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Job Skills For the Future
Fashion Design Skills Required:
When looking for a good fashion school, it is important that the school have a learning curriculum that will help you find work in the fashion industry. Creating fashion illustrations, draping, sewing, and flat pattern-making are skills that are not needed in the day-to-day work of today's fashion designer.
So what skills do you need? Today's fashion industry demands you know how to create computerized flat sketches, develop garment specs, know CAD software, and be able to create presentation boards. The more masterful you become at the aforementioned skills, the better your chances for employment and the more you'll stand out from the crowd of applicants at job interviews. When searching for a fashion design school, look for one that teaches you the right skills.
On the creative side of design, you will need a basic understanding of what constitutes a good fit, and how to fix a bad design.
Good garment construction and how garments are constructed are about all you need to know about sewing. Sewing skills are just not that important in today's fashion industry to the surprise of many erstwhile students.
Are you a good illustrator? That's good as a hobby but plays no part in fashion design today. Using a computer to create stylized technical sketches (floats) or more accurate technical flats are essential skills that you must practice and master (hopefully before you apply for a job in the fashion industry). Floats and flats give a clear representation of design concept and are absolutely essential in the production process. Flats are often turned into CADs (Computer-Assisted Designs) and are used in creating mood or presentation boards. Forget illustrating and practice flat-sketching. Take whatever classes in flat-sketching you can get.
Computer Skills:
You must know the most popular computer applications for creating floats, flats and CADs. Almost every fashion design firm expects you to be fluent in Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, and Microsoft Excel since all fashion design schools teach them. The problem with most students however, is that they don't practice these programs enough to get really really fluent at them. Many if not most fashion design firms require a knowledge of WebPDM. This means you need to get that skill and make sure the school you choose to attend has at least one or two courses in it.
Flat Sketching Skills:
Don't depend on a fashion design schools to teach you best practices in flat sketching. It probably won't happen until major overhauls are done to curriculum. Take it upon yourself to learn this vital skill. Practice and get really comfortable with Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop and other similar programs. Don't rely on the basics they will teach you at a fashion school. Read books and take courses offered online or elsewhere. Practice and more practice is the keyword here. This skill is essential to your success.
Creating Specs for Fashions
Here is another essential skill. You must Know how to measure and detail a garment in order to create garment specifications. Most design companies create their own spec sheets using Excel. Learn good sound principles of creating specs, you'll be able to adapt to the standards of any company.
The best part of creating specs is that you probably won't need to develop them from scratch. Why not? Because most companies send representatives on shopping trips to various stores and boutiques all over the world or country to find good styles and fits and then simply copy the basic measurements.
Practically every major design company does knockoffs (style copies) for ready-to-wear collections and ruboffs (pattern copies). Fashion schools such as FIT in New York (Fashion Institute of Technology) do offer important classes like "flats and specs for the fashion industry", but only as electives. When you are shopping for a fashion school, look for a 'creative fashion presentation' class. Presentations are important for salespeople and are full of visual aids. Hopefully, your fashion school will make you do case studies and creative fashion presentations. Get good at it and you will make yourself indispensable to most companies. It's more fun to make presentation boards than to do fits or send faxes and organize showrooms; other skills you may need to have.
Are there any fashion schools that will teach you current skills that will help you get a job in the real world? Most are a mish-mash of courses and basic curriculum. You must ask and/or demand the classes and courses you need. You need a good portfolio of flats for sure among other skills. You need to know the essential software programs inside and out. Fashion school can be easy if you choose to make it that way. You will be better served however, if you go out of your way to really immerse your whole self into the industry requirements.
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