The fashion industry made me feel like I didn't belong

Oh, the glamour of the fashion industry. The cocktail parties, spending mornings flicking through magazines, bougie brunch meetings, and stylish photoshoots. That’s the life I dreamt of when I begun to think about what I wanted to do when I grew up. And it wasn’t entirely based off of The Devil Wears Prada. Except maybe it was. And maybe I just hadn’t realised that interning in this industry meant fulfilling Andy’s role in the film, just without the drastic transformation.

The first time I gained a behind-the-scenes perspective into the fashion industry was as a lowly student fulfilling a few weeks of compulsory work experience. While working for a small luxury fashion company in the outskirts of London, it’s only now I can look back and think how incredibly naïve I was to think I was learning anything from that experience. Other than what it meant to be brushed aside and given mindless tasks to keep me out of everyone’s way for the day.

The two weeks of Tesco run’s, organising the boss’ business cards into alphabetical order, doing research that wasn’t relevant to any of the work, and folding samples, should have warned me against working in the industry. However, I didn’t quite learn from that mistake.

What I did realise at the time, however, was how much I stood out.

Not because of my age, nor lack of experience, but rather the fact that I didn’t fit into the image of the young white woman, wearing pointed leather boots, who scheduled her Instagram posts. It definitely wasn’t me.

It’s weird that nowadays diversity is really being pushed - on social media more than anything. Anytime a marketing agency has ticked the diversity box on their ad, a little glimmer of hope flourishes inside me that people of my colour are involved in the industry. But when we think about where the fashion is actually sourced from, it’s clear how little they are involved. And I don’t just mean factory workers in sweatshops being exploited - we see ethnic representation all the time. Such as Indian clothing being white-washed and displayed by the likes of Selena Gomez (who wore a bindi and a “glam tribal” red dress at the 2013 MTV awards show) or Iggy Azalea (whose Bounce music video looks like it could almost be a bad re-make of a Khal Ho Na Ho classic).

It’s one thing to be told, repeatedly, Indians work in finance and medicine - I’d go so far as to say it’s been ingrained in me that those are the sectors we belong in. It’s another thing to walk into an office and be the only person of colour and feel entirely out of place for more than what shoe designer you prefer. Especially when the designers all seem to be basing their ideas from something closer to my heart (and sense of belonging) than theirs.

Yet, I chose to forget all this when I applied for another internship in the luxury fashion industry - this time working in PR during London Fashion Week. The idea of working backstage during fashion shows, running errands for celebrity stylists, and being a part of the excitement was a dream come true.

Except it wasn’t.

I was 4 years older, and nothing seemed to have changed. I was more prepared to work in the industry, and genuinely didn’t think it could get any lower than the first internship. Yet I still felt incredibly undervalued by not only the staff and my manager, but also the other interns. It was from them that I truly realised how much I didn’t belong in this industry, and that it really wasn’t glamorous at all.

The impact on my mental health throughout the month or so I worked there, is something I will never forget.

It started with simple errands: organising the clothing samples, scouring social media for where the luxury brand had been featured, and even calling a few celebrity stylists to organise fashion show details.

Then it all went downhill.

The excitement from the first few days wore off when my responsibilities included running to three different supermarkets to purchase a very specific bar of chocolate for the boss, lugging bags of ice down flashy streets of London to stock up the office freezer, and being made to feel out of place by the other interns (all of who were much older, much whiter, and at the time, seemed much more glamorous).

Being made to feel out of place, included sly comments made about my clothes. It made me beg my mum for a shopping trip that weekend. The side-eyes were given as I grabbed my pasta salad and went on a lunch break. It made me hide my lunch, and scoff it down in a quiet room, so no one would see. And the eye-rolls directed at me when I politely declined a cigarette, as they went on their fourth smoke of the day to quench an appetite, grew more and more mocking.

Endless cups of coffee and cigarettes were definitely not something a South Asian girl like me could be used to.

I’d been lucky enough to never feel like such an outsider until then. Never to have felt so inferior, so different and so out of place - like I didn’t belong. It made me realise perhaps a career in fashion just wasn’t meant for me or for someone like me - someone who was made to feel ashamed or inferior or invaluable, based on not just their experience or their age, but something else.

There were two ways I could continue after my experiences as an intern. I could battle through the belittling, battle against my mental health and apply for a third role. Or I could, as I did, find a different path. I wasn’t going to be forced to fit in. Maybe I could change my outfits to white designers, change my eating habits to daily Pret’s, and even change my attitude. But I couldn’t quite change my race. And that was something that definitely stood out more than other aspects, even if I tried as best as I could to ignore it. Something, I vowed myself, that no job will ever ask me to do again.