own most outrageous errand as an assistant to a stylist. The boss in question called her up at 11pm on a weeknight and asked her to travel all the way to her apartment - 60 blocks away - to check that she had blown out a candle before leaving for her date.
When she tried to make excuses, her boss laid on the guilt, saying: 'You wouldn't want my house to burn down, would you?'
To add insult to injury, her boss looked at her like she 'was crazy' when, the next day, she asked to be reimbursed for the $35 worth of cab rides she took to and from her apartment.
These kinds of horrific tales can lead many people to wonder why on earth these women put themselves through it, but the answer - at least for those who are still in the industry - seems to be the same across the board: One day, these assistants hope to be just as powerful as their bosses.
Alice, the stylist's assistant, said her goal is to be a 'star stylist' too, and she accepts her boss' behavior because she is just a woman who knows what she wants.
Juliette explained that despite problems with her boss, she 'respects her because she's talented'.