What’s the Harm With Celebrity Interns?

Today, Fashionista.com broke news that Lady Gaga wants to intern at Phillip Treacy. While it hasn’t been confirmed if her application has been accepted, there already is an uproar online in the fashion world about Gaga being the next “Celebrity Apprentice”.

1) Its a good thing. From a brand perspective, having a celebrity intern at your company is a great thing. You get tons of publicity throughout the entire internship period, and you also have the chance to establish a strong relationship with “said” celeb that could come in handy in the years to come. Right now, loads of Gaga fans are getting to know Phillip Treacy’s designs. While, its a great “marketing” move, can it also hurt your brand?

2) Its a bad thing. The obvious answer might be no, but if you think about it, wouldn’t it be distracting to other employees? Or what about giving up a treasured internship to a talented someone who really could’ve taken your brand to new heights? Or enabling a celeb to create their own celebrity line that could potentially compete or stomp your line?

3) Maybe its not a bad thing. There are tons of celebrity lines out there that just are a celeb name and the celebrity doesn’t do any of the “actual” designing. So if Gaga or Kanye (who interned at The Gap) learned some design skills, creative team building, and are a better “celebrity designer” because of it, more power to them. They are most likely going to come out with their own clothing line or perfume anyway, at least they will have put some work behind it all. But hopefully, a fashion brand wouldn’t take one less intern to accommodate one celebrity.