Following a well-received cold email, I recently met with a Turner Prize-winning artist whom I greatly respect for too many white-wine spritzers at a London pub. I had initially written to him with a request: ‘I’ve got peers around me who keep me inspired every day, but I’d love some sage advice from someone who’s been in the game for a while.’ I was genuinely hoping for ‘sage advice’, but my therapist might have suggested that ‘validation’ was another thing on my agenda.

As I watched this artistic genius knock back a fourth spritzer, he told me something I had begun to suspect but had hoped I wouldn’t have to reckon with: ‘These fashion brands are the new patrons of the art world. They’re the modern-day Medici family and if I was your age I’d make sure I was aboard the money train instead of waving from the station.’ He was right.

I’m a curator – something I’ve only recently become comfortable admitting – from County Durham. I moved to London in 2015 to find my fortune and six years later I’m still searching. I’ve achieved a small degree of success in recent years with Drawing a Blank, a series of community-driven group exhibitions that take place once a year internationally. With no trust fund and a dad who isn’t David Zwirner, it has been a bumpy ride keeping the show on the road, but I’ve just about managed it by selling pieces of my soul to the highest bidder.

Major fashion labels have single-handedly paid my rent over the past few years and supported – with varying degrees of self-interest – my exhibitions and passion projects. Ultimately, I’m working towards a point where the bill for my curatorial endeavours is footed by the Tate or the ICA, but in the meantime, I have to rely on these ragtrade Medicis to make possible my ambitions.

That being said, I don’t always say yes: as a curator I have a responsibility to protect the artists I work with. I’ve been careful to read the small print and not become blinded by pound signs. Just last month I turned down a near six-figure sum to curate an exhibition on behalf of a well-known luxury label. They insisted on approving the art-works to ensure that nothing politicized or controversial was on display. Fuck that.

At the other end of the spectrum, an eternally cool New York skateboard brand donated $15,000 for a recent project, no strings attached – without a contract, logo on the wall, or Instagram tag – simply because they saw the value in what we were doing and wanted to support. People talk, so of course word got around that some of the brand’s cash had been added to the pot, but public perception is exactly that: the brand was seen to be contributing to this cultural cauldron, rather than pulling out handfuls of artistic integrity for the sole benefit of its ‘brand image’.

When the success of a brand sponsorship is measured in ‘engagements per follow’, ‘impression numbers’ and ‘referral traffic’, I can’t imagine it is easy explaining to the chief marketing officer why the statistically unquantifiable ‘word of mouth’ carries infinitely more influence. Supporting a budding creative mind in the realization of a project they care deeply about is an act which, if done with honesty and integrity, can buy a lifetime of loyalty and blossom into a sustained collaboration. Forward-thinking brands are coming to realize this. Over the next decade I’d like to think we’ll see a shift away from the current cultural piggybacking towards a more philanthropic model of artistic support.

To any creative director or head of brand marketing reading this, I would ask:

• Does a philanthropic approach have more power than the heavy handedness of a ‘branded’ approach?

• Do the compromises you’re demanding affect the ethos, integrity or concept of the original artwork?

• What are you doing to ensure that the artist feels respected?

• Would you prefer a short-lived logo above the door or a lifetime of loyalty from the artist you’re working with?

I am fortunate to have met a few individuals in the world of fashion who hold the metaphorical keys to the safe, without having drunk the Kool-Aid. To those people who have been fighting my corner, I’m deeply grateful. To all other patrons, gallerists, sugar daddies and fashion brands: do feel free to get in touch.