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kya
Student
Grafton, Ohio
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What are the duties, hours, working conditions, salary range and fringe benefit of fashion design/ fashion merchandise?
I am a senior in high school interested in the fashion industry and I have been successful with art throughout high school
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Anamarie Twomey
Fashion designer
2
Answers
Durham, North Carolina
Updated
Anamarie’s Answer
Hi Kya,
This is tough because I don’t want to discourage you but, I do want to give you a realistic idea of what being a designer means. There are fashion designers who create and sell their own clothes through their own websites and those who work for actual clothing brands and companies. Starting your own brand is very difficult and extremely costly, that’s why the majority of those that succeed at a high level are backed by very wealthy families or investors.
Working for clothing companies can be very lucrative but this is a notoriously difficult industry. Depending on your level of career, your duties as an assistant/associate/designer/senior designer will include : Researching trends and the marketplace, creating informed seasonal line plans, presenting those line plans to sales teams, buyers, investors and key stakeholders, CAD illustrations created in Adobe Illustrator, linesheet creation and constant updating in Illustrator so the final linesheet can be presented to buyers, many, many presentations, lots of product development (meaning tons of communication with factories and your comapany’s development and production teams throughout the product life cycle), lab dip reviews (this is checking every color on every type of fabric in the collection and usually takes many rounds), attending fittings and sending comments to factories in a formal, organized, industry standard way. Traveling to other countries to visit factories and trade shows. At a designer or senior designer level you will be expected to manage entire teams of people under you so management and soft skills are highly valuable. I mentioned this in the fashion merchandising question and the advice remains the same: go to StyleCareers.com and look at the job descriptions for the types of positions you are interested in.
You will learn fashion sketching in college but it is highly unlikely that you will use that very much on a day to day basis. I do see some brands here and there requiring sketching but honestly, in my 8 yrs in industry I have only seen a Sr. Designer hand sketch maybe once or twice. Everything is done in Illustrator. You will never be sewing if you work for most major companies but, it is crucial that you have in depth garment construction knowledge because you will be giving factories instructions and troubleshooting problems.
Hours are long. Most offices run a typical 8 hr work day but, long sessions into the night are the expected norm. If you work for a major company there are many times the whole team is cramming to finish everything for presentations to important buyers and you will be expected to perform.
Working conditions, salary range and fringe benefits (?) are entirely dependent on the company and area of the country you are in. A person at a “designer” level in an urban area (not assistant/associate/jr. designer) should be in the 70-90k range. A senior designer is normally in the 100k + range. Assistants, associates and jr. designers make much less. There are brands that tout a lot of perks and those that give standard benefits, every company is different.
Fashion design and merchandising are different positions, see my answer to the merchandiser question for more details.
StyleCareers.com! Seriously, use this to see actual job descriptions, salaries, etc.
Also on stylecareers, you can find internship opportunities. You might even be able to snag one as a graduating high schooler without being in college yet.
This is tough because I don’t want to discourage you but, I do want to give you a realistic idea of what being a designer means. There are fashion designers who create and sell their own clothes through their own websites and those who work for actual clothing brands and companies. Starting your own brand is very difficult and extremely costly, that’s why the majority of those that succeed at a high level are backed by very wealthy families or investors.
Working for clothing companies can be very lucrative but this is a notoriously difficult industry. Depending on your level of career, your duties as an assistant/associate/designer/senior designer will include : Researching trends and the marketplace, creating informed seasonal line plans, presenting those line plans to sales teams, buyers, investors and key stakeholders, CAD illustrations created in Adobe Illustrator, linesheet creation and constant updating in Illustrator so the final linesheet can be presented to buyers, many, many presentations, lots of product development (meaning tons of communication with factories and your comapany’s development and production teams throughout the product life cycle), lab dip reviews (this is checking every color on every type of fabric in the collection and usually takes many rounds), attending fittings and sending comments to factories in a formal, organized, industry standard way. Traveling to other countries to visit factories and trade shows. At a designer or senior designer level you will be expected to manage entire teams of people under you so management and soft skills are highly valuable. I mentioned this in the fashion merchandising question and the advice remains the same: go to StyleCareers.com and look at the job descriptions for the types of positions you are interested in.
You will learn fashion sketching in college but it is highly unlikely that you will use that very much on a day to day basis. I do see some brands here and there requiring sketching but honestly, in my 8 yrs in industry I have only seen a Sr. Designer hand sketch maybe once or twice. Everything is done in Illustrator. You will never be sewing if you work for most major companies but, it is crucial that you have in depth garment construction knowledge because you will be giving factories instructions and troubleshooting problems.
Hours are long. Most offices run a typical 8 hr work day but, long sessions into the night are the expected norm. If you work for a major company there are many times the whole team is cramming to finish everything for presentations to important buyers and you will be expected to perform.
Working conditions, salary range and fringe benefits (?) are entirely dependent on the company and area of the country you are in. A person at a “designer” level in an urban area (not assistant/associate/jr. designer) should be in the 70-90k range. A senior designer is normally in the 100k + range. Assistants, associates and jr. designers make much less. There are brands that tout a lot of perks and those that give standard benefits, every company is different.
Fashion design and merchandising are different positions, see my answer to the merchandiser question for more details.
Anamarie recommends the following next steps:
Thank you for answering this question! It's been up for a while and I'm sure the student appreciates it
Gurpreet Lally, Admin