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Last year’s Hollywood strikes had a knock-on effect across the creative industries, prompting celebrity stylists in the UK to unionise. Now, that union is expanding to include other stylists, those working in hair and makeup, photographers, PRs, designers and other creative roles. As the first industry-wide organisation lobbying for fashion creatives’ rights, it faces several hurdles — but advocates say it is needed now more than ever.
Fashion is at a particularly precarious point: the age of digital disruption has given way to a time of uncertainty and confusion. Many independent brands are struggling, and the collapse of Matches sent shock waves through the industry. And creative jobs are being shed in droves as publications like Paper Magazine and Vice shut down. Workers say they feel unprotected, and this is compounding a growing sense of disillusionment as the dream of working in fashion fails to live up to expectations. Fashion creatives frequently cite being offered low or no pay, experiencing unfair working conditions and a lack of formal contracts.
This is where a union could help, says celebrity stylist Michael Miller and co-founder of the Fashion UK union (originally named the Celebrity Stylist Union), which has been formed under the umbrella of the Broadcasting, Entertainment, Communications and Theatre Union (Bectu). “It’s about making the industry more regulated and making sure people are treated fairly,” he explains. While Fashion UK offers unionisation to creatives working behind the scenes, it doesn’t include talent (such as influencers or models) or those working in the supply chain.
Part of the issue is that the the fashion industry used to be much more casual — people worked with friends, did favours for one another and felt respected because of that. Now, it’s a much bigger business, but there’s a lack of infrastructure to support creatives within it, says hairstylist Sam McKnight, who has been on the fashion scene since the ’70s. “The industry has grown so much that it cannot go on as uncontrolled as it has been,” he says.
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“Fashion is a career, not a hobby and it needs to be treated and paid as such for talent to stay in the workforce and progress their careers, particularly talent from working-class backgrounds,” adds Tamara Cincik, founder and CEO of Fashion Roundtable, who was an early voice in lobbying for unionisation among fashion creatives.
Hairstylist Shamara Roper agrees that young people from less-privileged backgrounds are the most vulnerable. “We need to uplift new people coming in [to the industry] so they don’t crash and burn, or feel like they want to give up on the creative side because they struggle too much with the business side,” she argues.
What fashion needs from a union
Vogue Business interviewed 20 creatives to understand what challenges they face and how a union could help. The common themes included late payments, low-paid or unpaid work, long work hours, lack of transparency around contractual agreements, dealing with last-minute cancellations, and feeling undervalued. A lot of creatives shared that they don’t have a solid contract with their agent and worry about potential exploitation.
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There were also some role-specific challenges. McKnight says hair and makeup artists are often not credited despite working for free on editorials, while makeup artist Simmi Virdee says she’s had to work on the road, or even in toilets, when there’s no trailer on a shoot. Designer Adam Frost says there needs to be better support for creatives’ mental health struggles, PR Chinazo Ufodiama believes the culture of competition in PR can breed a lack of transparency and trust among peers, and Amaan Duffer, founder of jewellery brand Basliq, is particularly worried about order cancellations given the rocky wholesale landscape.
A union creates space to talk about all of these issues, says Miller. The biggest opportunity for Fashion UK is to be a place where different sectors come together, particularly those that are having problems with each other — for instance, when a photographer and a designer can’t come to an agreement about the rights for usage of a photo that the designer commissioned. “It’s good that Fashion UK involves the whole industry because we need to be in the same room having these conversations. Otherwise these tensions will keep growing,” says photographer Michael Coker, who goes by Kid Circus.
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Unions can play a particularly important role in standardising the fees and terms offered to freelancers. Small business owners, such as emerging designers or PR firm founders, could also benefit from the union’s access to legal advice. After the Celebrity Stylist Union was first formed last August, it created a guide to good practice, explaining what exactly stylists do, how much it costs to provide their services, and a breakdown of how their rate is calculated. It is also working to build standardised templates for different types of contracts that cover all the minimum standards. Miller expects those in other roles who join Fashion UK to establish similar guidelines.
Fashion UK is also planning to run a survey to find out what members think the minimum rates should be across jobs, as well as rate cards that set guidelines on how much people should be paid based on the level of experience and what the job requires. Down the line, it will offer training courses for stylists on skills such as basic alterations or financial literacy, and the same can be applied to other sectors too.
“We’re trying to set a minimum professional rate. It doesn’t mean that this is the gold standard and you have to take this rate — if you can negotiate a higher rate, go ahead, and if you can’t at least take the minimum and don’t work below that,” says Miller. “What we need to show as a union is that we’re united together, and that if you knock on every single door these are the basic terms and the rate — and if you disagree, you can try every single other door down the street but they’ll tell you no.” Setting clear minimum rates would help to reduce the gender and racial pay gap, adds photographer Michaela Efford.
Implementing these standards across the whole industry will take work. Bectu says engagement with trade bodies lends legitimacy to the union’s efforts. The British Fashion Council (BFC) said it has no plans of officially engaging with Fashion UK at the moment, but CEO Caroline Rush said, “There is a large freelance community that remains underrepresented in the fashion industry, and it is good to see an initiative underway to address this.”
Driving collective change
The question isn’t just what fashion workers need from a union, however, it’s also about what they’ll have to invest to make the union successful, says Miller. “I think people think that if they join a union, all their problems will be solved. Really, our union is a space and framework for people to talk about what their issues are and figure out together how we solve it,” he says.
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Bectu says union branches tend to be member-led. “The members are the people who understand what issues there are in their industry and how the industry works,” says Bectu head Philippa Childs. “It’s quite a collaborative process. We’ll certainly help in terms of structure, training, if they want to run a campaign or pull together a rate card, but the people working in the industry would be the natural leaders of the union.”
The challenge is that a lot of creatives are worried they’ll have a target on their back if they speak out. “People are worried that if we [join a union], we won’t be able to get jobs because we’ll be seen as a problem, particularly if you’re a woman, person of colour or trans,” says stylist Amy Verity Forsyth, founder of stylist community platform Style It Out collective, which has been working as an entrance point to Fashion UK.
In practice, being part of a union doesn’t necessarily mean lobbying publicly. It could look like filling out a survey that the union branch sends around, giving feedback on a project, or committing some time to take part in meetings. “Not everyone will consistently be involved on every part of the journey, but everyone will contribute in their different ways according to their skill set and priorities,” says celebrity stylist Sarah Edmiston, co-founder of Zadrian + Sarah, who has been involved with Celebrity Stylist Union since the early days. Edmiston says it’s on more established industry voices to uplift those coming in, particularly as they can afford to be more vocal.
Paying for a membership is another barrier for some creatives. “The only thing that puts me off is the fact that you have to pay for it,” says makeup artist Tina Khatri. To ease the pressure, Fashion UK is offering free membership for anyone who signs up by 4 June. Usually, membership ranges from £10 to just under £30 a month depending on the aspiring member’s salary.
One of the biggest challenges is the competitive nature of the industry. There’s often tension between stylists or makeup artists and their assistants, for instance, particularly when it comes to gatekeeping opportunities or clients. With retailers such as Net-a-Porter, Farfetch and Matches in a tough spot, there are more stylists coming onto the freelance market, making the sector more competitive. “Big stylists used to pass smaller jobs onto their assistants, but now there’s not so much work and there’s a fear of losing clients, so there’s not as much being passed down,” says the anonymous founder of the @fashionassistants meme page.
“In fashion, we are taught to be individuals,” says Miller. “We need to realise that you can be an individual, but if you work together as a group your voice becomes louder and there is safety in numbers.”
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