What does it takes to become a Fashion Designer?
What is Fashion Design?
What comes to your mind when I say Fashion Design? Well, like most, the moment you hear the words Fashion and Design you think of beautiful clothes with prints and colours and accessories with lots of glamour. And you’re right! This is exactly what Fashion designing is, after all, fashion and clothing are an extension of our personalities.
But, is the passion for designing clothes all you need to become a fashion designer?
A fashion designer is someone who comes up with new clothing styles and accessory ideas and concepts, commonly through sketching and designing. Today’s fashion industry is extremely competitive. If you want to work in this field, you’ll need to put in more effort and learn a variety of new abilities. But first and foremost you’ll need to attain a degree in Fashion Design and later you could look into exploring the world of visual arts and graphic design if you truly want to be the best.
What can I do with my Fashion Design degree?
Undergraduate fashion design studies will help you learn all you need to know about the fashion design trends, manipulating garment fabrics, sketching and drawing outfits, fashion events, and managing a fashion company, or how they say it in the fashion industry, managing a fashion house.
As a result, a fashion design student can specialize in designing clothes, work with renowned brands, forecast fashion trends, style celebrities, get into fashion journalism, or even set up their own design store, the possibilities are endless!
Should I become a Fashion Designer?
Here’s a fun way to answer this question, and if you can answer ‘yes’ to 10 of these questions, you should definitely go for it. If not, do not worry! Skills and attitudes can always be improved with practice. All that you need is the passion and drive to make your dream come true.
- Am I a creative and artistic person?
- Am I a competitive person?
- Am I able to focus on one thought or idea?
- Am I prepared to put up with moments of confusion and lack of confidence?
- Can I draw well?
- Can I communicate well with people?
- Can I function properly in a group?
- Can I think outside the box and accomplish things in unique ways when plan A fails?
- Do I have a keen sense of observation?
- Do I have an understanding of texture, fabric, pattern, and colour?
- Do I have the ability to visualize a design from nothing into a piece of art?
- Do I have an understanding of business and the ability to make smart decisions?
- Do I have the ability to multitask?
- Do I have a healthy ego to deal with rejection and criticism in this competitive industry?
- Do I have a sense of what’s hot and what’s not when it comes to styles?
- Do I have the physical stamina to work long hours under pressure to meet deadlines?
- Do I live, eat, and breathe for fashion, and do I see it as my career path?
The story behind famous Fashion Designers
There are fashion designers at different levels of the fashion industry, from well-known designers to unknown designers who work at ready-to-wear houses to fashion stylists who may simply make minor modifications to already existing designs. Fashion is both a form of art and a business. Fashion has been defined as the ideal combination of Creativity, communication, and practicality.
And to all those well-known designers there are some skills that remain common, they are
01. Communication skills
When bringing their collections to life, designers have to be able to communicate their instructions and expectations to everyone
02. Creativity
Top street-ware brands like H&M and Supreme continuously come up with new and innovative methods to differentiate the items they create, they have a new collection out almost every other week
03. Good sense of style
This is a very obvious one, anyone aspiring to be a designer has to have the ability to recognize which textile and colours will complement an outfit.
04. Visualization skills
Famous designers like Louis Vuitton and James Jebbia were able to imagine an item of clothing or accessory and express that idea to others
05. Business sense
To keep under budget and sell their designs, famous fashion designers educate themselves on business strategies also referred to as fashion business
To Sum Up
The dream alone is not going to cut it, along with that you’ll need learn the skills to communicate and think ahead of your time, make predictions and most of all have the courage to think outside the box and as Coco Chanel used to say, “In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different”.