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The Fashion Design And Merchandising Partnership

January 31, 2025 by  
Filed under Fashion Design

Fashion design and merchandising go hand in hand down the runway of the fashion world. Fashion merchandising involves the business side of fashion and offers great opportunities for people who love fashion and want to have a career in buying, product development, management, or fashion marketing. Fashion design and merchandising are demanding jobs but also very rewarding.

The Job Of A Merchandiser

A merchandiser is involved in every stage of the process. Fashion design and merchandising are connected from design to sales. The merchandisers advise the designer on market trends, get all specifications from the project buyers, get samples approved and negotiate the price of the final sale. They are also responsible for making sure that consignments are delivered to the customers according to schedule. In the world of fashion design and merchandising it is the merchandisers who will usually have bottom-line responsibility for all projects or departments during the various levels of their careers. Most work in fashion design and merchandising involves juggling past, present, and future work. Merchandisers spend a great deal of time evaluating sales from previous time periods in order to properly plan and decide goals for future sales. In fashion design and merchandising, it isn’t just about shopping; with fashion design and merchandising the merchandisers must be able to analyze and create a complex business plan aimed at specific buying habits and customers. This requires an ability to forecast trends and then translate them into a profitable business plan for the company.

Anytime a decision is made to create a fashion product and offer it to the consumer, even if it is a kids fashion design or a costume, fashion merchandising is involved, including product development, buying, marketing, or management of the product. Even if it’s just deciding which mannequin should face which direction — odds are good that someone involved with fashion merchandising has the final “OK”.

As with most fashion jobs, the key is to start with disciplined study to direct your talent into a successful career. With the fashion design and merchandising fields there are also many opportunities — whether you’re in school or not — for internships. These internships should be considered vital for advancing your career. Indeed, any work with experienced industry connections — be it in a design house or in retail — provides a key stepping stone for students to meet important industry personnel who have open positions and knowledge to share within the fashion design and merchandising field.

Fashion Design College Degree – Online Or In-Class

January 30, 2025 by  
Filed under Fashion Design

In order to get into the fashion design industry, you need to have a degree from a fashion design college. What if you just don’t have the time to attend classes or you are not anywhere near a fashion design college? Today’s technology allows access to information from just about anyplace you need it. Online schools of higher education are becoming the norm rather than an offshoot of a physical brick and mortar school. Getting an education in the many fields of fashion design is no exception. A fashion design college can be either online or a distance learning program from a physical fashion design college. In this way, anyone who wishes an education in one of the many fashion design fields will have no problem accessing a fashion design college of their choice.

Various Degrees

There are many different specialties within the fashion design world. With many of these having a degree from a fashion design college is a big help in landing a job. While there are many specialties within fashion design; costume making, accessories, shoes, merchandising, marketing, and others, there are just as many ways to combine any specialty with another specialty. It is a safe bet that half of all fashion designers have a degree or specialization in more than one subject from a fashion design college. An example would be someone who combines fashion design and merchandising and works for retail stores.

Online Vs. In Class

While it is a fact that most fashion design studios are located either in New York or California, this is not true for each fashion design college. Many of the schools are located in larger cities, although more than half have a physical presence in either New York or California. So which choice is best, online or in class? This is entirely up to you. If you want to go where the classes are, and pick up a job at a boutique or an immediate internship then going to class at the fashion design school is best. If you don’t have the time for a college schedule, but want to still get the degree, then an online fashion design college would be worthwhile for you. It should be noted that, with most studios being on either the East or West Coast, you will probably have to move to where they are in order to land your first job or get your career started to begin with.

Getting Into The Fashion Design Studio

January 29, 2025 by  
Filed under Fashion Design

While there are many creative designers in the world, there are even more wanting to work in a fashion design studio. The one huge dream for many is to build their own fashion design studio and make a name for themselves. The best way to get your designs into the fashion industry is by working your way up from the bottom of one fashion design studio and continuing to move up along your career through different studios. But the question that all beginners ask is “How do I get into my first studio job?”

How To Get Into A Studio

One of the first things any young designer will want to do is get themselves a degree from a fashion design college. Working at a fashion design studio requires a degree of some kind in fashion design. This will show that you have at least done the book work. By the time you are about to leave your studies you should already have an idea of what kind of fashion design studio you want to work for and where they are. Along the way, especially during your last year in school, you should get yourself into an internship at any fashion design studio that offers one.

The Internship

Internships in the fashion industry are like any other type of internship in any other type of career. You will be the one who is at the fashion design studio to learn; this will mean cutting the fabric, getting the mail, cleaning up, assisting the designers and any other tasks assigned to interns. The goal here is to get to know the workings inside a fashion design studio. Here is where you find out if you are indeed ready to work in the fast paced industry of fashion design.

The First Job

Once you have received your diploma, and had a run through the internship of a fashion design studio, you might get lucky and be offered a starting position within the fashion design studio you are at. If not, don’t worry, any other fashion design studio will like the fact that you took the time to see what goes on inside the walls of a fashion design studio. This is where any recommendations or references from the internship come in handy. Once you land your first paid job at your first fashion design studio, it is much easier to get a step in at another fashion design studio later on.

Fashion Design Software Basics

January 28, 2025 by  
Filed under Fashion Design, Featured

In the days past fashion designers had to manually draw, create, sew, and engineer multiple examples of a certain finished product in order to make the design work for the potential buyers. In today’s world, all of these things, once the mundane parts of the fashion designers world, are now handled by fashion design software.

What Is Fashion Design Software?

Fashion design software is computer aided design, or CAD, software. Other industries which have been using CAD software for decades are Architects and Engineers. A good piece of fashion design software can help create professional looking designs. This type of software comes in various applications. The many uses of this software include designing fabrics, garments and fashion accessories; you can also do digitizing, pattern engineering, grading, marking, 3D imaging and other applications. With fashion changing constantly, fashion designers find that software is adding new features and improved versions of software each year.

What Can Fashion Design Software Do?

While fashion design software will not take the place of good ideas or creativity, it can greatly assist and speed up the process thereby allowing more work to be done. The best varieties of fashion design software allow the user to play around with colors, cuts, and fabrics on the computer. This saves the designer from having to purchase all the material for a design only to later discover it doesn’t work. Fashion design software also allows more creativity in experimenting with different combinations without spending too much in time, energy, and money.

The Use Of Software In The Fashion Design Studio.

Fashion design software is a great tool for the studio in that it allows designers to not only create 2D and 3D renderings of ideas, but also allows them to print, upload, and share the design progress with others via email. Some fashion design software allows the designer to try different colors and cuts; this type of software usually has a database with fabrics, textures, patterns, and prints available. Smaller studios which are collaborating with others can share their work quickly and efficiently thereby giving them the ability to make quick changes to any designs.

While there are many varieties of fashion design software, there are also many manufacturers of fashion design software. The designer or studio will have to create a list of what they want from the software and then find suitable vendors and tools. Most makers of fashion design software can be found on the internet. The amount you can spend for this software will more than pay for itself over a year’s time and work.

Picking And Getting Into A Fashion Design School

January 26, 2025 by  
Filed under Fashion Design

As with most any career, fashion design requires training and a degree to show that you have the basic knowledge to work in the field you have chosen. In order to do this you will need to attend a fashion design school. A fashion design school is simply an art school for people who create with fabrics.

Picking A Fashion Design School

Once you have realized that fashion design is the career you want to follow, how do you go about finding the education you need? Picking a fashion design school is no less of a choice than someone picking out a school for engineering or a business degree. You need to put in the time and effort to research the various fashion design school offerings and reputations. Finding the best fashion design school for you is the ultimate goal.

When you are looking into different schools, you, like everyone else wishing to further their education, must take into consideration the reputation of the fashion design school, its cost, size and what the school offers. As with any search for a school you will need to do the following:
Decide what area of the fashion design field you want to work in; then find schools that specialize in that field.
Make a list of items to look for such as cost, location, programs, degree level, and placement.
Put together a list of schools for consideration; then find out everything possible about each of these schools
Apply to the schools you have chosen, along with any grants or scholarship programs you have found.
Visit the schools if possible to get a feel of the school and its teachers.
After receiving responses from applications, start the elimination process to narrow down the field, arriving at your final choice of fashion design school.

Getting Into Fashion Design School

Getting into a fashion design school takes about as much work as getting into any school of higher learning and specialty. You need to show the admissions people that you at least know the basics and have an idea about the field you intend to work in is about.

Drawing – you will need to have the ability to sketch out your ideas and concepts before ever getting to the finished product. Your portfolio will show your drawings and your ability to flesh out your ideas. Any fashion design school will want to see a copy of your best work.
Sewing – you need to show the school samples of completed work (clothes you made yourself). This means that you must learn sewing.
Mentors and references – while you do not need big name designers for references, it does help your case to have names of fashion designers that you have worked with or under before you get to the school. This tells the admissions people that you know what the life of a designer is like.
Grades – unfortunately, fashion design school is like any other school. If you don’t have the grades at an acceptable level, no amount of creativity or ability to sew and draw can help you.

When you finally get to the fashion design school of your choice you will find that you learn many things. Yes, you will learn the fundamentals of fashion design, but there are new tools and ideas that have come into the fashion design world. Such things as marketing and fashion design software are among them.

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