The results of Fashionista's second annual fashion-salary survey are in. And, if it's possible for something to be both juicy and disappointing, this is it.
Fashionista gathered salary data from over 5,000 readers employed at all levels and in all sectors of the fashion industry — from fashion design and PR to retail sales and editorial.
Amongst all the professions, one common thread is just how abysmally low some starting salaries are — especially in editorial. Few people make big bucks in their first job, of course. But, seeing that assistant market editors can expect to pull down about $25,000 per year (and editorial assistants just under $35,000) is enough to still the heart of any soon-to-be J-school grad.
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Worse, these numbers represent averages, which means some people make less than the figures above (how is making less than $25,000 for a full-time job even legal?). Compound that with the fact that many of the available jobs in fashion publishing are in New York, this delightfully unaffordable metropolis we call home, and you've got a recipe for junior fashion editors living in shoebox apartments with more roommates than a sorority house, possibly burning gifted Proenza booties for warmth. Of course, salaries get less bleak as you move up the ladder, with senior and managing editors pulling down tidy sums in the upper five digits.
In the "sign of the times" department, people in social media management also do quite well for themselves. Make it to that "Senior Social Media Manager" level, and your six-figure salary will surely make up for all those "So, what do you do, Tweet all day?" gibes.
Click over to Fashionista for lots more details on what fashion folks really make. And, uh, you social-media people — can we borrow some scratch? (Fashionista)