A demanding career, Fashion Designing, entails utilising artistic skills to come up with unique innovative design concepts for apparels and/or lifestyle accessories on a regular basis for then only you will be able to create successful collection season after season. While Fashion Designing as a discipline is known more for fame, wealth and glamour, it actually entails lots of hard work, since you are responsible for the entire production process right from getting insights through research of the end customers, understanding their preferences, comprehending the market dynamics, the techniques, material and fashion trends etc. to using these insights to conceptualize designs to budgeting to developing prototypes to analyse the throw of cloth to its final outcome, where you get involved in marketing, retailing & sales to ensure revenue. The insights drawn through research also help you in predicting the design concepts for the upcoming season that will entice the target audience and hence be a success. Alternatively, if the collection is a failure, then he should be adept in analysing the reasons and make amends.
Requisite Skills:
- Artistic Skills
- Sketching Skills
- Innovative Thinking
- Eye for details
- Organised
- Competitive
- Passionate about designing
- Good Communication & Networking Skills
- Leaderships Qualities
Duties of Fashion Designers
- Research, analyse & study fashion & market trends
- Networking with other fashion designers to understand the latest in fashion
- Conceptualize a design theme for the season along with relevant sketches
- Predict designs that will draw the targeted customer
- Utilize computer-aided design (CAD) programs to generate the requisite apparel designs
- Visiting exhibitions, trade shows and the manufacturers to understand the latest techniques, identify the appropriate samples of fabric/material, textures, colours, patterns etc.
- Develop apt prototypes
- Collaborate with designers & teams from different departments as well as stakeholders so as to make the collection a success
- Showcase the collection at various fashion and/or trade shows, thereby facilitating interest and orders for the collection
- Collaborate with Merchandisers to market designs at retail level
- Build & maintain relationships with stakeholders, vendors, suppliers, buyers and models
Salary Offered on completion of Masters in Fashion Designing:
Average salary for a fresher can be between Rs. 2 lakhs to Rs. 4.3 lakhs per annum depending on the kind of company or the brand you joined, the city you are working in and the college from where you did your masters. People with over 10 years’ experience can earn on an average anywhere between Rs. 30 lakhs to Rs. 35 lakhs per annum, but then it also depends on your fashion designing skills besides your communication & networking skills. The highest salary can go up to Rs. 60 Lakhs per annum. However, the top celebrity fashion designers like Sabyasachi, Manish Malhotra, Ritu Kumar etc. can earn up to Rs. 10 crores per annum.
Masters in Fashion Designing:
The college must mentor the students by involving them in live projects both at domestic as well as international level through international exchange, besides offering them access to best technology, tools and knowledge of industry practices. The college must equip the students with competencies in innovation, design thinking, product development through conceptualization, exploration, ideation and experimentation.
