After “how do I get into fashion without experience,” the second question I get asked the most is: how much do fashion jobs and internships actually pay?
If you’re considering a career in fashion and you want to know what you’ll really make as an intern (with all the stories we hear about unpaid internships, and the cost of living in fashion capitals like Milan, Paris, New York and London), asking this is completely normal.
I was wondering the exact same thing when I first got started.
Before running Glam Observer and teaching more than 5,000 fashion enthusiasts how to land their dream job in fashion, I worked in the industry myself. I started with an e-commerce internship at Alexander McQueen, and my salary was around 600€ a month.
Honestly, I wasn’t even expecting to be paid at all. I grew up on stories of unpaid interns, so I wasn’t applying to fashion internships with a salary in mind. In my head, an internship was the most practical, most essential part of my education. You don’t get paid to take a course, so I didn’t expect to get paid to intern either, especially because I was just happy to finally be inside the industry I’d been dreaming about.
So when the end of the month came and I actually got paid, I was genuinely surprised, and thrilled.
Not that 600€ stretched far in Milan. But I felt lucky compared to some of my friends who were doing fully unpaid internships. To support myself, I was also selling illustrations and handmade Christmas ornaments on an Etsy store. How I planned to financially sustain an unpaid internship is a story for another article, so let me know in the comments if you’re interested in reading about it and I’ll write it!
I don’t usually recommend choosing a job in fashion based on salary. That’s why you won’t often catch me sharing posts or reels about how much fashion jobs pay. But I did want this article to give you a realistic idea of what to expect, so I went and analyzed recent internship postings from LVMH, the biggest luxury group in the world, home to brands like Dior, Louis Vuitton, Fendi and Celine. I wanted to see the real numbers so I could break them down for you here, and give you a concrete idea of how much internships at LVMH and other luxury houses actually pay.
And honestly, I’m proud to say that Glam Observer pays its own interns just as much as LVMH does, even though our revenue is obviously nowhere near that of the biggest luxury giant in the world.
You might be surprised to learn that the pay doesn’t really change based on the department. It changes based on the country and city.
Whether you go into merchandising, HR, PR or buying, the pay for your internship will be very similar. What changes is where you’re working, because each city has a different cost of living, and that’s something you need to factor in too.
Just because you see New York paying interns more, it doesn’t mean you’ll actually pocket more money, because living in New York costs far more than most of Europe.
So let’s get into it.
In 2026, LVMH internship salaries range from about 650€ a month in Italy to 1,300€ to 1,400€ a month in Paris, while a Louis Vuitton internship in New York pays 20 to 25 dollars an hour (roughly 3,400 to 4,300 dollars a month).
Within Europe, Paris pays the most.
LVMH’s Paris-region listings offer 1,300€ to 1,400€ gross per month, while comparable roles in Italy sit between 650€ and 800€. Spain lands in the middle, at around 800€ to 900€.
Ranked from highest to lowest LVMH internship salary: New York, then Paris, then Madrid, then Milan and the rest of Italy.
The highest-paying LVMH internship overall is in New York, by a wide margin. In Europe, Paris pays the most, offering interns nearly double what LVMH’s Italian houses do.
If you’re reading this and thinking this is exactly the kind of inside information you wish someone had handed you sooner, that is the whole reason Glam Observer exists. I share the real numbers, the real stories, and the career advice I wish I’d had when I was starting out with no connections and no fashion family behind me.
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The gap isn’t random. Like any other job, it’s normal for salaries to differ between countries, and internship pay simply tracks the local legal minimum and the cost of doing business in each country.
France sets a national intern minimum of roughly 4.50€ per hour, which works out to just under 700€ a month for a full-time internship. LVMH’s Paris stipend of 1,300€ to 1,400€ sits at roughly double that floor, so the house genuinely pays well above what the law requires. Italy has no single national intern minimum. The rules are set region by region and usually land between 300€ and 800€ a month, which is exactly the band the Italian LVMH listings fall into.
The US works differently again. There’s no intern-specific stipend rule like France’s, but that doesn’t mean interns can be paid nothing. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, interns at for-profit companies like LVMH generally have to be paid at least the minimum wage, unless the role qualifies as a genuine educational (unpaid) internship. The federal minimum is 7.25 dollars an hour, and New York City’s is much higher at 17.00 dollars an hour in 2026, so LVMH’s 20 to 25 dollars an hour sits comfortably above the local floor. That makes it a competitive choice, not just the legal minimum.
A few things to weigh before you compare offers
The European figures are almost always gross, so factor in tax and social contributions to estimate your real take-home.
Read the perks closely, because they matter more than they look. A free canteen or a daily lunch allowance can be worth 150€ to 200€ a month, and that completely changes the real value of a lower stipend.
And pay usually scales with your academic level and internship type (curricular versus extracurricular), so the same posting can pay a first-year and a master’s student differently.
So my honest take, and I really mean it: don’t choose an internship on salary alone. Early on, the house you get inside, the people you learn from, and the experience you walk away with will shape your career far more than a couple hundred euros a month. The money comes later, and it comes faster once you’re actually in.
Start with my free masterclass. In about an hour I’ll show you where to find the best fashion jobs and internships (including the ones that never get posted publicly), and how to build an application that actually gets opened instead of ignored. It’s free, and it’s the exact starting point I wish someone had given me.
When you’re ready to go all in, Break Into the Fashion Industry Course is my full step-by-step method. It’s everything I used to go from no connections and no fashion family to working inside the industry, and everything I’ve since taught more than 5,000 people. If you’re tired of guessing and you want a clear path instead, this is the one.
Want to pass job interview tests and stand out? Merchandising, buying and management roles in fashion including internships all run on spreadsheets, and being genuinely good with Excel is how you get hired in fashion when the recruiter will test you during job interviews and one of the fastest ways to look like a pro on day one. Excel for Fashion teaches you the exact formulas and reports fashion companies use every day, so you walk in already knowing what most interns spend months figuring out.
And if you want to feel what the job is actually like before you’re in it, The Fashion Internships Simulator puts you through the real tasks of a real fashion internship. It’s the closest thing to experience you can get before you land the role, and it’s what makes your interview answers sound like someone who has already done the work, because you will have. Plus you’ll get out with a portfolio that looks like you worked in fashion already!
Now I’m curious about you. Would you take a lower-paid internship at a dream house, or a better-paid one somewhere less exciting? Tell me in the comments!
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