A School For The Too Cool | Conde Nast: Branding cv's since 2013

The opening of the new Condeé Nast College, and the changing of Fashion as we know it.

by Chloe Sachdev 

The London Fashion scene synonymous with creativity and an unyielding vision: Bursting with designers, writers, photographers and artists alike, who take risks without the fear of consequences and create without inhibitions. This is what it means to be young, creative and living in London. However, romanticism aside, the reality of being a creative purist: unpaid internships, long hours, and years spent crammed in a fashion closet A.K.A fashion’s equivalent of solitary confinement. 

The payoff? Vogue, of course! Ask any aspiring fashionphile what drives their spirit, what keeps the creative pulse ticking into the night as they steam, iron and even sniff gloves (yes, glove sniffing it’s a thing and yes, I speak from haunted memories) and the answer, to be part of Vogue, be it amongst the pages or a corner office. It is the magazine that creates, inspires, and shapes fashion. To quote longstanding Fashion pin-up Ms Bradshaw “Vogue. Also known as Mecca,” So the message: work hard, hone your talent, prove yourself and one day you too shall pass through the Pearly Gates of Vogue, or so the message was. 

Today, with the opening of Condé Nast College, the message is ‘pay your fees and fast-track your way to the Holy land’. The only conceivable block to turning your shoes to Choo’s: the price tag of £19,560, for the one-year ‘Vogue Fashion Diploma’ course. However, and playing devils advocate, maybe the idea is that graduating from the Condé Nast College, with a book full of contacts and several prized internships at its renowned publications is, simply priceless. Not likely. 

Okay, now back to cynicism. Firstly, an industry that has been plagued with bad press and criticism for its full-time and arduous unpaid internships, which for a brief moment, seemed to be changing. Fashion leader Condé Nast put an end to unpaid labour and actually started paying ALL employees, hooray, and in doing so actually started to spread the almost sacrilegious rumour that interns are also employees (shock horror). 

However, before the paychecks can be collected, up pops the College with its hefty price tag and an almost-automatic chokehold on its prized and highly coveted internships. In the words of Amy Stein, the Personnel director “ We look forward to welcoming the very brightest and most able of the College’s students onto our highly coveted work experience and intern programmes”, translated to “if you don’t study with us, don’t call us, we will call you”. Clearly, the practice of favouring the wealthy and well-connected in the fashion industry is now tangibly evident as bricks and mortar in London’s Soho. 

The ethos of the college to produce tomorrows stars of the fashion industry, although admirable, does not seem to based on anything but the all important bottom-line. A glance at the current stars and Voguettes of the fashion industry Carine Roitfeld, her successor Emmanuelle Alt, infamous Anna Wintour, and Lorraine Candy (okay she is editor of Elle, but you get the picture), and the one commonality they all share is their surprising lack of any formal tertiary training. In the words of Wintour, the Queen Bee of Fashion “You either know fashion or you don’t”. 

Moreover, a school for Condé Nast by Condé Nast, well, it doesn’t really take the most hardened cynic to realise the pitfalls of this plan. Vogue, having built a reputation upon recognising new talent, and the extraordinary, has long since filled its pages with the inspiring to inspire, is all but selling its soul to the devil with an express route from it’s school to its office. Manufacturing a Condé Nast version of creativity will no doubt replace ingenuity with predictability, a mainstream vision of creativity built from dollar signs rather than artistic eyes.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not against bespoke colleges and being a graduate from London College of Fashion I have seen the benefits of attending a specialist school. The main lesson learnt: it is not about the subjects taught but the people you meet. Being part of a creative network is what nurtures and challenges the artistic spirit. Independent colleges should train and educate not indoctrinate. 

Creative expression at Condé Nast College although nurtured by the industries best and fashion’s elite will no doubt sculpt the vision of its students with a Condé Nast vision - A factory of formulaic creativity, making the medium truly the message, and the future of fashion a sartorial snore.