Refinery 29 posted this article, The 10 Hardest Working Designers, which ended up being Diane Von Furstenberg, Samantha Pleet, Lisa Mayock and Sophie Buhai of Vena Cava, Philip Crangi, Alexander Wang, Phillip Lim of 3.1 Phillip Lim, Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez of Proenza Schouler, Stella McCartney, Michael Kors, and Miuccia Prada of Prada.

Here is how they explain their choices:

“It becomes even easier to see which designers can genuinely innovate no matter how scant their resources, and which clothiers are just smoke and mirrors held up by money. Creating short films to showcase collections, traveling to remote Indian villages for fresh inspiration, opening new boutiques in a time when others are closing flagships—fashion’s best entrepreneurs are using extraordinary effort and ingenuity to grow their brands in the face of a shrinking economy.”

I think it is fair enough to commend these designers for all their hard work, but how can you measure who works the hardest? The only people who actually know this are the ones working in the studio themselves, and even then who knows who is doing the work. In some studios, the team does everything, whereas in other studios, the designer or creative director is also very hands on. I was lucky at Sonia Rykiel, she was there nearly every day, and the rest of the team only worked a handful of weekends a year. We never had all-nighters, leaving at midnight or 2am during collections, which is quite early. I had friends at Louis Vuitton who were there 20 hours a day, or another friend who used to sleep under her desk during collections, and was forced to eat lunch every day with her boss.

The behind-the-scenes of the fashion industry is very fascinating, and we don’t see the full picture on movies or the internet. As I said, I was very fortunate at Sonia Rykiel, we worked hard but no extreme hours, however they had their own weird traditions. No one in the company could be called Sonia, so if that was your name, you had to adopt another name while you worked there. Also, my wonderful studio boss was called Antoinette, but Sonia hated that name so at work she was Louise. And we were the lucky ones…