Let me save you the suspense, because I’ve thought about this for a long time and I know where I land. Yes, talent matters. But proximity to power will get you there much, much, much faster. And in fashion, the gap between those two speeds is enormous.
I don’t want this to be another pile-on about famous people’s children. That conversation has been had, loudly, ever since New York magazine declared 2022 the year of the nepo baby. Most of the people born into famous families didn’t choose it, and some of them are genuinely gifted. My problem isn’t with individuals. It’s with a system that pretends to be a meritocracy when it often runs on connections.
What the climb looks like without a ladder
Picture a young designer from a small city. She’s talented. Really talented. She taught herself pattern-cutting from videos and her grandmother’s tailoring. She wants to work in fashion.
First, she has to move to an expensive city, because that’s where the industry is. Then she has to find a way in. In much of the creative world, that way in has traditionally been an internship, and for years many of them paid nothing. The UK social mobility charity the Sutton Trust found that 86 percent of internships in the arts, including fashion, were unpaid. Even in 2024, two-thirds of creative professionals surveyed by Creative Access said unpaid internships were still common in their industry, and that they mostly benefit people from wealthier backgrounds.
So she works for free in a city she can’t afford, or she doesn’t. Meanwhile someone whose parent knows the editor gets a paid role, a dinner invitation and a mentor, all before her application has been read.
The numbers on who ends up in creative work reflect this. A major UK study called Panic! found that only about 18 percent of people working in music, performing and visual arts came from working-class backgrounds. The same study found that the better-paid people were, the more they believed success came from talent and hard work alone. That’s the part that stings. Those who got help often genuinely don’t see it.
Proximity is a head start you can’t see
Proximity isn’t only famous parents. It’s knowing how the industry works before you arrive. It’s being comfortable in rooms where everyone else is comfortable. It’s being able to take a risk because failure won’t leave you broke. It’s having someone who’ll take your call.
You see it in small ways. A runway debut at sixteen for the daughter of a famous model. A first fashion campaign before a first portfolio. A brand launched with a celebrity parent’s following already attached. None of these people did anything wrong by accepting what was offered. Most of us would. But each one is a door that opened without anyone having to knock, while thousands of others are still knocking.
Some use the platform well, and I want to say so
To be fair, some people born close to power have used it brilliantly. Stella McCartney is the child of a Beatle, and she could have coasted. Instead she built a house that refused leather and fur from day one, when that was seen as commercial madness in luxury. She took the attention she was given and pointed it at something bigger than herself.
Kaia Gerber grew up with one of the most famous faces in modelling as her mother. During the pandemic she started a book club, and has used her following to get a generation of young readers excited about literature and authors. It’s a small thing, maybe, but it’s a good one.
That’s what I’d ask of anyone with proximity: know it, say it, and use it to open doors behind you. Pay your interns. Hire people who don’t look or sound like you. Credit your team. Mentor someone with no connections. Privilege isn’t something to apologise for forever, but it is something to spend well.
And the kids who make it anyway
Then there are the ones who climb without any ladder at all. Designers who started sewing in their bedrooms, models discovered at bus stops, stylists who got noticed because their Instagram was too good to ignore. The internet has opened some doors that gatekeepers used to guard, and some people walk through them on talent alone. Every single one of them deserves extra applause, because they ran the same race with weights on their ankles.
So, does talent matter?
Of course it does. Talent is what keeps you in the room. You can be handed a door, but you can’t be handed a career that lasts. The industry is full of famous names who got a start and then quietly disappeared, because a start is not the same as a body of work.
But talent alone is slow. Proximity is fast. Proximity buys time, second chances and visibility, which are the exact things talent needs to grow. That’s why the system is unfair even when everyone in it is talented. Two equally gifted people can start at the same moment and arrive ten years apart.
If you’re the one without connections: keep going. Your work is your proximity. Make it, share it, document it, find your people. It will take longer, and that’s unfair, but it’s also why it’ll mean more when you get there. And when you do, leave the door open behind you.
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