You will have to work in order to work:

This is something that many people don’t realize: You will need to work for free–for many years, in fact–until you are given the opportunity to actually work for a paltry entry level salary. It will legitimately require your blood, sweat, and tears–like, so much so, that you will employ tactics to try to make the process slightly less painful. In my time interning, I always managed to identify the least-trafficked office bathroom in which to cry, and figured out how to wash my face afterwards so as not to smear my eyeliner. And yes, I really did bleed. After opening more than 800 fashion week invites in a week, my fingers began to crack and bleed from the envelopes’ harsh adhesives. I’d bring smatterings of my mother’s miracle La Mer into the office to minimize scarring, so Victoria Bartlett wouldn’t wince at the sight of my hands when I interviewed her backstage days later. And the idea of small strains of my DNA sauntering into the Proenza show on the back of slightly-soiled invites offered a bit of consolation too.