Fashion is a fast-paced industry and, so it is on its career side. As a creative or a business-oriented person, it is a sector that is continuously growing. Even more now since digital entered the game. In five years of career in this industry, I changed job three times. And it is not because I am a fickle person, it is just the nature of this sector. The turnover of staff for an average fashion company is around two to three years. Staying five years within the same firm is now a rarity. In all the places I have worked, I stayed almost two years each time. But, I never planned it would happen that way, on the contrary. When I started my career, I thought I’d see myself growing within the same firm. I was raised, like some French people, with the idea that having a permanent contract was a privilege that I needed to keep preciously. So getting a job under these conditions was my first goal, that quickly became outdated. I am a class 87 hence a millennial and as such I love receiving a paycheck at the end of the month, but I enjoy even more feeling fulfilled in my job. When I decide to quit a job, it is because I consider I’ve paid my dues and it is now time to move on to my next adventure and evolve.
There are many reasons to leave a job, but sometimes we don’t realise it is time to go, so here are three signs you should move on to your next career step.
 When you have finished learning
My first full-time job was Junior Fashion Product Editor at Mytheresa. When I arrived, I had six months of internship in editorial & social media management under my belt. In comparison to the young Londoners who get their first job after 3 or 4 internships, I had no experience. Starting after one internship, I felt no different from a newborn just out of the womb. I was in my discovery period. If I knew my strengths, I still needed to learn an awful lot about the fashion industry and the way Mytheresa worked as a company.
To briefly explain, my job consisted of describing an average of 60 to 80 high fashion clothing and accessories a day. By mid-day, I should have written 30 to 40 descriptions. If I always enjoyed writing before, this exercise required a lot more than loving writing. Apart from reading fashion magazines to teach myself fashion writing, I learned how to do trend reports using Powerpoint and things like the difference between jacquard and brocade, but above all writing short, snappy and informative texts for the Mytheresa customer. I took advantage of off-peak periods – that is during Fashion Week – to read show reviews and attend brand training to pick the right vocabulary to describe the new collections so that when they’d drop in a couple of months, I won’t feel overwhelmed between researching and the number of items to describe. During these peak periods, the number of products was between 100 to 120 so this upstream work I did before was beneficial.
But after doing this for almost two years, I felt even if a new collection dropped I knew the job so well that I could do it with my eyes closed. It was becoming repetitive; the learning process was over hence why I started to feel bored. That was the signal I needed a change.
A first or a new job is always exciting as you have a plethora of things to learn and adapt to, nonetheless if you start feeling bored of it, it is time to consider moving on. Apart from feeling uninterested, other signals showing you need to change are spending too much time on your phone, not finding yourself as passionate as before and losing self-discipline.
When there is no room to develop your ideas
I decided to leave Mytheresa for Topshop to become a Digital Editorial Assistant. Though trans-creation replaced writing in my mother tongue, I enjoyed the job because trans-creation involves different parts of your brain. You need to understand the culture of both the languages you are translating from and in. But what interested me the most in the role was the possibility to learn AND develop my ideas. At Mytheresa, I didn’t have this possibility because of the nature of my role so being able to work on a social media strategy for the French market as well as developing projects targeted to my market was a whole new world I was ready to embrace.
On the learning process, I would say though I had the ideas, I didn’t have the business mind. So it took me a while to work out how to make a proposal that was viable financially. I also learned how it is to collaborate with different departments, and most importantly who to discuss with to turn an idea into a reality. If like me you are on the creative side and you lack a lot on the business side, this kind of role where you need to work hand in hand with other departments is the best to learn how a business works.
During that time, fighting for my ideas became my speciality. Budget is not always the decisive factor for higher-ups to say no. Timing or even the geopolitical climate – hello terrorist attacks! – can influence the fulfilment of an idea. But if the company you are working for has no will of going further with your market, it can become challenging to propose ideas hence sharpening your skills. That is why even with the most supportive manager, it can become difficult getting your project approved by higher-ups. When it comes to this point, I think it is time to leave.
The perk of working in fashion is that you can express your creativity. Working in a structured organisation is an enriching experience to understand how an idea takes life and the various steps to make it happen. You will learn to pitch your ideas, and you will have a better vision of the business through teamwork across different departments. Nonetheless, a brand has an agenda, and if the projects you are working on are at the bottom of it, you’ll start feeling frustrated. I never take no for a definitive answer, but sometimes there is no point tilting at windmills. So leave as soon as you realise you cannot go further.
When your side hustle is becoming a job
The millennials are a generation of multitaskers. On top of our day jobs, we have blogs, are DJs, photographers, writers and entrepreneurs. Having a permanent position helps us putting food on our table as well as investing in our passion through classes or conferences, but above all, it is the best to acquire experience that will contribute to growing our business later. If you look at some of the most renowned entrepreneurs today, their business is a product of all their past career experiences.
Having a full-time job while side-hustling is exhausting but rewarding because the things you learn on the job will help you later for your business. The entrepreneurs I know always tell me money is the decisive factor to quitting their full-time gig. And often, the more money you make with your business, the less time you have to be on a 9.00am-5.00pm. Your level of exhaustion will also be a significant signal you need to focus on one or the other :).
I wanted this post to reveal you the path that brings someone to change job in fashion. If you have other reasons that made you quit, please feel free to shoot us an email or tell us in the comments below.
