How can you become a Fashion Designer?
Being one of the most creative careers globally, the road to becoming a fashion designer is certainly not effortless. With a fashion designer’s tag, having an eye for perfection and never losing hope come as significant responsibilities. This industry is undoubtedly not a lone wolf’s arena. Thus, if you are the one who can march to success by working with a team while continually staying in touch with fashion, Fashion Designing is something you want to look into.
Let us now look into a few steps that will help in making your journey more straightforward:
- Appropriate Education
Having the right education before stepping into the industry adds on to your brand value. Various degree programs specialize in fashion designing. These courses train you about the history of fashion, figure drawing, and pattern making. The next step in these courses is making computer-aided fashion designs. It is essential to be fluent in computer-aided design formats as they will play a crucial role in your career in the future.
- Establishing your Niche
Before stepping into the industry, it is crucial to know where your strength lies. Deciding what you wish to work on, whether it be men, women, or kid’s clothing, bridal wear, costume designing, or accessories, choosing your niche is necessary. Each category requires different kinds of research. Thus, analyzing your area of interest during the initial phases will save time and help you specialize in your niche better.
- Getting Experience
When done on paper, everything seems simple. However, once you enter the real world by practically executing your plans, it gets tough. Taking up internships with professional institutes, and experimenting with your clothes by creating what you have in mind, is essential. The fashion industry works on ideas and manual work. These aspects can only be mastered with experience and networking. Hence, to excel at a gradual rate, attaining expertise from the right people is essential.
- Portfolio Creation
The most important step in the entire process is your portfolio creation. Portfolios are sketches that display the kind of clothes that you wish to create. Your portfolio reflects you. The ideas and work that you put into your portfolio are what will set your career. Each sketch in your portfolio should be a potential design. Practicality, along with realism, should be displayed in your portfolio. Being a newcomer, you can’t create something that a 50-year-old brand probably would. Beginning with simple designs that communicate your ideas and can be made by you should be the way to go.
- Understanding the Market
As mentioned before, too, the fashion industry is one that is always changing. Some trends stay forever, others return after years and a few that go away in an instant. Therefore, understanding how the trends change, how they merge, and how they disappear is essential. The only way to gain first-hand knowledge of trends is by stepping into the industry and continuously reading journals and magazines. Once you have established your skills, this is the most critical area of work. Because a designer who cannot keep up with the market trends cannot have the world keep up with his designs.
- Trying Out
The fashion industry is customer-oriented. Once you have established your niche, created your specific portfolio, and understood the market in that segment, it is now time to understand the customer response. It is always recommended that you start working in the initial phases on a small-scale. Experiment and create designs with all the ideas that you once had. An idea may not be appealing to you, but you would never be able to guess the impact it would leave on the market. Thus, trying out your designs on a small scale by conducting exhibitions, being a part of large displays, and contacting friends and family for their raw opinions, is essential. Whether you wish to work under someone or have your start-up, this step should be your deciding factor.
- Paving your career
Now that you have understood the customer reactions to your creations, it is time to decide whether your start-up is ideal or working under someone and creating designs. Both options carry equal weightage. However, they are careers for different people. Having your start-up comes with multiple responsibilities. Along with making your designs, the pressure of marketing and selling the products calls for hustle and lots of bad days. Whereas working under someone only gives you the responsibility of creating designs. Thus, depending upon your designs’ response and the number of duties you wish to carry, making this decision wisely is necessary.
- Establish your presence
If you have decided to start your firm, creating your presence in the market is vital. If the customers are not aware of your existence, your business will not flourish. Establishing a social media presence and conducting the right marketing techniques will help make your business a success. While if your decision involves working under someone, standing out among the crowd is what will make your presence count. Having creative ideas, a hunger for knowledge, and your willingness to work will establish your presence between a hundred others.
Now that we have understood the journey to become a fashion designer, there is one essential step that most people miss out on and end up failing at their careers, believing. The road to success ends before its journey starts if you have not dreamt far enough. Believing in yourself in an industry that keeps changing from time to time is the only way to sustain it. Every career will face its respective ups and downs, but it depends on your willpower and strength to fight out of the dooms. We hope following these steps help you pave your path to becoming a fashion designer.
