The content of 'Career Guidance' blog series, are based on my detailed interaction with experienced working professionals, from their respective domains.
The objective of this blog series is to offer insights to students about various profession, so that they can make informed career decisions.
The objective of this blog series is to offer insights to students about various profession, so that they can make informed career decisions.
Fashion Design
A BIG THANKS to Chitransh, for sharing your experience & valuable insights about Fashion Design profession.
Pre-requisite attributes for students, who are aspiring to become fashion designing professionals are creativity, innovative thinking & sketching skills.
Graduates in fashion design, can seek employment as a 'Designer' (apparel industry) or be on their own as 'Freelance Designer' (designer label).
A designer to be professionally successful has to apply the following principles in their work:
- Apply creativity without compromising on the products sales volumes & profit.
- Have a good understanding of consumer behavior (their likes, dislikes, interests, predicting their buying behavior etc).
- Keeping oneself regularly updated with fashion trends
- New ideas - to be able to innovate or seek inspiration to create new products suiting local market
- Need to be deeply observant to pick up clues from social media, fashion blogs, movies, television, society at large to be able to understand whats in vogue, the changing trends & to be able to predict what is going to be in demand in next fashion season/year.
- One needs to be highly energetic, passionate, hard working & should have the ability to handle pressures of demanding project timelines & deliverables.
The career path in apparel designing industry falls into three broad categories:
- Designing
- Product Development (Apparel production team)
- Buying
- Sourcing
Product Development: The apparel production team, converts the 'concept' into a marketable product.
Buyer: The buyer, plays a crucial role as they decide on the final salable concept (design/product).
The 'apparel production team' comprises of sourcing (procurement of raw materials), product development (manages various stakeholders) & technical team (body fit & pattern making of the garments).
On a comparative scale, the 'Designing team's' nature of job, demands higher creativity compared to 'Product Development team'. On the other hand, the 'Product Development team's' nature of job, demands higher analytical skills, managerial skills & business acumen, in comparison to 'Designing team'.
The buyer profile demands the following skill-set:
- Very good understanding of fashion/design/trends.
- Very good at number crunching (mathematical ability, data analysis, trend analysis).
- Good decision making ability for product allocation (i.e. what quantity & what kind of products to be allocated across geographic locations (tier 1, tier 2, etc...). [These decision making are based on demographic data, consumer profile, trend assessment on consumer behavior etc.]
- Sales domain - multi-brand & single brand outlets (visual merchandising),
- e-commerce (UI/UX designer/Graphic designer),
- Fashion/style magazines,
- Fashion communication (mass media, e-commerce/websites/mobile apps).
Fashion Design graduates, can also opt for a specialised MBA degree in retail & get into the commercial/business side of the fashion retail industry.
Fashion design graduates, who are inclined for further specialization, can pursue Masters program in their choosen area (textile, fashion, accessory etc).
In summary, fashion design industry provides many career opportunities, after all it is not just about design rather this industry offers various job opportunities all along the continuum, from conceptualization to sales.
There are fashion design, graduate & masters degree offered by prestigious Govt. institutes like NID (National Institute of Design) & NIFT (National Institute of Fashion Technology).
The entrance examinations for NIFT (and in general for all design institutes) checks for general aptitude, mental ability & creativity (e.g. on the spot a topic is provided & the aspiring students need to convert it into a slogan/banner/visual aid etc). Candidates, who successful pass the first round appear for situation test (e.g. raw materials are provided & the aspiring students are challenged to convert them into a product).
NIFT offers the following programs:
- B.Des (Bachelor of Design): (4 years program)
- Accessory Design
- Fashion Communication
- Fashion Design
- Knitwear Design
- Leather Design
- Textile Design
- B. FTech (Bachelor of Fashion Technology): (4 years program)
(Graduates of B. FTech, typically join apparel industry as Product Development/Apparel production team).
The 2 years Masters program in offering from NIFT are:
- Master in Design
- Master of Fashion Management
- Master of Fashion Technology
- B.Des (Bachelor of Design) - Textile Design (4 years program)
- M.Des (Masters of Design) - Textile Design (2 years program)
- NID www.nid.edu
- NIFT www.nift.ac.in
- NIFD www.nifd.net
- JD Institute of Fashion Technology www.jdinstitute.com
- Symbiosis Institute of Design www.sid.edu.in
- Pearl Academy www.pearlacademy.com
- GD Goenka School of Design www.gdgoenkauniversity.com/schoolofdesign
- Wigan & Leigh www.wlci.in
- Raffles Design International www.rafflesmumbai.com
- Northeast Institute of Fashion Technology www.neift.com
- Army Institute of Fashion Design www.aifdonline.in
- BIFT www.bift.co.in
- Arch Academy www.archedu.org
- IAM - Apparel Management www.iamindia.in
- GIFT www.gift-india.com
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