Do you love dressing up your family members and friends in different colours Are you very particular of the texture, colour and fabric of your clothes? An affirmative to both the questions means that there are good chances you have a budding fashion designer lurking somewhere inside you.
It has been quite some time now since fashion designing emerged as a lucrative career choice for youngsters. While the early designers were people who rarely had any formal training and all their learning happened on job, the current crop of fashion designers who undergo industry-approved courses and training in diverse domains, are better prepared and hence meet success early in their life.
A fashion designer’s colourful life, the baling, the glitz and glamour and of course the money that it entails are the reasons that everyone wants to be a part of this seemingly exciting world. Many people love spotlight right from their childhood and harbour the ambition of getting the most glamorous job out there, i.e. becoming a fashion designer. However, to gain real success in this profession one has to get certain things right.
Essential Skills Required
Your passion to be at the fashion’s edge all the time might help you start with the career as a fashion designer. But unless you develop certain skills, and cultivate broad talents in artistic areas, communication and marketing knowledge, success won’t come easy.
Creativity
Fashion designing is easily the most creatively fulfilling career in the world. Everything a fashion designer does, and the way he or she dresses is an act of self-expression. The creativity and artistic ability of a designer should reflect in the designs they make. The more creative a fashion designer is the better will be his ability to put imagination to work for conjuring new designs out of existing original outfits.
A successful fashion designer would know how to combine different shapes, colors and fabrics to design dresses that are more unique, aesthetic, practical and yet fashionable. If there was one thing without which success in fashion designing wasn’t achievable, it would have to be creativity, imagination or artistic ability.
An eye for Detail
While designing new pieces of clothes it is mandatory for a fashion designer to be able pick the fundamentally minutest details. With so many new designs coming up daily, it is often the fine details that make these designs different from each other. Therefore, for a fashion designer to be successful, he must be able to spot even the subtle differences in color or fabric quality.
Art of Communication
For every successful career, communication skills play a huge role. While designing new clothes, you will be collaborating with lots of other members of team and hence clear communication is of paramount importance here. You will be frequently pushing through with your ideas and therefore your convincing power will come into play. Besides engaging with the team members, a successful fashion designer wittingly answers the questions of media, and comfortably handles the scathing comments of critics. Doing all this requires one to be proficient in the art of communication.
Business Sense
All renowned fashion designers have their own design labels and run businesses of providing merchandised goods. In short, they have a business empire of their own. If one wants to achieve similar levels of success, he or she should be ready to don the hat of a businessman with a good business sense. The level of success you achieve will depend a lot on how well you are able to handle the different facets of business such as finance, marketing and sales.
Is there a secret formula of achieving success as a fashion designer?
How we wish there was one, but sadly, becoming a reputed fashion designer is not that can be achieved overnight or over months or sometimes even over years. There is simply no short cut to success here. Pump in lots of hard work and creativity, make the right connections, market yourself the right way and slowly and steadily success will follow you. You have to love your job, be persistent enough and maintain consistent levels of self-motivation to have a chance to succeed in the fiercely competitive industry.
Do I need to pursue a course in Fashion designing?
It is not an absolute necessity. In fact most successful fashion designers achieved what they did without any formal training or degree. However, the times have changed and so has the competition. Fashiondesigning course from popular fashion designing colleges is a plus and will help you get where you are heading much quickly.
Saurabh Tyagi is an expert writer having interest in diverse topics like technology, Web 2.0 and education etc. He is a social media fan and a self-confessed gadget-freak, who loves to follow the latest happenings in the tech world.
