What does it require to be a creative director?

Creative Director (as a job title) means different things to different business types.

In advertising, a Creative Director has these typical responsibilities:
– Work directly with brands/clients to understand their business goals and develop creative strategies to reach those goals
– Partner with other creatives to produce work (art, copy, multimedia, interactive)
– Lead creative (and sometimes technology) teams, often with several direct-reporting employees
– Manage internal processes (how the work gets done, how employees are managed)
– Hiring and firing

A creative director can come from almost any creative background, but we're typically strong in either art or copywriting.

I'm a creative director with all the above experience, but my particular focus is on UX (User Experience) design for websites, apps, social media...anything that connects people and content. To become a director, I had to focus intensely on producing a lot of interactive work, in a variety of different roles including UI designer, graphic designer, photographer, writer, storyboarder, programmer, etc. Those experiences helped me to understand all the different disciplines required to do produce the work, and most importantly, how to collaborate with other creative people.

If you love fashion and the creative aspects of it, try to explore all the creative components: clothing (product) design, photography, video, marketing, editorial (writing). Play with all this stuff while you can! You'll soon discover which aspects you're most interested in, then you can focus on those and develop your core craft.

"Director" means exactly what it sounds like; you direct ideas, people, processes, and ultimately the work product.
It takes time and experience to get there. Be great at something first, and always place a high value on helping other people succeed – that's the true mark of leadership.

I think your choice is great and you should keep pursuing it while being in school. Try to go to different fashion shows. Learn more about business.

Creative directors are usually incredible talented in a specific art form and as a result tend to be perceived as eccentric. This is also, for many, a peak career position and not something that you get into even within the first 10 years of your professional career. A creative director usually is also a manager of groups of creative individuals so their job is to exemplify leadership. If you care a lot about other's success and understand how to make others successful (i.e., are a leader) or are interested in learning this, then creative director is the way to go!