A salary in fashion $$$ ?

[taz]

if a fashion house liked someone C.V. & she/he was welcomed to join the creative team there, what is the expected salary to start with?

& does the salary vary from a fashion group do another, I mean who pays more? LVMH, GUCCI Group or Puig Grroup???

if someone like Simonetta Ciampi, the Design Director of Leather goods at Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche, who designed Mombasa bag, & has just left the fashion house. how much do u think she was paid at the begning? & how much she was paid later as a design director??

 

[Alura]

I wonder about this too but I gues it will be quite similar to manager salaries, which vary from level of reputation, degree, successes and so on... I guess she would make at least 200.000 but I could be very very wrong . I think the people that get paid most are the financial people on top oh and of course somebody like Galliano.

 

[softgrey]

i don't know the numbers...

but i think...
that the companies who have more money obviously pay more...
like lvmh...

i think top level designers at places like the gap do quite well too...

i think each 'head' designer negotiates their own contract differently...
and i think it is for a certain period of time...
or for a certain number of seasons...
similar to a record contract i guess...for a certain number of albums...

i would guess someone with little or no track record wouldn't have much negotiating power and would just be happy for the chance, so they would accept less...
even if they are very talented...
but then if they generate enough hype around themselves...
they could negotiate higher rates...

my guess is that olivier theyskens at rochas is someone like that...
or maybe even nicolas ghesquiere at balenciaga...

but this is pure speculation on my part...
based on what knowledge i have ...

 

[anti-hero11]

Designers/Product Developers in NY get paid well if they are at the top of their game. Having said that, if you make x amout of $$$ working 40hours, that is one thing, if you make the same amount $$$ working 60 or more hours a week then you look at it differently. It is a hard job. More and more designers or assistant designers are going into Technical Design and production because they want to leave work for home on time.
During the Republican convention many people stayed at work 3-4 days without going home because the collections were due and due to security issues.
But Softgrey is right Gap, Bananna, many of the store retail labels we all know will pay good on top end for product developers.
But one thing to be careful about, many times companies that throw around mucho $$$ around, if you investigate it close, you will find the employees don't last long because its a difficult working environment. Thats why they have to offer more cash, to get people interested in working there.

 

[Lena]

as far as fashion design goes, everyone starts on basic salary, not to say that some start as unpayed interns
a -very talented- friend of mine is working at Chloe without salary , before this he was with Galliano
hopefully he will stick at Chloe, if so, he may get a respectful salary -slight over the basic.

as a trend/product consultant, i can ask whatever i want, thats because i have already experience and clients but truth is the market is in a very very tight 'mood' at the moment, thats in EU of course..

as far as i know its only heads of the design team that get lots of money, but then they are 'locked' with long 'investment' contracts, which is not too clever, i could suffocate

 

[marrimoda]

Just take a look at the classifieds in WWD or 24Seven for salary ranges of design, production, product developer jobs. You wont see creative director salaries there because as someone said above, those postions are dependent on who they recruit and negotiations. But for Tech Design or Designer jobs...the salaries ranges are often printed in the want ads.

 

[hugobossdaria]

how much do good designers like chole make

 

[Lena]

you mean Phoebe Philo who works for Chloè?
hmm impossible to say, she's on the star-designer wage bracket

 

[Frances]

Fashion design salaries are notoriously low in the UK and the EU- I have found that a design assistant is generally paid as much as a junior secretary in an office, a first level designer is paid marginally more and senior designers jump up to a high salary bracket- comparable to lawyers etc. Very long working hours though.

 

[Lena]

i absoluely agree with Frances
btw, welcome to tFS

 

[saliw641]

A fresh graduate from Parsons school of design makes an average of 25k a year, and that is basically living on bread and butter with 4 other room mates in the furthest corner of brooklyn or Queens or the sort... Experience is the key word here, the more experience you have, the more negotiating power you have. someone with 15 years experience could easily make 60k a year (which is still not much). Then again it depends on company, bigger ones with nastier environments usually pay more to attract people. Damn I wished I chose law or something....

 

[maskedmannequin]

Damn I wished I chose law or something....

Is it just me though...or am I the only one that's completely not in it for the money. I can't see myself doing any other job, and as long as I can live off the wage/however much my company brings in then I'm happy.

 

[Mutterlein]

Is it just me though...or am I the only one that's completely not in it for the money. I can't see myself doing any other job, and as long as I can live off the wage/however much my company brings in then I'm happy.

I think that is how most of us are it's just that the more work you put into it and the more responsibilities you have, you are going to want monetary compensation. No one goes into design for the money.

 

[saliw641]

Is it just me though...or am I the only one that's completely not in it for the money. I can't see myself doing any other job, and as long as I can live off the wage/however much my company brings in then I'm happy.

Money makes the world go round, though it doesn't necessarily buy happiness. I cannot imagine myself doing anything else for the rest of my life other than fashion. But when you are surrounded by the whole fashion industry and exposed to all the yummy things like Dior Homme and you are broke, you have no cable, 5 room mates and it takes you 1 hour to get to work. At that point I wanna hear what you have to say about "I'm not in for the money".
Money is power, everybody I know wants to start their own line and that's just the way it is, without money you can't fulfill many things. The greatest designers out there did not think about just being where they were when they started, it's all about money and power.

 

[taz]

I think very one here needs Piere Berge

 

[softgrey]

ditto saliw641...amen..!!..

and don't we all taz...*sigh*...

 

[Lena]

truth is there is not so much money in working with fashion...
much more when being a designer.. its ok when you work for someone else but trying to have your own business.. thats when one really is been taking a walk on the wild side..
best money made is by consulting, marketing and things like that, which of course need experience and 'time' to develop in well payed jobs..

 

[taz]

i think there is no much chance for the new generation -who are in their 20's- right now to have thier own fashion houses.
the chance was for those who were young during the 80's & 70's, & we as the younger generation have to work for them & save thier houses.

and softgrey i meant every one, the E was missed!!!!
again i think every one here needs a PIERE BERGE, BUT AGAIN
in the 60's & 70's there was no much designers with young ideas & it wasn't well developed industry, nowdays it is very crowded, and there is nothing new to add, that's why we have De-construction now.

 

[Lena]

you are right taz, it seems hard -but not impossible- for new designers to have their own small fashion house, i know quite some people in Berlin, Paris, Athens that they are slowly working their way, so i guess its not impossible, just very hard to do..

and of course, it takes money to make money, much more in 'indie' fashion design

 

[saliw641]

The market is getting bigger and bigger now. Mass production is especially popular in America, with each growing year, it costs even more money and risk for starting designer to start a line. And then we have stupid J.lo and SeanJohn who are celeb driven fashion houses stealing all the jobs of real designers. That's effed up, they need to make that illegal. Oh in about 5 years we'd have Britney, Lindsay Lohan and whatever lower-middle-class celebs having their own lines. And the real designers like us would be working anonymously for them. Time to assasinate them