What It Is Like To Be Northern And Working Class in London

To put it simply, I was holy underprepared for the wealth I was about to encounter at Central Saint Martins, my chosen and dream university, and its adjacent circles I would move in afterwards. Not for the thousands of pounds worth of clothes people would wear, how much it would cost to keep up socially and the class currency of understanding certain behaviours.

My parents have good jobs, my dad, a train driver; my mum, after dealing with life changing epilepsy, a GP receptionist. Never once in my entire life had I ever considered myself hard off, nor do I, nor would I ever to this day, but I was astounded by the amount of money some people seemed to possess in what was my new world.

I was bitterly lonely that first month before my course started, I couldn't seem to find people that were anything like me. So, during that time I sought out my very first internship with a fashion platform designed to showcase burgeoning talent. I vividly remember, after my first ever fashion week cycle, those of us that went above and beyond were invited to dinner with the Founder — nothing too fancy, just Italian food, somewhere in Soho.

Yet, I felt like a fish out of water. Everyone seemed to have a strong grasp on the "right" wine orders and I felt myself turn scarlet when I realised a beer or a vodka cranberry was not the go-to. Then came the fact I had for my entire life used my knife and fork in the wrong hand and I felt the embarrassment of not using my spoon to properly twirl my pasta up into delicate bite sizes. I went home that evening and Youtube'd table etiquette and spent hours figuring out how to do it all "right".

In retrospect, and in my day-to-day now I would order what I want, but in certain crowds and at certain moments, I still catch myself checking in. Am I holding my white and red wines correctly? Am I observing the right amount of kisses to greet a new acquaintance? What I was doing then was learning to walk and talk a certain way that was not who I was, and though today, I make less effort to do so, it still bubbles up.

In my practice, of the two sistering courses of Fashion Journalism (my chosen path) and Fashion Communication at Saint Martins, just two of us had weekend jobs. I held that job down for almost three of the four years I was at university, having barely made ends meet in my first from savings I had pooled from working in a supermarket during sixth form.

I worked (often hungover) in a vintage shop just off of Brick Lane on Saturdays and Sundays and constantly felt resentment towards the fact I either had to be first person to leave a party, or suffer the consequences of a nine hour shift the next day.

During my placement year, an opt in additional 12 months of "gaining industry experience" via internships, I continued in my weekend work. For six months I worked seven days a week, five of which were unpaid full-time hours. Acutely aware of the fact our course director had told us networking was our life-blood, and he wasn't wrong, I never once turned down a party or a chance to meet those in my field— I was completely and utterly exhausted.

The only extra income I earned in those six months were during three seasons of fashion week, for which I was paid, but that often meant leaving the office as late as 2am and getting back at 6am the next day.

I grew, in honesty, quite angry in a lot of ways. As a caveat I am not afraid of hard work, quite the opposite, I believe in principle that hard work reaps rewards, except, it didn't really feel that way. It felt like I was in a system that did not work for me, or anyone like me.

I simply could not afford to "focus on my degree" or "building my network" solely, nor could I realistically stare doe eyed and thankful to my employers for "giving me an opportunity" when that opportunity came at the grand total of zero.

Though, I am to this day, very thankful and consider myself lucky to have worked with some of the incredible people I have had the fortune to meet — I look back at that period of my life now and recognise I was extremely burnt out before I had even reached my 20s. Something in many ways I am still paying the price for at 25.

I grew even more resentful towards the system in my final year where the requirements of my degree meant I was constantly missing work to the point where I actually lost my job in order to get my dissertation over the line.

Luckily, and unluckily, my (probably) overdue sacking timed with Covid, and so the final half of my degree was spent in lockdown, where I spent considerably less. Then came the end of the comfort blanket of student loans used to "at least pay the rent," and enter the big bad world of real work.

There was, to put it simply, at the time, no jobs at all. I applied for countless roles from "emergency store workers" in supermarkets to remote writing jobs I was more than qualified for. I had done very well in my degree, I had a first, I had a national newspaper title under my belt, I was published and had "paid my dues" as an intern. Still, I got nothing.

After a very brief stint on Universal Credit something eventually did come along. A Studio Assistant Role with a luxury resort based brand, which even during lock-downs saw me going into the office constantly.

I won't go into the semantics as I respect the people that still work there, but I was on less than minimum wage and took home less than £20k a year — in London of all places. At the time I was in a relationship and had managed to get cheap rent (something I have been unable to replicate since). So, I made ends meet.

But therein lies the crux "I made ends meet." Which, realistically, has been how I lived my life in London since I had arrived. Make no mistake, I love it here, and I have no intentions of leaving but the world of a career in the arts is not designed to work for people like me, not really.

That particular post-grad job was all wrong. I was a poor fit for the role and it utilised none of my skills, something the Founder recognised when she hired me. I was both hugely overqualified and simultaneously clueless as to the day-to-day of managing in-house logistics and stock distribution — something I never saw for myself, nor would I ever do again. I was making choices based off of what would "validate" all of the hard work and soul I had poured into my chosen field and it hurt badly when it didn't pay off.

I had taken those internships because I wanted to "prove myself," that, "I could do it". I took that job to prove "I could keep living in London standing on my own two feet". Whilst so many of my peers could wait for the right roles for them, I had felt no such luxury. In a lot of ways I still don't. My position is precarious and still dependent on income.

I was resentful, but not of individuals, it has never been about a "person" but I still hold anger for a system ill equipped and exclusionary in who it allows to truly thrive. It makes me wonder, how many people have not been as fortunate as I have been to have a network to pull from? Or have an ear to the ground allowing them to hear about jobs that were never, and never are, placed on job boards?

There are whispers of change, and I see that change in action in the role I am in now, but this is a cross-industry problem. Systems of gratitude for unpaid work and series of long games to well paid work is rife, and it is stifling creative output in every sector. The system requires change — It's not easy to make it work when you're working class.