Career prospects in fashion designing

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What are the career prospects in fashion designing?

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There are various sectors related to fashion that a designer can opt to work in. Export hourse dealing with garment/textile/handloom exports; igbtail and wholesale garment businesses in a wide range of men's, women's and children's clothing; haute couture; government and semi government hmdloom/textile manufacturers; and independent design houses are just some of the businesses one can choose from.

There are some other specialized careers as well that one can pursue after a course in fashion designing.

Fashion Coordinator

A fashion coordinator arranges and supervises the marketing of fashion clothing for manufacturing house, textile firms and retail stores

It is a highly competitive job involving a variety of functions. Coordinators are expected to give their advice on the latest fashion trends, organize fashion shows, and assist in advertising i.e. promoting sales, and liaison with fabric dealers to ensure that the fabric, buttons and colours are of the correct shade, quality and design. They also may be required to travel widely to get an idea of the current and upcoming fashion trends.


Illustrator
An illustrator draws free-hand sketches of the designer's ideas. This not only requires outstanding sketching skills, but also good communication skills. He or she is a much sought after person by garment houses and organizations.


Fashion Consultant
A fashion consultant must be aware of the trends and transitions in the fashion market, and be knowledgeable about fashion designing. He or she is expected to offer fresh ideas at regular intervals on how to develop products that will be readily accepted by the market.


Design Department
Most manufacturing units work on a large scale, and employ designers, cutting assistants, sketching assistant and junior designers. The sketching assistants make the technical sketches of the garment, which are then passed on to the cutting assistants. Making these specification drawings, desiding how a garment has to be fabricated, and selecting the fabrics is often the duty of the sketching assistant. The cutting assistants have to cut samples as per specifications of the designer. This is followed by draping and garment construction. Junior designers generally do the first pattern cutting. They assemble the first samples with fabrics they have selected from the market.