I was scrolling through Facebook one summer afternoon when I spotted photos of a friend working for Alexander McQueen in New York City.
Wait. What?
I messaged her immediately. How had she managed to land an internship there? She told me about the programme she’d joined, and within minutes, I knew exactly what I wanted to do the following summer.
Not long after moving to London, I applied to the internship programme. A few months later, I got in.
There was just one small problem: the price tag.
Two months in New York, accommodation, programme fees, flights. And the internship itself? Unpaid.
But I wasn’t about to let that stop me.
So there I was, working night shifts at a Red Bull factory to fund my glamorous summer in New York.
There was also a 24-hour round trip to sit my final Spanish exam, and an overnight train to the embassy to sort out my visa.
All perfectly reasonable preparations for a summer of working for free.
I arrived in New York jet-lagged and moved into my NYU dorm.
Grey leggings, a white blouse and a pair of knockoff Vans from H&M that I’d bought the day before departure. What was I thinking? At the time, I thought I looked incredibly cool.
I was finally here. And the fashion world was waiting for me.
And this wasn’t just any fashion internship. I’d landed a position at Donna Karan Collection, the luxury line of the Donna Karan fashion house.
On my first morning, I walked through the doors, ready to discover what working in New York fashion was really like.
The impeccably dressed doorman greeted me with an enormous smile.
Welcome!
Everyone was so friendly. Wow, I thought. Where’s Miranda?
I was assigned to Sales and Marketing, with a little overlap into PR, and made my way upstairs.
And then I arrived on my floor.
Cubicles. Fluorescent lights overhead. Not a single garment in sight.
Hi guys, welcome! people called out, turning around in their chairs.
I didn’t know what shocked me more: the complete absence of clothes or those hideous cubicles.
Why did they look so much better in the movie?
And then we met Frankie.
Oh, Frankie.
She was the junior manager we reported to. Always stressed, but so lovely and so much fun. I took to her immediately.
Little did I know just how much better she’d make the whole experience.
It didn’t take long to meet our very own Miranda.
She was the woman in charge of our department. She worked closely with Donna herself, and she knew exactly how much authority she had.
Demanding, somewhat intimidating, but generally respectful. She kept her distance, and her looks often said more than her words.
When she walked into the room, everyone went quiet.
Vivienne was second in command.
What a woman.
She was stunning. Always impeccably dressed in beautiful, tailored dresses, with earrings, heels and a designer handbag that somehow worked perfectly together without looking overly coordinated. Her skin glowed.
But it wasn’t just how she looked. She had this rare combination of warmth and authority. Soft-spoken and respectful, yet so direct and assured that nobody would think to question her decisions.
She didn’t need to intimidate anyone to command a room.
Claire was another story.
She wasn’t always the easiest person to please.
She had a particular talent for sending us out to fetch her lunch. Usually a salad, with approximately seventeen modifications to the original order.
And God forbid you forgot to remove the cheese.
Of course, there was actual fashion work to be done, too.
We helped put together the catalogues of garments to be presented to department store buyers, visited stores to help staff understand how to showcase and sell the collections, and learned how a piece went from an initial sample to the finished product.
It was fascinating to understand the fashion cycle a little better from an entirely new perspective.
And the learning didn’t stop at the office.
Through the internship programme, I’d been selected to attend a workshop at Parsons School of Design during my first weekend in New York. They’d brought in people from across the fashion industry, from designers to PR professionals, to share their experiences.
I remember calling my mum afterwards, so excited about everything I’d just experienced that I’d completely forgotten about the time difference.
She was at a party somewhere back in Europe.
And there I was, on the phone, telling her how incredible it all was and how happy I was to be there.
I still remember that call.
Then came market week.
I’d never heard of it before. Buyers from major department stores came in to preview the collection and decide which pieces they wanted to stock.
Suddenly, I was backstage helping models get dressed, surrounded by beautiful clothes, and hanging what felt like approximately ten thousand garments on hangers.
The models were surprisingly open with us. They talked about the pressure to stay thin, the endless castings and fittings, and how some days they’d eat little more than an apple until dinner just to keep going and fit into the clothes.
I remember thinking, Wow. So this is what it’s really like.
And finally, Donna.
The woman herself.
I’d caught a brief glimpse of her in the office before, but this was different.
I’d read about her and the story behind the company, and somehow I’d imagined her as this free-spirited woman living by the beach, wind in her hair, dressed in beautiful flowing fabrics.
Earth tones, cashmere, silk. Clothes that moved with you, often wrapped or draped in ways that made them feel effortless. That was the world I associated with her, and the inspiration behind the collection was something we heard about constantly.
But when Frankie introduced us during market week, the woman standing in front of me seemed rather different.
She shook our hands, asked how things were going, and gave us a smile before disappearing almost as quickly as she’d arrived.
She seemed rather serious, perhaps a little tense. Not quite the wind-in-her-hair woman I’d imagined. But then again, I’d only met her for a matter of seconds.
And that was that. My big moment meeting Donna Karan.
It was a Friday, a few weeks into my internship, when a minor crisis erupted at the office.
A skirt needed some last-minute alterations before a shoot the following day, and someone had to deliver it to a studio somewhere in Manhattan.
Nobody wanted to take it. Everyone had plans for the weekend.
So I volunteered.
Oh well, I thought. What’s another half hour?
Armed with a Post-it note with an address scribbled on it, I headed for the subway, garment bag in tow.
How could a simple pencil skirt be this expensive?
Anyway.
I got off the subway, found the address, and discovered a small problem.
There was no door.
What? How is there no door?
I circled the building. Nothing. Went around again. Still nothing.
And circling a building in Manhattan doesn’t mean walking around a little house. It means several blocks. In a heatwave. In the middle of summer.
By the third lap, I was beginning to question whether I’d even got the address right.
I could barely read the scribbles on that Post-it note. Perhaps I should have confirmed what they said before leaving the office.
Eventually, I went into a neighbouring building and asked someone for directions.
Turns out there was a back entrance leading through a maze of hallways into an enormous studio.
I’d never seen anything like it. A huge, warehouse-like space filled with smaller sets where they photographed clothes for online stores.
And I’ll be honest, it didn’t look like a particularly fun modelling job.
The models were changing outfits constantly, only to repeat the same poses and movements over and over again. Change, pose, walk, repeat.
And the lighting? Fluorescent. Just like those hideous cubicles back at the office that I was slowly getting used to.
No, I thought. This is not what I imagined either.
Skirt delivered. Mission accomplished.
Well, eventually.
Enter our very own Nigel.
I’d gone down to the PR floor to pick something up when I met him.
Bald, glasses, dressed to the nines. Witty, charming, and seemingly capable of entertaining any room he walked into.
He took me down to the design floor and showed me around, including where all the samples were made.
And suddenly, there it was. The fashion world I’d been looking for.
No cubicles! Why hadn’t I been working down here all along?
It looked like so much fun.
And Nigel? What a delight.
The next day, I told Frankie about meeting Nigel and how much fun I’d had exploring the PR and design floors.
That’s when she mentioned that her twin sister worked in PR at Allure magazine.
And would we like to come along after work to visit her?
Um, duh.
And to my absolute delight, the office was exactly what I’d imagined. This was the world of The Devil Wears Prada. Perhaps on a slightly smaller scale, but it was all there.
And then came the best part.
The PR closets.
An entire wall of closets filled with samples sent in by brands, all hoping to be featured in the magazine.
I looked around, completely fascinated.
Frankie’s sister must have the best job in the world, I thought.
Naively, of course.
And just like that, the summer was over.
To this day, whenever someone asks me what it was like working in New York fashion, I ask them one question.
Have you seen The Devil Wears Prada?
Yes?
Exactly like that.
I was Andy. That was my life.
Well, minus the pay cheque.