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Fashioning A Fashion Career

Posted: Thursday, May 5, 2011

Most people conceive of a career in fashion designing as merely drinking cocktails, dressing celebrities up and attending chi-chi affairs. But fashion designing is more than that. Fashion is not just about clothes design either; designers pursue other interests like shoes, accessories, or bag designs. Excited about pursuing a fashion designing career? In setting up a fashion design business, a budding designer needs to know the basics.

Knowledge and experience in designing, drawing, sketching, and CAD applications are necessary to facilitate design illustrations. Certification from design schools and workshops give additional points for a budding designer but are not really necessary.

Possessing the above-mentioned skills does not guarantee fashion designing success. As a starting fashion designer, you must identify the type of design you are interested in pursuing. Are you going to concentrate on women, teens, kids, men, or be a general designer? Some starting designers opt to concentrate on a special market by being a formal wear designer or a bridal gown designer. Starting design businesses opt to open their own store and hire their own pattern-makers, sewers, and staff.

Custom and per-order designing are the usual pursuits of budding designers. Fashion business experts recommend the latter two to most starting fashion design business as these require less capital and workforce.

To jumpstart a fashion design career quickly, applying as an employee in a fashion house is another option. Positions for entry-level applicants are usually pattern makers, sample maker, and sketcher. Fashion house managers agree that they tend to look for individuals with great style and flair for fashion.

A. Careers in Fashion Merchandising
Fashion merchandisers combine the skills of advertising, retail knowledge, marketing and the creativity of a fashion designer. If you want a career in fashion merchandising you must have good self confidence, good judgment and good resourcefulness. Having a good knowledge of the target fashion markets is also very important so experience and a genuine interest in the fashion market is a must. Searching for careers in fashion merchandising can be quite a hard job as this is a very competitive industry where only the top survive.

To your advantage though this is a rapidly growing market which is looking for advertising, marketing, and sales managers. Qualifying in fashion merchandising means you can go for a career in any of the following roles: Product Developer, Importing / Exporting Agent, Fashion Buyer, Fashion Merchandiser, Retailer, Fashion Event Planner, Store Manager or Fashion Advertising Agent. For people just starting their career, many companies offer training programs while smaller firms offer a wide variety of entry-level positions.

These positions include buyer's assistant, department manager assistant and marketing assistant. Responsibilities increase with hard work and an interest in the job. For those people who demonstrate the necessary talents, upward mobility is relatively easy.

B. Careers in the Fashion Industry
Interest in the fashion industry is on the rise, and so are the opportunities – and the competition. It is relatively easy to earn a degree in fashion design, merchandising, or fashion marketing. Each of these segments focuses on a different aspect of the fashion industry. As the fashion industry continues to grow, there is an increased need for educated and specialized staff in the fashion world. The three main opportunities with a fashion degree are fashion design, fashion marketing and fashion merchandising.

Becoming a fashion designer is a dream for many people. Fashion Marketing involves the advertising, design and business side of the fashion business. A fashion marketer has to have a comprehensive knowledge of the fashion industry to be able to identify what will be stylish and appealing to their target markets. Fashion marketing connects the designers to the public by tracking consumer-buying habits. Fashion Merchandising and marketing work hand in hand.

Fashion merchandisers are responsible for buying the clothes and presenting them to stores. One of the largest parts of fashion merchandising is creating displays to help consumers want to buy the products. Fashion marketing is basically the selecting of clothing lines and choosing how the will be presented to the market.

Fashion is a career that combines business aptitude and an artistic eye.


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