Fashion Designing brings with it, glamour and fame. It also brings with it the chance of fashioning your own label, but is the eye for good clothes enough to become a fashion designer? The world of Fashion designing has become more competitive with a lot more people opting for the career path.
Studying fashion at a university level provides students with exposure to a wide array of skills including technical and an understanding of the design industry. Studying fashion now also encompasses a study of its historical development and current trends. Courses today also stress on ethical business practices and contemporary issues surrounding fashion.
As a fashion designer, your role could involve working as per design briefs (instructions), analysing and predicting trends in fashion, styles and fabrics, finding suppliers and distributors, estimating costs of clothes and manufacturing and also pitching your ideas to fashion labels. You will usually require relevant higher education qualifications and degrees to work in the industry.
A good starting point to research colleges, degrees and courses for pursuing an education in Fashion studies would be to check a list of AICTE and UGC approved colleges for Fashion studies in India. For Britain, you could look through the list of colleges approved by the British Fashion Council. It is also important to read up on literature about the different courses and course providers and do in-depth research into the links of specific courses with the Fashion industry.
Students planning to pursue fashion studies can now begin their studies in school with the introduction of the Fashion Studies course in Grade XI and XII by CBSE. Furthermore, several colleges have been established in India that is pioneering in the stream of fashion designing. In India the National Institutes of Fashion Technology established in affiliation with the Ministry of Textiles is very famous. They have 16 campuses across the country with a population of 11,000 students. Admission to a NIFT campus can be obtained by sitting in a NIFT entrance exam that is held once a year. Based on the student’s performance in the exam, the students are then situated to one of their campuses if they are eligible for admission.
The Pearl Academy is also very famous for fashion designing in India. They have four campuses in the country. Admission to this institute is also held through the Fashion Designing Entrance Exam for which students can register online. Some famous Fashion schools around the world are
- Parsons School of Design, NYC
- The Fashion Institute of Technology, NYC
- London College of Fashion, London
- Royal College of Art, London
- Istituto Marangoni, Milan
- ESMOD, France
- Ecole de la ChambreSyndica de la Couture Parisienne, Paris
College education and work skills have now become very important to make it in the field of fashion designing as the field has become very competitive and contacts and connections in the industry can go a long way in making or breaking your career in the industry.
