Does fashion month make you want to ‘quiet quit’?

To receive the Vogue Business newsletter, sign up here. Quiet quitting — a trending topic that swept social media discourse over the past month — is not about literally quitting your job. The emphasis is on quitting hustle culture and overworking — both of which are familiar to anyone with experience of the fashion industry. The term went viral after American TikToker @zaidlepplin posted in July that “work is not your life” and “your worth as a person is not defined by your labour”. The sentiment of the video resonated, amassing almost 500,000 likes and spawning endless online commentary. In truth, quiet quitting is not a new phenomenon. Other iterations include “tactical slacking”, “shirking”, “deserting” and China’s now-censored “tang ping” (“lying flat”) movement. While employees are reported to be practising quiet quitting across multiple industries, fashion workers interviewed by Vogue Business feel a particular resonance, not least those who are currently on the move, from New York and London fashion weeks to Milan and Paris. From the outside, involvement in fashion month is one of the most glamorous perks of working in the industry, but fashion workers routinely complain of long hours, gruelling travel schedules and challenging working conditions. One fashion assistant worked from 8am to past midnight for several days in the lead-up to a fashion show with no budget for lunch or taxis home at 1am. “You start to resent fashion week, you don’t get to see any of the fun glamorous side and you’re knackered by the end,” says the anonymous founder of Instagram account @fashionassistants. There’s nothing new in this. “The fashion industry historically has been punitive with its hours, expectations, lack of boundaries and inherent exploitation of folks, because of this fake correlation that working 24 hours a day, seven days a week equals success,” says New York designer Mara Hoffman. But, broader shifts are at play. The pandemic prompted a so-called “Great Resignation”, with many employees leaving their roles in pursuit of better balance or a sense of purpose. Those who stayed in their roles have been feeling less engaged: a Gallup poll in January showed employee engagement rates across the US in 2021 dropped for the first time in a decade. For UK-based journalist and social commentator Alexandra Jones — who graduated from university in 2009, a year into the financial crisis — this is unsurprising. “My parents’ generation could have expected to get a job in their twenties and still be there in their forties,” she says. “Work happened within specific hours and they were accruing wealth through their pensions. After the 2008 crisis, a lot of pensions were devalued and the technological revolution made jobs and even whole industries much more unstable. Add the UK house price boom and you have a perfect storm for people to re-assess what they’re doing this for.” Why are fashion workers so susceptible to burnout? Quiet quitting can be a symptom of burnout, and the narratives around fashion make its workers more vulnerable to this, says Arnav Malhotra, founder of Indian menswear label No Grey Area. The widespread narrative is that you have to go above and beyond to succeed. “Employees overcompensate through hustle to prove that they deserve these coveted positions,” he says. In this context, it’s easy for brands to take advantage of enthusiastic employees because they see them as replaceable, adds Levi Palmer, co-founder of emerging brand Palmer Harding. “Part of the problem is that older employers believe younger employees have to work just as hard as they did to prove their worth and get promoted,” says Drexel University professor Joseph H Hancock II, who quit his 20-year career in fashion retail for a lower-paying role in academia after a period of burnout. “We need to learn how to let people rest.” Fashion is based heavily on personal relationships, and out-of-hours events often mean work life bleeds into social life, notes one fashion journalist. “In fashion, so much of our performance is judged on social performance. You can check out practically, but you cannot check out emotionally.” The informality of fashion extends to contracts, too. “In fashion, there are lots of cultural expectations — and contracts are a bit ropey, if they even exist,” says Naomi Taylor, a negotiations executive at Bectu, a British trade union working with @fashionassistants to establish minimum pay, day rates and job specifications for freelance fashion assistants, similar to those in the TV and film industry. Quiet quitting isn’t always possible because the work is so precarious and new jobs often come through personal recommendations. “If you don’t take the job, someone else will leap at it and maybe even do it for less money, because they have family support. So, you just get on with it,” says @fashionassistants. In an industry where overwork is not only normalised but prized, any hint of avoidance of overwork can imperil promotion opportunities. “I’m often compelled to quiet quit, but I don’t think it’s really an option for people who don’t have an existing financial cushion,” says one fashion editor. “It feels like having an unhealthy work ethic is a prerequisite for promotion.” Indeed, one recruiter told Bloomberg that the flip side to quiet quitting is “quiet firing”, where managers deny promotions, opportunities and useful feedback to employees to prompt someone to quit. What can employers do to reduce quiet quitting? Laura Whaley, based in Toronto, and her anonymous, off-camera “work bestie” have gained 2.8 million TikTok followers for their satirical take on contemporary hustle culture. Boundaries — a key element of quiet quitting — are a running theme. She can be heard telling fictional co-workers: “Volunteering my personal time and devices isn’t part of my job description.” However, Whaley isn’t a fan of the term quiet quitting, because of the shame and guilt implied. Instead, she recommends that people communicate their boundaries to their employers, and continuously — respectfully — reinforce them. “You should decide on your boundaries quietly because you need to reflect on what works for you personally, but implementing them should be collaborative,” she says. To encourage open communication, companies should try “compassionate directness”, says Arianna Huffington, founder and CEO of behaviour change technology company Thrive Global, serial author and co-founder of The Huffington Post (now known as Huffpost). This management approach positively encourages employees to speak out against expectations that are not sustainable, such as working nights or weekends. “Companies must realise that wellbeing is not a perk, it’s critical to success,” insists Huffington. At Thrive Global, the first question for new employees in their entry interview is: “What is important to you outside of work? And how can the company support you with that?” There are also “Thrive Resets” — 60-second breaks between meetings — and “Thrive Time”, essentially time in lieu for working late. Managers are expected to role model all of these. Other options for companies to consider include a four-day week, half-days on Fridays, more flexible hours and remote working, adds Hancock. “Companies need to understand employees’ incentives for working. Money is great, but it isn’t always the answer. Some people just need more time.” Many of the employees at Mara Hoffman, a brand that champions sustainability, chose the job for the sense of purpose it brings. But, this has its own challenges, such as the tendency to overwork and new mental health issues (such as climate anxiety) linked to the huge challenges facing the world. Since the pandemic, the business has offered a more generous paid time-off allocation, flexible sick days, additional wellness days, open discussion about mental health and burnout, and most recently, a company-wide week off for self-care. “Our system is not perfect, but my main advice is to observe, ask and listen,” Hoffman explains. “If the humans in my company are not well, the company is not well either.” For journalist Jones, quiet quitting is a reckoning with ambition. “It comes down to what you want for yourself and whether work is helping you to achieve that. You might think someone quiet quitting isn’t ambitious, but their ambition might just be to have a relaxed life and spend more time with family instead of becoming a CEO. Both are just as valid.” Comments, questions or feedback? Email us at feedback@voguebusiness.com. More from this author: The essential guide to New York’s sustainable new guard Coach chases Gen Z as Tapestry seeks $8 billion revenue Ebay UK boss: Sustainable responsibility goes beyond Love Island partnership

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