To be a successful designer in today’s competitive market, you need to be able to call yourself a designer AND a tailor.

Fashion students who have entered the market and found this out the hard way are realising that are re-entering the education system to learn basic skills such as sewing and pattern making.   To be competitive requires an industry of skilled people with a broad range of practical talents, but the education system isn’t delivering enough of them, and employers are increasingly concerned. Schools churn out 1000’s of graduates yearly, but there is still a complaint of a skills shortage since most of these candidates can’t turn a technical drawing into a finished garment.
Students are paying top dollar to attend these institutions, and after entering the market – they’re being sent back to learn the technical skills they lack.

The best kinds of courses are the ones where there are alternating periods of study and work, often called ‘sandwich courses’. Fashion design is partly academic and partly vocational, it’s useless being able to do great research into 1920’s Flapper Fashion but it’s not much use. Many students have been told that the garments they design will be manufactured by someone else, which is a misleading statement. Everyone is being trained to be this glorified designer, when in fact only 1% really make that.

Too much emphasis is on the education of fashion designers, when more practical skills are more in demand.   There is way too much emphasis on being a designer, where the prestige lies. There are in fact many designers who want to start their own business, which in fact would need all the skills – designer, pattern maker, seamstress and grader.

Seems more and more textile workers have stayed on beyond retirement age because their businesses cannot find suitably skilled younger replacements.

Pattern making, grading, sewing and sample making are being cut out of fashion courses due to the costs, there is a major space requirement and the machinery is expensive.

When deciding which institution to attend, ask the relevant questions and ensure you enter the market with the necessary skills and have an edge on the competition.

-Lisa

Image: Eduard Erlikh