SLAVES TO FASHION
FASHION WEEK INTERNS LEARN HOW TO PUT ON A SHOW - THE HARD WAY
By BRIAN NIEMIETZ
February 9, 2008
WHEN factory workers in China spend 60-hour weeks sewing labels onto sportswear for $4 a day, it's called a sweatshop. When young girls travel from far and wide to set up chairs, check names and fetch water bottles 24/7 for free, it's called Fashion Week.
Meet the cogs in the Fashion Week machine, Maxiel Diaz and Taylor Richey, two lucky girls who beat out several dozen applicants for internships with uber show producer People's Revolution.
The prestige marketing and event coordinating company has played host to hugely successful shows for Valentino, Bulgari, Longchamp, Paco Rabanne, Vivienne Westwood and Jeremy Scott. Between the hands-on experience and the networking opportunities, a recommendation from a company like People's Revolution all but guarantees future work in the fashion world.
"Whatever they want me to do, I'll do," says Diaz, 20, a student at Manhattan's City College. Diaz says in the month leading up to Fashion Week, she'd arrive at People's Revolution's SoHo office at 9:30 a.m., working as late as 2:30 a.m. stuffing gift bags, confirming RSVPs and stepping up to any other task that might arise.
"I haven't had a social life in over a month," says Diaz, whose parents operate a furniture store and grocery store in Queens - so close yet so far from the tented runways of Bryant Park. "It's a great opportunity to be here, and nothing can break me."
Richey, a 22-year-old student from Tampa, Fla., started her internship a month before Fashion Week began. She counts Diaz as a friend, despite the fact they're competing for positions with a company that has only 34 staffers between offices in SoHo, Los Angeles and Paris.
"If you're good, people want to keep you their secret," observes Richey, who hopes her internship nets a paid job. "If you're bad, they'll let everybody know."
People's Revolution president Kelly Cutrone compares Fashion Week to going to war, in the sense that there will be delegating, commanding, yelling, fighting and, on occasion, crying.
"We tell them at their orientation that if they cry they have to leave the office," says Cutrone.
We didn't see any tears, but the first day was definitely a struggle. The company's Web servers crashed, so Richey had to retrieve RSVPs from hundreds of phone messages and paper invitations. Nail polish being shipped from Australia for the next day's Sass & Bide show was deemed possibly "toxic" by US Customs, and that kept Diaz on the phone trying to explain those products were needed for the show's swag bags.
"It's really crazy, but I kept it together. I started getting frustrated, but this is what I wanted to do," Diaz reported at day's end.
Any raised voices?
"I am an intern. I do not yell," Richey says.
Finally, on the second day of Fashion Week, the girls got to see their first show in the tents. It didn't disappoint.
"It was what? A month's work for 15 minutes?" concluded Richey. Still, she says the results unequivocally justified the labor. "When it comes together, it's so amazing and so glamorous," marveled Diaz.
Not every intern sees a "Cinderella" ending to their "The Devil Wears Prada" experience.
"We usually start with 20 and we end with seven. And out of seven, three are people we'd actually employ or highly recommend," Cutrone says of the unpaid labor she uses for Fashion Week and the month leading up to it. "They find out it's not what they'd hoped for. They think it's a glamorous job where you whisk around all day, meet really fantastic people and play around in pretty clothes."
And who makes the cut?
"Eye rollers are always a 'no.' Like the ones that will send you psychic messages when they're putting a stamp on an envelope: 'I can't believe you're not noticing how smart and amazing I am or you wouldn't have me doing this job.'"
Want to impress Cutrone? Read the names and addresses on those envelopes and get to know who's who at major fashion publications. Know where to buy stamps at 1 a.m.
"I always hire the person who in the middle of the night sets a glass of water on my desk, or the one who washes the dishes, or changed the toilet paper rolls or the garbage bags, because fashion's a dirty business," says Cutrone.
She also isn't interested in pedigree. "The better the school and more wealthy the parents, the worse the worker. It's usually kids from state schools or single moms, or kids who work two jobs to pay for their school that work out."
What about Diaz and Richey?
"Based on what I've seen, I feel really confident they could work for anyone," Cutrone says.
It turns out the girls didn't get to see many more shows. They were too busy working to see the payoff. Richey finished the daytime portion of her week by answering a call from a Spice Girls representative confirming the band would be attending People's Revolution's closing night extravaganza - Friday's Jeremy Scott party hosted by their new client, the mega-club Mansion.
"That should get great press," Richey correctly surmised.
She and Diaz's final moments of Fashion Week came at the end of that long Friday, which found them checking names off clipboards outside the club's velvet ropes. The perfect end to a hectic period everyone's happy to have finished, no?
"I'm sad," Richey admitted. "I never thought I'd say it, but I'll miss the craziness. But sleep is good." Have a drink, Richey, and buy a soda for Diaz while you're at it - her 21st birthday's not until May.
And just hang in there the last three weeks, it will be over and you can still use them as a reference on the bright side.
