What is FASHION Designing ?

Fashion design is an art of creating clothing & fashion wear which are functional & trendy. Fashion designers study consumer needs & changing lifestyles & then design the garments accordingly. Lots of new & innovative textiles are produced now-a-days for fashion designers to work with. The demand for designer wear is huge & growing in India & abroad.

Why study FASHION Design ?

• In the last few decades our country has seen massive mushrooming of malls. This boom experienced by the industry has open floodgates of oppurtunities for students interested in a retail career in fashion design. Due to the retail boom in India more fashion designers are needed.
• People have become more fashion conscious & there is an increased fashion awareness in the country.
• Demand for Fashion designers is much more than the supply.
• Employment for Fashion Designers is expected to grow faster than average.
• More & more people in the Urban areas would take the services of a qualified Fashion Designer
• Fashion design is one of the most exciting, glamorous & sought after career options.
• It is a very rewarding career for creative people.

Education in Fashion Design

Candidates who want to pursue a career in Fashion Design can study the course at Undergraduate & Postgraduate level. Popular colleges that offer courses in Fashion Design include NIFT, PEARL,etc. 

Eligibility Criteria for Fashion Design

For Graduation Degree: Though eligibility criteria may vary, but most colleges allow candidates who have completed 10+2 (Science/Commerce/Arts stream) from a recognized board to take part in their admission process.

For Postgraduation Degree: To pursue a Masters in Fashion Design, a Bachelors Degree in design is required. 

Entrance Exams for Fashion Design

All popular colleges conduct entrance exams in order to offer admissions to aspiring candidates. Some of the top Entrance Exams for Design are conducted by NID, NIFT and CEPT.

Fashion Design Course Curriculum 

Though the curriculum may vary from college to college, some of the common subjects include:

• Pattern Making
• Garment Production
• Draping
• Fabric Studies
• Fashion Marketing
• Traditional Indian Textiles

Fashion and Textile Design Courses

How Fashion Design is different from Textile Design?

Fashion Design is designing of clothes, making patterns, paying attention to cuts & style of the final garment. But textile design is designing of the fabric from which clothes are to be made.

Fashion Design Careers

There are plenty of oppurtunities in Fashion design industry for the talented & hardworking people. There is an ever increasing demand for the skilled professionals. The sky is the limit for experienced talented fashion designers.

Jobs after Fashion Designing can be in the following fields

• Fashion Export Houses
• Retail Garment Chains
• Textile Mills
• Fashion Publishers
• Leather Companies
• Boutiques
• Fashion Show Organizers
• Self Employment
• Garment Manufacturing Units
• Wholesale Garment Business
• Costume Designers in films
• T.V. fashion programme production houses
• Fashion Merchandising
• Quality Control
• Personal Stylist
• Pattern Maker
• Illustrator
• Education Industry

FASHION  Designers  can  specialize  in  the  following  fields :

• Haute couture - It is made to order clothing for a client according to his / her measurements, using high quality fabric with extreme importance given to detail & sewing procedures. The fit & look of the garment are more important than the cost & time spent over it.
• Pret - a – porter ( ready – to – wear ) Ready to wear clothes are neither produced for an individual nor for the masses, they lie somewhere in between. They are designer garments produced in a limited number to retain the exclusivity. Attention is given to the cuts & details. Fashion houses present their collections during the fashion weeks.
• Mass Market- These are mass produced by machines ready – to – wear garments produced for the mass customer. Simpler production techniques and cheap fabric is used so that the cost doesn’t go up, and the garments remain affordable for people.
• Men’s / Women’s / Kid’s Wear
• Sports / Casual / Party Wear

Starting a Career in Fashion Design: While pursuing the course the student should prepare a portfolio containing his / her best works. After the completion of the course/internships, he/she has the option of joining an established fashion designer / Fashion Design House, work from home or on part time basis or freelance for boutiques, research the market & can even set up his/her own enterprise.

Career Opportunities in Fashion Designing: India is rapidly growing & there are endless oppurtunities in the field of fashion design for students in India & in International markets. Indian fashion designers are very successful abroad because of the high quality products & excellent craftsmanship they are offering. The fashion industry in India is at boom as there is an increasing awareness about fashion in people, with retail industry promising great potential through more & more malls & showrooms opening up. Career prospects for future fashion designers are quite bright.

About the Author: Anu Handa is an Interior Designer, DIY Artist, Co-Founder and Educator at Mosaic Institute of Design. She has been the lead blogpost writer at www.mosaicdesigns.in since 2009. Her educational background in Interior Design, Urban Planning and the English Language has given her a broad base to cover a range of topics in her articles. Anu has spent 15+ years training Design & B.Arch Aspirants for entrance exams.

Passionate about Design Education, she’s briefly worked with Annamalai University as a paper setter for Design Exams. Likes to write about Design, Architecture and related fields, on online platforms like Quora. Aims at challenging the conventional & age old teaching methodology.