How to get your first job in fashion: 3 Things to Consider When you’re a Student or Recent Graduate

Looking to get your first job in fashion but you’re a student, recent graduate or graduating soon? No worries, fashion jobs for beginners exist! Like in any other industry, there are opportunities for everyone at every level of their experience, including for those who don’t have any experience. 

If you have started looking for entry-level jobs already you could be a little discouraged because it might look like all your favorite companies require previous experience. I know the feeling, I remember it clearly. While I was doing my research years ago when I wanted to break into fashion, I felt like getting my first job in fashion would have been a mission impossible because all the jobs I liked, required previous experience. 

Well, the good news is that the fashion industry is actually offering jobs for beginners, you are just making some mistakes when looking for these opportunities. Of course, there are jobs that require previous experience. But there are also fashion jobs for freshers that don’t require any previous work experience.

How to get your first job in fashion: 3 Things to Consider When you’re a Student or Recent Graduate

ASSISTANT VS INTERN

The most common mistake that students or recent graduates make when they are looking for their first job in fashion is being fooled by the word assistant.

I made this mistake too at the beginning of my career in fashion. Whenever I found a job that included the word assistant I thought it could be my first opportunity to break into fashion. But then I started reading carefully job descriptions and I realized that to apply for an assistant role you need previous work experience in fashion. So at first, I was frustrated because I thought that fashion companies were requiring previous experience also for entry-level jobs. But then later I discovered that being an assistant IS NOT the first fashion job you can get. There is even one more step which is being an intern. Assistants are in fact people who interned in the industry already. So being an assistant will be your next step but not the first one to get into the fashion industry. 

You’ll be able to apply for these assistant jobs only after you interned in the industry for a while. 

Fashion internships are the first job experiences that you can get when you are still a student or a recent graduate.  You need to intern in fashion for a while before landing a full-time job.  If you skip this step you might find yourself applying for many assistants or other entry-level jobs without hearing back from companies. 

There are fashion internships in any department. 

The first step to finding the perfect fashion internship is to begin with doing some inner work: what fashion department are you interested in? 

Identify your dream role and look for a correspondent internship.  

For example: 

• If you want to become a fashion buyer, look for buying internships.
• If you want to become a designer, look for fashion design internships. 
• If you want to become a stylist, then look for styling internships or reach out to some other stylists asking if you can help them. 
• If you want to work in marketing, look for marketing internships.
• If you want to work at a fashion magazine, look for internships at your favorite publications. 

You got it. Whatever career of the industry you have in mind, there is a corresponding internship from which you will have to start.

If you are undecided about what could be your dream role in fashion, internships will help you get clarity with that.

Start with one of your favorite roles. And once you are inside a fashion company, you’ll understand what other professionals are doing and have more clarity about your ideal career. You might even consider doing two different internships in different departments (one in buying and another at Vogue for example) to understand your preference.  

When looking for your first opportunity in fashion, be open to exploring more options that are similar to the role of your dreams to have more opportunities you can apply for. 

When I was at the beginning of my career I was interested in the business/management side of the fashion industry. So I was open to any internship related to brand management or merchandising. My first experience was as Ecommerce Intern at Alexander McQueen and even if the job title was not exactly what I was looking for, when I read the job description I realized that the activities of that job were very similar to the one of a merchandiser. And they included making analysis and other things that I was interested in.

Of course, I never considered anything such as fashion design or styling or pr during my internship search because they were totally unrelated to what I wanted to do. But if I had insisted on wanting to only look for internships that included the word merchandising or brand management I would never have found that eCommerce internship that when I read the description seemed made for me and that I loved. So be open to considering internships that are similar to the job title you imagine for yourself. For example, if you want to become a fashion buyer, merchandising internships will also be beneficial for you as they are two linked roles in this industry. If you want to work in marketing, any internship related to social media, digital marketing or CRM can be useful. 

If you have the opportunity, I highly suggest you to intern when you are still a student.

Many internships are reserved for students only, you need to be enrolled in a course to apply for those. This means that if you intern when you’re still in school you’ll have more opportunities to explore AND you get precious experience that you’ll be able to leverage on your resume when you’ll graduate to get better opportunities. 

Fashion internships for students are normally part-time. You’ll need to work just some hours/week so they are more feasible to manage with your uni classes. 

Internships usually go from a couple of weeks to 6 months. Do more than one internship to have more chances to get your next full-time job faster.  A minimum of 6 months of internships is recommended before applying for a full-time job. But if you can, one year of internships at your back will make you on top of the positions when switching to full-time jobs.

BIG COMPANIES VS NEW BRANDS

If you want to work at the most popular fashion companies (think Dior, Gucci, Chanel, Vogue…) internships are your (only) way to get into these companies when you don’t have experience yet. In this reel, I shared where you can find some luxury internships. These companies are a bit more rigid with the requirements. Because there are so many people interested in working there that they have a big poll to choose from every time they post a new job. 

New brands can be less strict in terms of requirements especially related to previous work experience and can offer you interesting opportunities as well! For example, I recently posted a fashion editorial assistant here at Glam Observer. I named this position assistant but I did not require any previous work experience. It’s unlikely that you’ll be able to get an assistant job without previous fashion internships at the biggest company of the industry.  Something to keep into consideration.  

REMOTE FASHION JOBS FOR BEGINNERS

Most fashion companies have their headquarters and offices located in the four fashion capitals. Milan, London, Paris and New York are the cities where there are most of the fashion job opportunities. Many fashion enthusiasts, in fact, have to move to one of these cities to start their career in fashion. I moved from the south of Italy to Milan years ago to begin working in fashion. However, if you can’t or don’t want to move to a fashion capital soon, there are some remote options you can explore.

Working in fashion remotely is possible but there are some limitations. Most fashion jobs/internships cannot be done remotely or at least not entirely remotely. After the pandemic, many companies have kept a hybrid model where you work from home and at the office a couple of times per week. So while these opportunities are more popular now, you still need to go to the office a couple of times/week.  

When you have more experience, you’ll have more chances to work remotely because you are more independent. But where you are a fresher you most likely need support and help and someone who tells you what to do. So you need to be more with other people. Not all fashion jobs are doable remotely. Fashion is an industry where you’ll have to work often in a team: think of producing a campaign for Vogue that involves models, photographers, stylists, editors… even as a fashion designer you have to collaborate with the entire design team. 

The most common and easy job/internship that you can do remotely is writing. 

Georgia one of my students of Break into the fashion industry and the Fashion Writer Accelerator has completed many short internships at publications such as Marie Claire, CR Fashion Book, and Glamour writing for the magazines remotely from her bedroom in the UK. She even did some copywriting work for Farfect entirely remotely. She got these opportunities by simply emailing them directly. It’s also a bit easier for magazines to say yes to you for a remote internship as they don’t have to actually find you a place in the office. And getting more help writing new stories is something any publication always looks for. 

Writing and helping editors with some of their articles is the best first job in fashion to consider if you are interested in working at a magazine. 

Struggling to get responses when you apply for jobs? Register for my free masterclass here and I’ll teach you 3 strategies to stand out from the competition and land your dream role in fashion even if you have no experience yet