It was 3am in the summer of 2017, and I was lying in a triple bunk bed in a hostel in London, listening to the sounds of the 14 other people in my dormitory snoring. I had been working unpaid internships in the fashion industry in London for the past 18 months and living in £12-a-night hostels. When I couldn’t sleep, I would watch TV on my beaten-up phone to drown out the snores.
I was watching Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, an absurdist comedy about a woman who moves to New York after 15 years imprisoned in a doomsday cult’s underground bunker. Her relentless positivity often inspired me to keep going, but on that particular night, the opposite happened: Kimmy gave me the courage to give up. Growing up in Essex, I dreamed about a future in fashion.
I saw myself living in an artist’s warehouse, working at Vogue and being invited to the hottest events. I was 23 and technically employed by one of the biggest fashion magazines, one I grew up worshipping. But as an intern I was paid nothing.
I worked 9am to 5pm, often relegated to the fashion closet for hours on end. Then, from 7pm to 2am I did various actual jobs, from flyering for gyms to manning the door of a strip club, trying to scrape together enough money for my hostel bill. Most hostels provided a free breakfast, which was my only hot meal of the day.
At the beginning of the week I would buy a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter and ate sandwiches for dinner. My parents supported my dream but it was up to me to make it work financially. I desperately wanted to look put-together to fit in at work but it wasn’t safe to leave anything in the hostel, so I had to carry all my belongings around in a backpack.
One day my only pair of shoes, silver glittery New Look ballet pumps, fell apart. I hid in the office’s fashion closet and taped my shoe back together. When I looked up I was surrounded by beautiful designer heels.
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