Get a Jumpstart in Your Fashion Career

By Anjali Lall Roy

A multitude of opportunities await fresh graduates in the fashion world. Fashion is a dynamic and vibrant industry with many different opportunities for a robust career. The opportunity could be in the form of a job as a fashion designer doing haute couture, working with handlooms and crafts or as a career in creating commercially viable fashion wear for big brands of clothing. Further, allied jobs like those of merchandisers, buyers, stylists, visual merchandisers and fashion journalists are also waiting for the right candidate.  What’s more, those with a business streak can even start their even own designer clothing firm or a niche’ business.

In fact, ‘doing your own thing’ is a very special advantage a fashion career offers you. With a bit of planning and clearly understanding the market, young fashion designers can come up with innovative products or services which they can successfully sell online or from their store or studio.

When you are setting up your own brand or service:

•         Have game plan; keep a clear-cut start up strategy, short term, and medium term goals in and persistently work towards it.

•         Create your brand DNA or USP and try to enhance it with innovative R&D.

•         Understand the business mathematics and face challenges and think through every setback with stubborn tenacity and level headedness.

Head out for an Internship before you start your business or take up a lucrative job:

Internships help you gain Industry insight: By interning in a fashion house or with a fashion designer you gain insider knowledge about how the garment business works. You learn how different departments coordinate internally and how they firm interacts with vendors, stakeholders and clients. You grasp the nuances of the trade and are able to tweak your professional skills to be best suited for your future job or business venture. What’s more you have a on a good advantage for a job at the same firm/designer.

An Internship is a great way to network and meet like-minded professionals: While you work at the internship you meet a lot of different people who add value to your understanding of the business. They may be your co-workers, the company’s valuable clients, vendors or contractors. Not only do you learn how to interact professionally but also do you develop a valuable network of contacts that can help you out in the future be it a job or your own business.

Internships hugely help your confidence: Once you know the requirements of a professional job and have been able to work well in your internship, you develop confidence in your professional self. All the doubt you may have about, how you should work, what you should do, are finally put away. At ease and confident, you can positively contribute to work with creative and fresh thinking. Performing well becomes much easier with a relaxed state of mind.

Your Internship experience spruces up your resume: When you start out your career, there is not much in your resume beyond college projects and academic accolades. Your future employer may not be able to directly fathom your potential from seeing academic project work. However, your industry experience; your internship, is directly relevant and helps your employer gauge your abilities accurately. Thus, adding a note about your internship gives a shot in the arm to your resume and helps you reach future employers favorably.

Top tips for young designers to quickly advance in the fashion industry

Whether your future awaits you in an export house, a retail firm, partnering with a noteworthy designer or in your own startup business these tips will help you navigate your way to robust career ahead.

•         Get the work done; be a ‘doer’. In the fast paced world of fashion, there is always a last minute rush, an unexpected deadline or a last minute glitch. A sure shot way to get noticed is by helping out and getting the work done swiftly. Reliability is a most valued quality which will set you apart from your peers.

•         Cultivate a creative outlet/vent. Every fashion designer must allocate time for fresh innovation and to nourish his/her creativity. Visit to art and design centers, read about trends and fashion, attend workshops and more. Design people ought to nourish their creative core and constantly evolve their design sensibility.

•         Don’t balk on your crazy thoughts. Appreciate your own or others new ideas. Your seemingly ‘crazy’ thoughts today could germinate into a lucrative business stream in the future. Avoid the company of idea killers and naysayers who dampen your creativity. Agreed, there would be many failed ideas but creative innovation must always continue.

•         Build up your communication and writing skills. There are official interactions, emails, blogs and more which you need to always work on as a fashion designer. Sharpening language and good communication skills takes effort and doesn’t happen overnight. But constant effort would reap great benefits. It would open avenues of expression and help develop an rounded personality.

•         Cultivate mentors- your ‘safety net’. The ‘human’ network is a huge asset for any fashion professional. Slowly but steadily meet and interact with those senior persons whose expertise and experience can guide you and show you the right path when faced with a tricky situation. Starting from your trainers and teachers at design school, to your manager in your internship make an effort to create deep and wholesome mentor relationships.

•         Go the extra mile for your boss. This is great tip to push your career forward. Instead of animosity and sullen agreement, keeping a positive attitude at work will get you quickly to great places. Don’t just do your part of the job, if you see that there is something your boss has missed/forgotten help and support him. Not only will it open doors for you, while you work together, but also help in recommendations in future jobs.  

•         Develop your ability to speak up. Creative people need to stand up for their work and confidently speak for their work. Boldly putting your views forward and having your own thinking and ‘voice’ are good skills which your mangers and seniors are looking for among the young designers. Face your fears and don’t let your doubts come in the way. There would be many experienced folk in the work place but recognize that even your word and opinion needs to be out there.

•         Project your own self well and manage your reputation. Remember that your personal and professional life may seem different but your attitude and approach towards life is seamless and integrated. Whether it is personal social network, LinkedIn or just plain workplace interaction, it is important to project and convey the right message. Your future boss might be seeing your profile and forming an opinion about you.

•         Manage your appearances. Dressing appropriately is keenly important in the fashion world. While, in all business interactions, putting your best (well dressed) foot matters, this is even more important in the fashion world. Students and maverick designers believe that the ‘disheveled look’ ought to be accepted but sometimes it can backfire on you. Start with a clean mainstream look and test the waters before you launch an ‘extreme look’ on hapless office colleagues.

To sum it up whether you want to create clothing, manage a buying firm, capture the latest fashion through your lenses or write about catwalk trends, these sound tips will help you find your footing in the world of fashion.

About the Author:

Anjali Lall Roy is Faculty in Fashion Design department at ITM Institute of Design and Media, Mumbai.