Too much competition in the glamour world! No one wants to see designs by a newbie. You can’t do anything unless you graduate from “ABC” college. You must intern for that celebrity designer or you’ll never get a client.
You’ll come across many people who shoot down any ambition that doesn’t fit into their idea of safe and secure career options. You may have heard some of the things I mentioned in the opening paragraph.
Maybe the ones who told you those things had your best interest in their hearts. But with all due respect to all the naysayers, very few people really understand how the fashion industry works.
I mean, would you tell an engineer that all her efforts go in vain unless she works for Google or NASA? Probably not. It’s all about building a career and pushing toward a goal step-by-step. Fashion is like any other industry – it needs a lot of trained and skilled people in different roles to function.
In this article, we’ll discuss some such roles that you can aim for as you plan your first fashion designing course.
A fashion designing course opens doors to a multitude of exciting career paths. Here are 7 stellar options, each offering unique challenges and rewards:
Fashion Designer
Fashion designer is definitely one of the most sought-after roles in the fashion world. It’s your best shot at some sort of fame. If you are that good and that well-connected, you may end up becoming a celebrity.
It’s a career path with immense possibilities. Most candidates who step in for a fashion design course, aim for a career in fashion designing. However, it’s important to note that this role is not the be-all and end-all of fashion. Nevertheless, we can’t deny that the rewards of hard work are the sweetest if you are a designer.
What does a fashion designer do?
The name is pretty self-explanatory. A fashion designer designs apparel and accessories. A good fashion designer knows every part of the art and science of this trade. They may not engage personally in every step of the process but they’re good at all of them. As a fashion designer, you may be designing clothes for a brand or an existing label. Or, you can create your own label.
The key skills of a fashion designer
As a fashion designer, you’ll have to master technical skills like
- Pattern making, sewing, and draping.
- You’ll need a strong understanding of fabrics and textiles
- You’ll need the ability and creativity to translate trends into wearable designs
- Excellent communication skills, time management, and presentation skills are essential
The career trajectory of a fashion designer
You start by pursuing a fashion designing course. Once you have learned and mastered the basic skill set, you must put those skills to the test by interning for design houses or assisting established designers. The practical experience you gain by assisting tailors and designers is invaluable for your future.
Once you have gained some experience, you can apply for junior designer roles in fashion houses. In such roles, you may be asked to handle specific steps in the designing process – like creating samples or making technical drawings.
This is the time when you choose a vertical for yourself and start specializing in that – it can be menswear, kids wear, women swear, footwear, or any specific kind of apparel or accessory. By focusing your work toward one vertical you’ll gain a lot of hands-on experience and expertise. That’s when you go for the senior designer roles and lead teams of designers.
The natural peak in this job-centric trajectory is becoming the creative director or head designer. Not only will you be in charge of leading multiple teams of designers, but you’ll also oversee the whole process from the procurement of material to the merchandising of the product. You’ll collaborate with other teams and participate in the vision and the decision-making process for the brand.
Alternatively, you can start freelancing from your junior designer days. If you have the right kind of portfolio and the skills to sell your work, you may even build a solid clientele. From there, opening your label is just a few leaps that’ll require a lot of perseverance and some luck.
Fashion Stylist
A fashion stylist creates images for people, brands, and events. That means, they imagine a certain look or follow a certain aesthetic to create an image of a person and curate apparel and accessories necessary for that. A costume designer in a film production, for instance, is in most cases, a fashion stylist.
Fashion stylists usually do not create designs from scratch. They creatively use existing designs to fulfill their purposes.
Fashion stylists create celebrity outfits for certain events. Design the look of models for photo shoots and editorials, and design the overall fashion aesthetic for films and television productions.
The key skills of a fashion stylist
- A keen eye for fashion trends
- The ability to understand the impact of culture and history on the outfit of people
- Working knowledge of photography, and excellent collaborative skills
We have discussed building a career as a fashion stylist in much detail in a different blog post, be sure to check that out.
Textile Designer
A textile designer designs prints, patterns, and textures for fabrics, wallpapers, and home decor among other things. They need a comprehensive knowledge of the textile production process – weaving, knitting, printing, and dyeing techniques – so that they can come up with practical and feasible designs.
A textile designer plays with different colors, knitting patterns, and textures, to create a bedrock on which the rest of the fashion designing process rests. They collaborate with other textile designers, fashion designers, printers, and manufacturers.
Necessary skills
- Knowledge of textile manufacturing process and techniques
- Strong understanding of color, pattern, and composition
- The ability to work in different mediums – hand painting, digital printing, embroidery, etc.
Fashion Merchandiser
A fashion merchandiser’s job is to ensure that the right product is at the right place at the right time and at the right price point. They handle buying and selling fashion merchandise for specific stores and brands.
Fashion merchandisers keep a tap on the pulse of the people, both on social media and on the streets. They detect patterns in user behaviors to predict the next trend. They factor in locale, seasonality, target market, etc. to determine what type of clothes and accessories to manufacture, stock, and shelve at a particular time. They are the retail master minds of the fashion industry.
Key skills of a fashion merchandiser
- Strong analytical and business acumen
- Understanding market trends and consumer behavior
- Negotiation and communication skills
- Knowledge of logistics and inventory management
Fashion Journalist/Blogger
A fashion journalist or blogger works as the voice of the industry. They create different types of content based on fashion trends, designers, events, magazines, social media, or their personal blogs.
Whether you write for a magazine or run your own blog, as a fashion blogger, you have the power to influence people. Hence, if your blog or journal has reach and quality, fashion brands will line up to get a feature in your articles.
Necessary skills
- Your writing skills need to be on point, obviously.
- You need to be a compelling storyteller who has the ability to glue the audience in.
- Your reviews and articles need to be authentic and technically sound. That’s where your training as a fashion designer will come in.
- Good social media management skills will help you market your material.
As you can see, a fashion designing course can open up a whole bunch of vistas each with interesting possibilities. It surely helps if you are passionate about fashion. Like a career in any other field, a disinterested candidate finds it very hard to make it big. At the end of the day, it’s your curiosity, the willingness to work hard, and the ability to sit tight through the tough patches, that pull you through.
A quick recap
- Don’t accept advice about the fashion industry from anyone who is not from the industry itself. If you have the right education and proper work ethic, you will make it.
- Fashion designer is one of the many outstanding roles you can play in the fashion industry after completing your education.
- It all comes down to experiential training, practical knowledge, and the ability to learn from and collaborate with other people.
- Every vertical in the field of fashion has its challenges and its rewards and no role is to be taken lightly
- Some of the key positions you may find yourself in are that of a designer, a stylist, a textile designer, a merchandiser, and a journalist. Each role involves a cultural aspect that requires you to dip your toes into the time you are living in as well as the history of different cultures.
- Becoming a successful fashion entrepreneur requires a combination of technical skills and strong business acumen. Even if you have the capital to start a fashion brand straight away, it’s better to learn the trade first.
