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Fashion’s freelancer economy is having a growth spurt. A recent round of layoffs saw jobs go at retailers including Matches and Farfetch, and magazines such as i-D. These new freelancers are entering a saturated market, one which swelled during the pandemic and during the subsequent ‘great resignation’ of 2021 and 2022. As competition for work intensifies, financial insecurity and burnout are only becoming more pervasive.
“A freelancer is effectively on a zero-hours contract,” says Tamara Cincik, founder and CEO of thinktank Fashion Roundtable, adding that late payments are taking their toll. “If you have a more empowered career, in-work abuse is far less prevalent.”
Last year, Vogue Business surveyed 667 industry professionals about their experience of working in fashion. While financial troubles and burnout were among the main challenges cited by respondents in general, we found that freelancers (who made up 30 per cent of respondents) felt particularly weighed down by inconsistent pay, precarious contracts and struggling to switch off from work. Earlier this year, the first industry-wide union to protect fashion’s freelance creatives was formed in the UK.
If rates continue to drop and work standards continue to decline, talents won’t just switch from in-house roles to freelance roles, they may leave the fashion industry altogether. “If wages are treated like service tips and reduced to that level then clearly [fashion] is not a career, it is a hobby for the privileged few,” says Cincik. It’s also a growing risk for brands: increasingly, freelancers call employers out on social media if payments run late.
A handful of startups are trying to bridge the gap between brands and talent to tackle these issues. As the challenges escalate, there is an opportunity for these talent platforms to grow — but they also face the reality of changing deeply ingrained habits. We speak to the founders of two such platforms — Ubooker, which has just received investment to grow, and new sustainability-focused platform The Now Work — to find out how they are shifting mindsets.
Building an ecosystem of financial security
In her 20-year modelling career, Ubooker co-founder and head of growth Claudia Wagner saw budgets drop and timelines shorten. Now, with the disruption of the retail market, brands are chasing the lowest possible prices, which puts even more pressure on freelance creatives than before, she says.
Wagner set up Ubooker in 2017 with her husband — Nicola Scagnolari, who is CEO — in an effort to improve the process for brands, creatives and their agents. The global model and creative talent booking app harnesses fintech (aka financial technology) to ensure creatives are paid on time. The platform has matched creatives (including models, influencers and hair and makeup artists) with work across brands like Maison Margiela, Dries Van Noten, Luisaviaroma and Neiman Marcus.
“If I’m not paid and I have to spend half of my time not doing my creative work and what I’m good at, but chasing money and doing all this admin work instead, the stress of that leads to burnout. Agencies also complain about brands not paying them on time — and they can’t pay talent what they have not received yet,” says Wagner.
This has only gotten worse. “While we have seen an increase in demand for freelance talent, there is also a growing need to balance competitive pricing with fair wages for creatives,” says Scagnolari, who was CEO of Japanese denim brand Evisu prior to Ubooker’s launch. “It’s complicated to sustain a company right now, so brands try to cut costs but it’s usually the creatives who are the underdogs — they’re paid last.”
Ubooker is profitable with a seven-figure annual revenue, which grew 30 per cent last year. It employs 10 people, and it has about 3,000 talents on its platform. Ubooker takes a 15 per cent commission fee from talent and between 10 to 15 per cent for clients. Now, the platform is gearing up for growth: in April, the British Business Bank became a shareholder (the government-owned bank had previously acted as a lender for Ubooker as part of a three-year programme called the Future Fund).
Ubooker helps freelancers with negotiating the payment terms with a brand, offering standardised contract templates that can be customised. A third of respondents to Vogue Business’s survey felt uncomfortable with negotiating prices, and many freelancers particularly felt the lack of transparency between peers and with clients makes it hard to know what to charge or to justify prices. Others felt pressured to lower prices to keep clients happy and were worried about being branded as “difficult to work with” if they’re assertive about their boundaries.
“While brands are generally open to negotiating terms, it is essential to approach negotiations with clarity and mutual respect,” says Scagnolari.
“Anything that goes on between the brands and the talent we can see — and if there is a red flag that doesn’t look like we can immediately help to find solutions,” says Wagner. There’s also a panic button in the app that allows Ubooker to intervene when talents indicate that they feel uncomfortable on a job. Though the platform says the button has not yet been used.
Changing how brands book talent is taking time. However, Scagnolari says clients are more open to using an app now. “After Covid people are getting used to digitisation, so they know it is safe — before, people would think if it’s not a traditional agency it’s shady or that you won’t know what you’re getting,” says Scagnolari. “Fashion is quite snobbish, so we knew that we needed to grow both the talent and client sides very slowly so they are ready to adapt to this kind of product and make it a priority to serve both sides of our marketplace.”
Helping to prevent burnout
Working in sustainability can add more stress to an already pressured field of work. It was with this in mind that consultants Hannah Phang and Laura Hunter — who met while working at sustainability development agency Futerra — founded The Now Work in 2022.
The Now Work operates across the UK, Europe, US and Asia, offering services such as matching brands with top talent, helping companies build teams for specific sustainability projects, offering sustainability training, and consulting on work culture within sustainability teams with an aim of reducing burnout in those roles. With a team of three — the two co-founders and an account manager — the self-funded company has annual revenues of over £500,000.
It is more hands-on than some tech-driven talent startups. “We very deliberately decided not to be a faceless platform as there’s so much nuance involved in sustainability work that it does require a human touch to make the right matches,” says Phang. Sustainability freelancers can register via The Now Work’s website and go through a vetting-and-matching process, where The Now Work handpicks talent or teams best placed to tackle the issues a client has set out in their brief. The talent pool is currently made up of just under 1,000 independent sustainability experts.
The co-founders have seen a shift toward freelance work in sustainability. Sustainability experts are more likely to become burnt out in companies that set unrealistic expectations without providing sufficient support for their work, they say. Sustainability work can be mentally and emotionally taxing, so the idea of having more agency over the projects you work on can be attractive to those in the space. Of the freelancers that took part in Vogue Business’s survey, 65 per cent felt their work aligns with their values, compared to 50 per cent of people in full-time employment.
The premise behind The Now Work is that we need new ways of working to deliver new ways of operating as an industry. “To be able to pull in specific expertise at the right point in time and make the work a lot more innovative means we can be so much more impactful in our results with clients,” says Phang. “The market is changing so rapidly, so being able to be more agile and flexible feels important.”
Growing its client base is The Now Work’s key priority when it comes to scaling, rather than seeking investment. The US is a key area of focus; Phang says she’s seen an increase in clients from American companies.
One of the biggest challenges to scaling is encouraging a change in how sustainability professionals work. “In sustainability, there can sometimes be a sense of self-sacrifice — that because we are working to address the suffering and destruction of the world around us, we must push ourselves beyond our limits for the greater good,” says Phang. “A mindset shift is needed; creating healthy work habits is actually for the greater good, and not being rested and resourced isn’t something to feel guilty about.”
There is recognition, however, that talent platforms cannot fix the wider, systemic issues facing freelancers in fashion. “The gig economy is growing — which I don’t think is necessarily bad — but it has to be regulated,” says Scagnolari.
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