 

ABOUT INDUSTRY FASHION DESIGN TUTORIALS INDUSTRY BLOG

Fashion Skills 101:

 575 views  8 min read

SPONSORED SEARCHES

fashion design courses technical school programs

job vacancy in london new fashion clothes for ladies

Important Skills that Fashion Schools Don’t Cover

Nearly Enough
How to Become a Fashion Designer ( Part 3 )

In fashion school, most of your time was spent learning how to hand draw
fashion illustrations, draping, sewing, and apparel patternmaking. While these
are certainly good skills for fashion designers to have, they aren’t very practical
when you’re trying to land your first apparel design job in the fashion industry. In
the real world you’ll be expected to know how to draw fashion flat sketches,
measure garment specs, and create CADs and presentation boards. I know some
of you are thinking “But I learned those things in fashion school too!”  To which I
reply: You think you know, but you have no idea!

Take it from experience: fashion schools don’t focus on the above skills nearly
enough to fully prepare you for your first job in apparel design. Here’s the low-
down on what skills to focus on for getting your foot through the door on your
first apparel design job.
Apparel Draping and Patternmaking
 
Patternmaking and draping are valuable skills, which come in handy when you
are dealing with a lot of apparel fittings. Usually garment fittings are conducted
by technical designers, but if you are interested in a fashion design career for
creative reasons, you’ll most likely be miserable in this type of position. On the
creative side of fashion design, all you need is a basic understanding of what
creates a good fit, and how to fix a bad one. In the vast majority of apparel
designer positions for fashion companies, hands-on patternmaking skills are not
necessary, unless you plan to enter Project Runway!

Sewing

On the creative side of fashion design, sewing is as relevant as patternmaking is

for technical design. It’s important to understand the general concepts of
garment construction, but you don’t need to be an expert seamstress. In the
apparel industry, if you need to know how a certain neckline or seam finishing is
constructed, there are tons of references available: from apparel in clothing
stores, to “how to” fashion design books and online articles. The point I’m trying
to make is: if you’re sewing skills leave something to be desired, don’t stress over
it.

Illustration

Sadly, fashion illustration is a dying art in the fashion industry- fashion

illustrations are very scarcely used by apparel designers in the real world. They
take too much time and have no practical application. The showy fashion
illustration has been replaced with computer drawn stylized garment sketches
(floats) or more accurate technical design flats (flat sketches), which are more
popular for their practicality. Not only do they present a clear representation of
the apparel design concept, but they are also a must-have for garment
production. Fashion flats can easily be turned into CADs and used in
mood/presentation boards. Amazingly, fashion schools have not followed this
industry shift, and still focus more heavily on fashion illustrations, and not
enough on flat sketching.

 CAD (Computer Aided Design) Programs

I can’t stress enough the importance of knowing popular computer applications

for creating fashion flats, floats, and CAD sketches. Most apparel design
companies expect proficiency in Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, and
Microsoft Excel. These standard programs are relatively affordable in comparison
to other fashion industry specific software and data management systems, which
run from $7K to $30K per user- yikes! Unfortunately, the coverage of Illustrator
and Photoshop provided by fashion schools does not meet the actual demands
of the apparel industry. Many fashion companies also request knowledge of
WebPDM, so if your fashion college offers a course in this program, it would be
wise to take it. If your fashion school does not teach this program, make it a point
to find a school or venue that does offer this program and take it!  

In the Interview

It’s amazing how many fashion design candidates are rejected because they don’t
know the most important basics. Hiring companies look at applicants’ fashion
design portfolios: filled with beautiful, well-drawn fashion illustrations and then
say “That’s nice, but can you draw flat sketches?” If fashion flat sketches are
included in their portfolios, they are usually very basic, lack important details, and
are not visually appealing.  If the candidate’s apparel sketches are halfway
decent; my next question is “do you know Illustrator and Photoshop? “ Almost
everyone says yes, but when tested, it’s usually far from the truth. It’s not that
they are lying…a lot of fashion design graduates and even professional designers
seriously believe they know these CAD programs well. They did well according to
fashion school standards; but fashion schools don’t teach how to use Adobe
Illustrator and Photoshop for fashion design well enough for entry level fashion
designers to be competent in the demanding apparel industry. Fashion schools
just cover basics, which are quickly forgotten without practice. Take the extra
effort to explore these and other fashion CAD programs beyond what fashion
schools teach: read books, find online fashion tutorials and courses. Not only will
you be ready with the skills you need to succeed in the fashion industry, but
discussing how you went the extra mile to keep up with apparel industry
standards will definitely impress any prospective employer!

Practice, Practice, Practice

We highly recommend practicing flat sketching as often as you can. Make sure
you learn, and are really comfortable with Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop for
Fashion Design – what you’ve learned in fashion school is not enough!! To acquire
additional knowledge: read books, take additional courses, (offered in either
classroom or online settings). Take a look at industry standard examples of flat
sketches. Our free Fashion Flat Sketches section contains many free downloads
of flat sketches in vector (.ai) and bitmap (PNG) formats for your reference. If you
can improve your skills to reach the quality of those shown, you’ll be in very good
shape. They are free for you to use. Please download them so you can also use
them as slopers to trace and work from.

Educate Yourself!

Many fashion schools such as FIT in New York (Fashion Institute of Technology)
offer “Flats and Specs for the Fashion Industry” courses. But believe it or not, they
are not required by the curriculum; they are electives! These are some of the
most important skills that fashion design students should be learning. Another
good elective course is “Creative Fashion Presentation”- this skill is very handy.
Sales people use CAD fashion presentations a lot as visual aids. In addition they
create a good impression and convey your creativity level. If you can make
outstanding fashion presentations you’ll be asked to make them often, and
believe me it’s more fun to make presentation boards as an assistant designer,  
than do fittings, send faxes, and organize showrooms.

Creating Specs in a Copycat Industry

So now we can talk about specs (garment specifications). Knowing how to spec a
garment (measure and detail garments) is a fundamental skill for a fashion
designer. Many apparel companies create their fashion spec sheets using
Microsoft Excel. Although garment sizes and measurements vary from one
fashion company to another, if you know the principles, you’ll be able to quickly
adapt to the standards of any company. You don’t even need to know how to
develop apparel specs from scratch!

As a head fashion designer, I’ve had to make decisions on what garment spec
standards to use. Often I simply went to different fashion stores, and found
garments with a good fit and copied the basic measurements. And this isn’t a rare
practice – the fashion industry is a major copycat industry- most apparel that we
see hanging in the stores are knock-offs of another fashion brand, who copied
the design from another design brand, and so on. There are even official terms
for copied fashions! A “knockoff” is when a style is copied, and a “rub-off” is when
patterns are copied. Once, while on a European shopping trip in London, a sales
person at a store noticed I was a fashion designer collecting design ideas for an
upcoming season. He mentioned that his store received a constant flow of
fashion designers from famous American design companies, whose designers
come to knockoff their merchandise. That’s right- even top fashion design brands
use knockoffs for their ready-to-wear collections.

To some up: in order to get a job in the fashion industry before the rest of the
entry level fashion design candidates, you need to focus on refining skills that are
highly demanded in the apparel industry. Become proficient in drawing flat
sketches and include apparel flats in your fashion portfolio, and be extremely
comfortable and knowledgeable in Illustrator and Photoshop. Check out the My
Practical Skills Store, where you’ll find our ebook tutorials for Adobe Illustrator,
Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft Excel, and How to Spec a Garment for the Fashion
Industry. Each ebook contains easy to follow tutorials, with illustrations every
step of the way. They are designed to prepare you with comprehensive industry
specific skills and foundations to give your fashion design career a competitive
edge!
 SPONSORED SEARCHES

How to Become a Fashion Designer

fashion design courses technical school programs  
job vacancy in london new fashion clothes for ladies

Useful links

About Designers Nexus

Comments

Terms of Service

Contact

Type here to search...

Ripple, Istanbul, Turkey
SEARCH
Push Before Last Drop Runs Out
Designs that will solve fresh water crisis
Follow Us in urban realms and identify how to
sanitize it
competitions.uni.xyz
   

OPEN

Copyright © {2008}. Designers Nexus Inc