Industry Confessions

On the day I said no to Terry Richardson, my career ended, someone posted anonymously on Fashion Industry Confessions. That’s where it started. People writing from inside the industry—models, photographers, assistants, interns—posting the stuff that never makes it past the publicist. Harassment disguised as mentorship. Design theft. The constant casual viciousness between competitors.

Not shocking. Everyone who knows the fashion world knows how it operates. But reading it in strangers’ voices, specific and unfiltered, does something different. A colleague’s sweat started reeking under the backstage lights. My boss packed eight stolen Balenciaga pieces into a bag for his next collection. Small moments of wreckage described like they don’t matter. Because inside the industry, they don’t.

The Tumblr stayed up longer than similar accounts elsewhere. Kept getting fed information by insiders. Some real stories broke—collaborations nobody wanted public, secrets the industry actually cared about keeping secret. That made people angry. Not shocked. Angry that the performance finally cracked.

As a designer, I’m close enough to this world to see how it works but far enough to walk away if I needed to. The confessions didn’t tell me anything new. But something felt different reading it all spelled out plainly, like everyone was just tired of the pretense.