The fashion industry is a creative yet lucrative industry for those who have an eye for detail and a passion for art. While as fancy as it might sound to everybody, it is as challenging as any other profession can be. The glamour one sees in the front is a result of years of hard work by the designer and team. Let’s learn how to become a fashion designer.
1. What is Fashion Design?
Before beginning, it is important to comprehend what fashion design entails and how to become a fashion designer.
Fashion design is the art of creating clothes and accessories related to it. It requires applying aesthetics, construction techniques, design principles, and natural beauty to the garments. It can be influenced by the diverse cultures or trends we have witnessed over time. Designing comes from instincts and inspiration. It is a combination of both art and technique.
With immense dedication and willingness to work and create something new, one can achieve heights as a designer.
1.1 Modern Fashion Design has been Broadly Classified into Two Basic Categories
- Haute couture: Haute couture has a specific niche of customers and is custom-sized to fit these customers to their size. To qualify as a haute couture house, a designer needs to show a collection twice a year with a minimum of 35 outfits each time. A designer needs to be a part of a syndical chamber for haute couture.
- Ready to wear: Large production runs are better suited for ready-to-wear collections because they are standard-sized rather than custom-created. Additionally, they are divided into two groups: confection collections and designer collections.
Designer collections have a distinctive design in addition to a higher level of quality and finish. They frequently embody a certain concept and are produced to make a point rather than to be sold. On international catwalks, ready-to-wear and haute couture collections are displayed.
Fashion design is a form of art.
To work as a fashion designer, one needs to have artistic ability and a creative personality. You have to be good at drawing and able to express your ideas through your sketches. You don’t have to be a great artist, but basics can be useful for this course. An understanding of customers’ needs and audience lifestyle can be crucial for fashion design. Most importantly, designs should be original and innovative.
Fashion Designers are qualified and skilled professionals who sketch, design, and manufacture apparel. They are not restricted to making new outfit ideas, but their designs also reflect ethnic aesthetics and inspirations. Fashion designers work parallel with fashion stylists, merchandisers and manufacturers, fashion magazines, editors, costume designers, and modelling agencies.
2. What does a Fashion Designer do?
There is a list of crucial duties that fashion designers have to perform apart from the cliched fact of designing.
- Developing new concepts
- Analyzing the past, current, and future trends.
- Sketching out fresh products
- Testing fabrics, patterns, and colours for their outfits
- Collaborating with other team members for the upcoming seasons.
- Developing tech kits with specific requirements
- Managing the prototype samples as well as creating mood boards.
Now that we understand what fashion designing is, let’s dive into how to be one.
3. How to Become a Fashion Designer?
3.1 Start by Getting a Degree/Diploma
Getting a basic formal education in the field you want to pursue is the key step towards achieving it. A bachelor’s or diploma in fashion design will give deep insight into what your career will look like. It will help you gain skills, knowledge, and even expertise in the field. Usually, the bachelor’s degree is a 3 to 4-year intensive study in this field teaching everything from the basics to advanced techniques. A diploma can vary from month to year giving an overview of the 4-year jam pact course.
3.2 Build Skills and Hone Them
During the entire duration of the course, you will be taught various skills and techniques that will be useful in the long run. Find what techniques you want to go further with and practice them. Learn all the basic skills needed to be a designer like drawing skills, sewing techniques, tailoring, draping, and many more, and have a good command over them. Apart from designing, learned the basics of fashion business like marketing, public relations, communication, trend analysis, and others.
3.3 Do Internships
Do as many internships as possible, internships give you a break in the fashion industry and help you to network and enhance your portfolio. Internships tell you more about your job and enable you to work in the fashion industry. This gives you hands-on experience in the fashion industry. During an internship, students work under the supervision of expert designers. Internships tend to provide insight into the business side of the fashion world.
3.4 Build Your Portfolio
If you want to become a fashion designer, you need to develop a good fashion portfolio. A good portfolio is the key to good projects and more opportunities. You can either build a digital or manual portfolio showing your college and internship projects. This also shows your skills, and knowledge and gives an overview to the recruiter or client if he/ she wants to proceed or not.
3.5 Bonus Tip
Stay Abreast of Fashion Trends: Fashion trends change from time to time. It is important to know the trends and inculcate them in your designs. Staying abreast of all trends gives you a knack from other designers and your designs can speak for themselves. They need to stay on top of trends and keep up with the fashion news. In an industry where trends change seasonally, fashion designers must devote their time to updating themselves with the new trends and fashion cycles.
4. What Qualifications Do I Need to Become a Fashion Designer?
Candidates must fulfil basic educational qualifications to pursue a career as a fashion designer.
- Pursue a relevant Fashion Design Course: BDes in fashion design, a diploma in fashion design, or a bachelor’s of fashion design.
- They can also choose to go for a postgraduate level of education in fashion design. It can be an in-fashion design or a postgraduate diploma in fashion design.
- Various entrance exams are taken from fashion colleges.
4.1 Eligibility Criteria to be a Fashion Designer
- Fashion aspirants who have just cleared their class 12 from any stream (science/ commerce/humanities) can pursue a foundation degree, most colleges allow students who have cleared exams from a recognized board. One can give different entrance examinations conducted for the same.
- For pursuing fashion design at the postgraduate level, fashion aspirants who have completed their design course at a graduate level are preferred for admission.
5. Career Opportunities as a Fashion Designer after College
There are enormous opportunities once you pass out from the design school.
5.1 Work Independently
Working independently is a tough yet bold move for young fashion designers. starting your label or a designer studio puts all the responsibility in the hands of the designer. You require the necessary capital to sustain your business. One more way to work independently is by doing freelancing. Freelance fashion designer work on short-term contracts or sell their designs through different websites. Freelancers can also work with different fashion companies and fashion brands.
5.2 Work for Others
Fashion designers also choose to work for different designer labels or designers of their choice. Designers typically choose to work for clothing manufacturers or retailers and different designers.
6. Career Path to Follow for Fashion Designer
The career path fashion aspirants can follow for their education is as follows.
6.1 Abroad
Students interested in studying fashion and can invest money in education abroad can explore different universities abroad. Studying fashion abroad is way different but yet is based on the same design principles. Studying abroad can open various opportunities:
- Meeting high-network individuals
- Learn global techniques!
- Global job opportunities
- High-paying jobs (not necessarily)
Some of the Renowned Universities abroad for Fashion Design are as follows.
- Parsons: fashion, design, art school, US
- London College of Fashion, UK
- Fashion Institute Technology, US
- Central Saint Martins, UK
- Bunka Fashion College, Japan
- ESMOD, Paris
- Royal College of Fashion, UK
6.2 India
Students can also choose to study in India itself. Studying in India will give you more knowledge of Indian design as well. There are so many well-renowned colleges where one can study not only fashion design but also various other fashion courses.
Studying in India is comparatively cheaper as compared to other universities abroad as well. Some of these colleges are as follows.
- National Institute of Fashion Technology
- Pearl Academy
- Symbiosis School of Design
- Amity School of Fashion Technology
7. Skills Required to be a Fashion Designer
Wondering about “How to Become a Fashion Designer?“
To be a successful fashion designer, here are some basic skills students must follow to achieve their goals in this competitive fashion industry.
- Originality
- Creativity
- Eyes for details
- Problem-solving skills
- Business sense
- Time management
- Multitasking
- Communication skills
- Visualization and ideation
- Sketching
- Awareness of fashion trends
- Collaborative nature
- Computer literate
- Color theory
- Design software
8. Master in Fashion Design
Fashion design is a vast field with various niches to follow. MA in fashion design is a two-year intensive course for fashion aspirants to gain in-depth knowledge about the fashion world and its continuous changes.
Studying fashion MA could be very rewarding. It opens the doors for many other opportunities. It gives in-depth knowledge about various new techniques one can inculcate in their designs. Doing a master’s is a choice for fashion designers.
9. Job Prospects as a Fashion Designer
One can take various fashion design programs to build a career as a fashion designer. Some of the prospects as a fashion designer can be.
9.1 Technical Fashion Designer
Technical fashion designers collaborate with the production and design teams to guarantee that the item is made properly. Technical designers mostly use computer-aided design and tools to work on their projects. It requires one to excel in technical skills and using software. It takes the garments to shelf-ready products.
9.2 Textile Designers
Textile designers create patterns and prints for fabrics. They create two-dimensional designs often which can be repeated in the design for the fabric. Their designs get embedded in the fabric surface. They mainly work in pattern making.
9.3 Apparel Fashion Designer
Apparel fashion designers are mainly responsible for creating designs for the garments. They are responsible for creating styles for every part of the world.
9.4 Footwear Designers
Footwear designers are responsible for ideating and creating designs for footwear. This can lead to the exploration of a wide category of opportunities in the footwear industry.
10. Is it Hard to be a Fashion Designer?
It won’t be easy to break into the fashion industry, but it won’t be impossible. The objective is to land your first position as a fashion designer and keep gaining experience. Your pay will increase if you do that, and you’ll almost probably earn far more than you did to earn your fashion degree. It takes persistent dedication, passion, and hard work to be a successful fashion designer. The path might not be easy but if you have passion for creativity, you can crack the path.
11. Scope of Fashion Designers
Fashion designing is a new yet very competitive field in today’s world. There are always speculations about the scope, and future, and confusion about how to become a fashion designer. Beyond manufacturing apparel and accessories, fashion designing has a broad and varied scope. It entails using creativity to conceptualize, develop, and produce clothing that reflects both personal taste and societal trends.
The influence of fashion designers on how people express themselves through their attire is significant.
Fashion designers can work in a variety of fields in the always-changing fashion business. There are many alternatives, ranging from sportswear to children’s apparel, sustainable fashion to haute couture. Fashion designers can focus on particular markets to appeal to various clientele with distinctive tastes.
Moreover, by expanding into the creation of accessories and footwear, fashion designers can expand their market beyond garments. Additionally, the entertainment sector looks to them for their ability to design costumes for movies, TV shows, and stage productions.
11.1 Fashion in the Digital Age
Fashion designers may now experiment with virtual clothing for online avatars and video game characters thanks to the digital age. Additionally, the focus on sustainability has created opportunities for eco-aware designers that concentrate on developing ethical and environmentally responsible fashion lines.
In essence, fashion designing offers dynamic and promising career paths for those who possess creative flair, a keen understanding of trends, and a passion for self-expression through clothing and style.
12. Things to Consider: How to Become a Fashion Designer?
Thinking of entering the world of glam? Want to become a fashion designer?
Before applying to fashion schools, be sure you have done your research well. No this is not meant to scare you all but here are some things an aspiring student should consider and be well aware of.
Fashion is a creative art form that benefits from artistic talent. Drive and passion are what keep designers going in this difficult profession. For fashion designers, seeing the results of their labours might take time, just like with other artistic endeavours. Fashion designers reach their career goals thanks to their confidence and dedication.
12.1 Do Designers need to be Proficient in Drawing?
No, not always. Today a lot of fashion designers make designs using software. Others hand-pin fabric to create the ideal drape. While having a talent for drawing is helpful, becoming a fashion designer does not require you to be a da Vinci.
The fashion industry values networking. Invest in an industry network even before applying to a fashion design program. This entails participating in events like trade fairs, networking events, fashion shows, and others. Continue networking with business leaders while in school so that you can enter the workforce with a solid network.
