Wang Watch

Vera Wang vs. Equality?

How do I love thee Vera Wang?  Let me count the ways.  WWP was never 'that girl' who used to make a wedding gown out of tissue paper at the age of 5 and have every detail of the clearly predestined nuptials planned before pubity.  Yet if there is one thing I do know, it is that if I am ever to get married and I am in a financially stable position (read: rich beyond my wildest dreams), I want to own a Vera Wang wedding gown.  It doesn't have to be couture, hell, it doesn't even need to be new, but being the slave to the fashion world that I am, it has to be Wang. 

This level of worship from the fash-pack isn't, unsurprisingly, due to the fact that Wang designed Kim Kardashian's wedding dress, but because her designs are ultimately very, very good.  Hence, there is a very high demand.  So in China, the boutique implemented a 'try-on charge' of around £317, to discourage those "crazy, random chicks!" who try on wedding dresses for fun.  Fun because (a) they either cannot afford them, and/or (b) aren't even engaged (And if their answer is (b), I think we can all work out why they are yet to find a husband.)  In the past week, the power of Twitter has meant a campaign of anti-discrimination has been zipping its way to Vera Wang PR, on the grounds that charging to try on wedding dresses is unfair.  In the words of the ever-thoughtful and charmingly eloquent Daily Mail Online readers: "Beautiful dresses, but what a greedy woman!" (cornishpixie) and "Money makes people do crazy things" (HP18). 

'Vera Wang' is not one 'greedy', 63 year-old woman who makes dresses on a Brother sewing machine in her garden shed. It is a global company, which, just like any business, aims to make a profit by eliminating unnecessary costs.  If you're trying on a multi-thousand pound dress - that you have no intention of buying - for free (and as a side-note, this will not be the Topshop changing room, there will be champagne involved), you are an unnecessary cost. Moreover, the fee was redeemable if you bought a dress, and let's face it, if you're serious about buying Wang, you've got £317 to spare.  Anyone's need to transform this into a debate about egalitarianism will stem from an underlying problem with capitalism. There really is no such thing as a free lunch, and there is certainly no such thing as a free 90-minute dress fitting with afternoon tea.

Tales of the Underworld

The Politics of Non-Payment

Image: internaware.org

On any regular day the notion of unpaid internships should make any would-be graduate - suffering with even the mildest case of pessimism - break down and weep.  Not only is their life no longer their own (it now belongs to their department, their course, their tutors' marking decisions, the library), but the world will soon be unceremoniously flung onto their front porch like a wrecking ball, and the graduate in question will have no idea what to do with it.  They say there are only two things in life that are certain, paying taxes and death.  Now, in a job market that looks uncannily like the Nevada desert (dustballs and all), who knows if today's graduate will ever earn enough to cross the first tax threshold.  Is death really our only certainty?!

Forgive the severe case of pessimism (and slight morbidity) but WWP, for the first time, really did break down and weep today.  For the System (namely Her Majesty's Revenues and Customs) that had always be so kind, screwed me over royally over in both the long and the short term.  In the short term, they refused to refund me the minimum wage for the ten months work I did for a company that (illegally) never paid me a penny.  Despite the fact that this and this is going on right in front of our noses every time we switch on the 10 o'clock news (and/or check the BBC website when we've read everything on our Facebook feed), the Department of Work and Pensions  is unrelentingly refusing claims such as mine on the basis of an 'employment contract.'  You apply for an internship with a company, you create content for that company, most importantly you create revenue for that company...and your payment? 'Experience' or 'training.'  John Stewart Mill it ain't.

Our generation crave independence more than we're given credit for. Yet we are thrown like overgrown babies with BScs into bassinets and dumped at the door of businesses, a want ad for an unpaid internship tucked in our blankets.  We're expected to wait another five years in employment purgatory before we are finally allowed to fly the nest a second time. Apologies for the hyperbole; I should probably be writing semi-romantic prose highlighting the implications unpaid internships have on social mobility.  (I have, incidentally, already done that here).  But I want to dare to let a little emotion leak into this poor, malnourished blog.  The System has screwed me in the long run by expecting me to work for free.  I feel unappreciated, I feel hopeless. The desperate pleas of my cover letters make me feel embarrassed. But most of all, I feel ashamed for wanting to create a career in something I've loved doing for as long as I can remember.  The political consequences of unpaid internships are broader and deeper than I could ever explain here.  But the emotional consequences are greater than I've ever wanted to explore.