Fashion Designer: Feature, Responsibilities and Career

Fashion designer - a specialist who develops new models of clothing, shoes, accessories, hats. In the manufacture of these products, the fashion designer is a key figure. Planting a thing, its relevance, and compliance with a consumer demand depend on its patterns.

Once a fashion designer was a specialist combining several professional areas at once - he was considered both an artist, and a cutter, and a tailor. Over time, the so-called stratification occurred, and the tasks of the fashion designer narrowed. For example, an artist (designer) focused on the analysis of fashion trends, the generation of ideas and the formation of sketches.

Specifically, the designer is engaged in working out drawings, he covers a combination of technical and aesthetic aspects of the issue. The technologist is engaged in the processing of fabrics, optimization of production, tailoring methods. And these specialists usually work in a group, form new fashion collections together.

Clothing designer usually works with the finished sketch created by the designer. Simply put, he must work out the creative plan of his colleague, making the idea a real thing, technically optimally approaching this decision. The designer determines which fabric to use for a particular model, works on patterns and patterns, offers different options for execution.

This description says that this is a technical work, but not without creativity. And it certainly requires special education and the development of certain skills. Such a person must also master computer programs that help in work and optimize the production process. Each sketch should be transformed by a fashion designer, presented in numbers and drawings, which requires deep and systematic knowledge.

There are several segments of the functional fashion designer, without which it is impossible to imagine his work. One way or another, they are written in the job descriptions. Consider aboutthe responsibilities of the designer.

• Practical construction. It's not a banal ability to design patterns. The designer must implement models that will have commercial demand. This requires a specialist to be able to analyze design systems, compare them, apply current modeling methods. And all this taking into account the properties of fabrics and finishes. A competent specialist owns 4-5 design systems, and does not stop at one of them.
• Drawing up technical schemes. A sketch is only an idea, an artistic sketch that cannot be sent to production. The technical scheme is already a detailed drawing with proportions and details. The technical scheme is calculated, measured, translated (dimensions - real scale). And according to this scheme, clear drawings and patterns are made.
• Design, work with proportions. Virtually anyone can learn the basics of design, if in principle he is ready to learn. To instill in yourself an artistic taste is a more complex matter, requiring not only self-discipline, work with different resources, but also based on the natural inclinations of a person. A good fashion designer is not just a “techie”, it is a person with a developed artistic vision, who knows how to combine this vision with outstanding technical thinking.
• Work with the layout. The process of creating new forms and models is not without it. Work with new shaped lines and new material, the quality of which the designer has not yet fully studied, requires the use of a layout.
• Creating patterns. This is probably the main functionality of the designer. The technological strategy of tailoring is embedded in the patterns.
• Work in automation mode. Behind it lies the saving of time and energy, as a result, the automation of production. Representatives of the "old school" may be skeptical of automation, but this is nothing more than a defensive reaction. Without innovations, technological and production processes freeze, cease to be competitive.

In addition, the fashion designer often must coordinate the technical task with the customer, control the phased production of each part, participate in the fitting, study the properties of new materials, etc.

They cannot be written in a strict document, but the profession is based on them. For example, you will not see in the list of job descriptions the ability to think is not entirely standard. But in the request of the company, which is looking for a fashion designer, such requirements may well be spelled out. And this is really a baseless request. The designer is looking for an idea, and the designer implements it, and for this, non-standard thinking, creative search, willingness to experiment are also necessary.

What other qualities would a fashion designer need to successfully build a career?

• Initiative - this work cannot be routine. If it becomes one, professional success can be forgotten. You should be prepared not only to pick up proposals from management or colleagues, but also to speak with them.
• Team skills - that is, the ability to work in a team.And this requires the organization to be organized and responsible, accurate, able to negotiate, be friendly and emotionally labile. You must learn to plan and allocate temporary resources.
• Practical experience - This is not quite a quality, but this is the background that makes a professional from a specialist who raises him a notch. To gain this experience is possible and necessary even in his student years. Record successful projects in your portfolio, which you need to competently, responsibly, and not without a creative approach.
• Willingness to learn - changing technological concepts, fashion itself, doing business. And if you, as a specialist, will be flexible to these changes, be ready to accept them and learn new things, this will certainly move you forward in your career.

The profession of fashion designer is suitable for people who have an artistic taste, have imagination and creative thinking. If a person is sociable and loves communication, creative unions, this profession is also suitable for him.

There are a lot of educational institutions that can make a fashion designer, sewing technologist out of yesterday’s schoolchild. You can study closer to your place of residence, choosing not the most popular educational institutions, but affordable ones. And you can, while still a schoolboy, take a closer look at eminent universities, the very end of which already at the start adds you points as a specialist.

Among such institutions, we note the following.

• Institute of Social and Humanitarian Technologies, Moscow State Technical University. Here you can get a bachelor's degree in the specialty “Designing Sewing Products from Fabric”.
• Russian State University named after A.N. Kosygin. From its walls you can come out as a specialist who knows everything about the artistic design of a costume or textile.
• Moscow State Institute of Culture, where you will receive a diploma in "Costume Design".
• Nevsky Institute of Design (St. Petersburg), specialty "Costume Design".

From applicants you can often hear the question of whether it is difficult to study as a fashion designer. The creative appeal of the profession is deceptive in the sense that it seems to be entirely a flight of thought, drawing, creating projects. But study involves the study of technical disciplines and other not the simplest subjects, including materials science, sketching and technical drawing, planar and volumetric modeling, and the use of IT programs. Therefore, if you are not friends with mathematics, you will either have to love this subject, or think about choosing another specialty.

The highest point of career development is probably the creation of a private business. It’s difficult to open your own business, you also need to be a good marketer and have business thinking, but if you successfully collaborate with other specialists, it can be a great idea with a great implementation. For some fashion designers, teaching is also considered an excellent career path, and usually these specialists combine practice and teaching.