This is the second part of a two-part story. Read the first installment here. 

The fashion industry may have made some changes post-"Reckoning," in which assistants at places like Condé Nast spoke out against having to do things like clean their boss's golf clubs. Magazine publishers aren’t making assistants cry or quit the way they did during their heyday in the ’90s when, a former Condé HR person told me, one came to her crying because she couldn't find a Tickle Me Elmo for her maniacal boss. But after having interviewed more than a dozen fashion assistants over the past couple of weeks, to assess how much the business has evolved since the first Devil Wears Prada movie, it’s clear that the industry fails at an embarrassingly base level: It is structured so that it does not pay its lowest level employees. 

While unpaid internships are fully legal in some parts of the world, many young people end up working as assistants for independent stylists or on fashion shows for top brands on a freelance, volunteer basis. This doesn't mean the hours are short or that the tasks are easy. But unlike film or television production, where entry-level workers are often able to graduate to union jobs, many interns and assistants toil indefinitely with no guarantee of a promotion to more regimented — or at least paid — work.

Fashion is surely not the only industry to rely on the eager participation of a seemingly limitless supply of aspirants. But it seems to have baked a permanent underclass into the system. The assistants I spoke to are aware of this but unsure how to get out of it. Corporate offices may be better, but — as we saw in the first installment of this story last week — independent proprietors still throw things and ask for personal favors.

Ahead, four more fashion assistants from across the industry talk about what their jobs are like and whether or not they think things have changed since The Devil Wears Prada was released 20 years ago.

"The EIC Is Like a God."

I grew up in the U.S. but live in Europe now. I've done PR, interned at magazines, assisted at startups. People ask me all the time if The Devil Wears Prada is true. I always say yes. These stereotypes didn't come from thin air.

The one luxury label I worked at that had an actual HR department acknowledged you have a life outside of work — that you might have a doctor's appointment, that you might need to leave early. Everywhere else, I wouldn't even think of asking. A lot of these companies are five people. There's no one there to advocate for you.

My first week interning at a magazine, they messaged me on a day I wasn't working and asked me to take a 5:30 a.m. train the next day to a town three hours outside the city to pick up pieces from an independent designer. It wasn't even a proper train station — no roof, middle of nowhere. I had to wait an hour for the next train back. I did it, went back to set, and they didn't even shoot the clothes.

One fashion week, I worked as an unpaid intern seven days a week until 2 a.m. They paid for my travel, but no lunch allowance. My eczema was so bad I was bleeding. But you're just supposed to push through. If you don't have a positive attitude through all of it, you're looked upon poorly. People told me the best advice they could give is do not take anything personally. The attitude was if you had to flag something, you should just deal with it. 

I've been burned by a steamer so many times. Once I got a first-degree burn and said I needed a first aid kit and couldn't continue. It was like I was being a problem. They wrapped it, and then I went back to work — because I technically could.

I tripped on some stairs once carrying borrowed shoes and landed on a box of Chanel. My boss’s first reaction was…