Top 13 Skills Required for a Fashion Designer and How to Attain Them

Today, fashion design is one of the most lucrative and creative fields. It is a form of art but not bound by any limitations of designing accessories like shoes, bags and the like. Rather its horizon is immense, far-reaching and highly impactful. We can broadly categorize today's modern fashion design into two main categories: ready-to-wear and haute couture. Fashion design certification courses cover both of them.

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The fashion design industry is worth $5 trillion globally, whereas the Indian clothing market was worth $53.7 billion in 2020, making it the sixth largest globally. These statistics show the immense growth opportunities present in this field in the future meaning there are plenty of well-paying jobs available for people with fashion designer skills and fashion designer degrees. By doing a fashion designer degree, you might make yourself capable enough to reap some amount for yourself. Those who just starting off their journey in fashion design can opt for free fashion design courses to explore the fundamentals of the topic. In this article, Careers360 has listed the top 13 fashion designer skills needed to be a fashion designer.

Read more: The 15 Best Online Fashion Design Courses For Beginners

The Top 13 Skills for a Fashion Designer

Apart from the basic skills needed to be a fashion designer like creativity, networking and communication, there are some other fashion designer skills needed to be a fashion designer that will improve your skills and help you establish a good career in fashion designing. Some of the skills required for fashion designer are:

1. 3D Designing Skills:

Today trends are changing faster than ever due to social media. To seize these ever-changing trends you need to be fast and reduce the time that your design needs to go in the market. Using 3D in the design and development process as one of your fashion designer skills can drastically shorten the time needed to produce them. 3D designing skills help in faster decision-making, accelerate the development of design and reduce sample size and number.

The online 3D fashion design course on Tukatech is a self-paced course to develop 3D fashion designing skills and is a great addition to your fashion design degree.

An online fashion designing course to develop this skill is “Fashion Design: Sketch in 3D using Marvelous Designer” which is offered by Udemy. It is a really good course for those willing to learn 3D design skills and acquaints the learner with the software tools they can use to make life-like imagery in 3D technology.

2. Digital Drawing and Sketching

Paper and pencils are a thing of the past. Now digital drawing and sketching are on the rise and designing has become easier than ever. Programmes like Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop are used to illustrate designs. These fashion designer skills are an important addition to fashion design certification courses.

Online digital drawing course on Skillshare helps to increase the sketching skills of learners. You can also apply for a Photoshop training Course on Adobe. One such online course is “Digital Design: Creating Design Systems for Easier, Better & Faster Design” which is offered by Skillshare and runs for a duration of 1 hour, conducted by Dan Mall, a popular designer and creative director.

3. Master the Social Network & Influencers’ world

Digital marketing and social media affect all consumer decisions today. What we see is what we buy. Social media platforms serve as a runway and marketing medium for the fashion industry. Choosing the right brand ambassador for the perfect ad campaign is an essential part of digital marketing. Such fashion designer skills help you promote your brand or reach your target audience.

You need to master social media techniques. Give attention to posting times, content formatting, and hashtags in order to include them in your marketing strategy effectively. This is not only a great addition to your fashion designer degree but also to other fashion design certification courses. One of the best fashion design certificate courses for this is the Google digital marketing course.

One such online fashion designing course to improve this skill is “Social Media Digital Marketing” which is offered by Udemy, It will acquaint you with the basics of using social media to push your fashion brand forward and will give the candidates technical skills for fashion designers.

4. Analyzing Big Data

To understand fashion trends doing fashion design certificate courses is not enough, a vast number of information has to be researched. With the internet, more and more information can be taken from customers. To analyze and interpret this information you need proper skills which are both creative and analytical. You can enhance these fashion designer skills using Udemy fashion design certificate courses.

An online data analyzing course offered by Udemy is “Data Analysis with Pandas and Python” which will give you a bird’s eye-view perspective of how to use data analytics and the Python language to harness and curate reliable fashion data.

5. Creative Fashion Styling

Fashion styling is in high demand due to the rise in the fashion and film industries. This course provides professional training in fashion styling, How to create the complete look according to the theme, event, one’s personal style and ongoing trends is covered in this course. Celebrities, influencers, and even political leaders appoint stylists to cater to their needs.

If you want to master these fashion designer skills of fashion styling then the best online fashion designing course would be “Styling”. It is a certificate course and can be done from ‘Learn From Manish Malhotra’, where the ace designer and costume specialist talks about the basic to advanced concepts of fashion styling.

6. Draping and Pattern Making

Dress designers often prefer flat pattern-making and draping techniques for designs. The draping pattern design is the fashion designer's skills and qualities of wrapping around fabrics as per their desire and then fastening them into different shapes and styles. Pattern making further involves the shaping of fabrics so that they can fit perfectly on the human figure. Pattern-making is a combined process with production and designing being integral to the process at different stages.

This is important to visualize the look before mass production and make practical changes. Learn this art at ‘The Cut Fashion Academy’. Talking about a good online fashion designing course to master the art of draping and pattern making, we have “Patternmaking for Fashion Design”. This course is offered by Udemy.

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7. Textiles for Interiors and Fashion

Textile design and textile pattern making are counted amongst the most popular fashion designer skills when it comes to printed and woven or even knitted fabrics. Textile design is a vast field that includes the whole process from conceptualization, the sourcing of raw materials, designing, and then finally presenting the finished product. It is one of the most crucial skills a fashion designer can have. Online fashion design is a great platform to learn textile designing and get technical skills for fashion designers. Out of the many online fashion design courses, the “Textiles and Fabrics for Interiors” course offered by Udemy is a good choice to excel in this skill.

8. Pattern Making & Garment Construction

Hard paper patterns are created via the coming together of multiple individual components and items when creating a garment or apparel piece. It is important as it helps in the cut and sew process for fabrics and traces the parts of the garments where the fabric is cut and assembled thereafter. It is one of the most crucial fashion designer skills that the garment manufacturing industry looks for in professionals and is complex as well, requiring perfect technical acumen, and the ability to perfectly interpret designs and construct garments, which helps it bridge the gap between design and production. You can do a course on this at the ‘Cut Fashion Academy’.

If you are a beginner who is looking for an online fashion designing course to know the fundamentals of garment construction, then you can opt for the “Make Your Own Clothing: Introduction to Garment Construction” course offered by Skillshare.

9. Tailoring and Designing

It is a very useful course for designers who want to learn various design patterns. All the components and design elements of everyday dresses are covered in this course. It enlightens about aspects of pattern making and tailoring in a shorter time frame.

To attain these fashion designer skills and qualities, enrol in the “Learn Garment Sewing Techniques for Beginners” online fashion designing course that is offered by Udemy. To get a more hands-on approach and learn skills on the go, having knowledge of sewing techniques, a sewing machine and marking chalks apart from measuring tapes is required, since the course runs for a total duration of 1 hour.

10. Fashion Merchandising

Fashion merchandising is one of the fashion skills. It is the marketing, strategic analysis, distribution, and management of fashion products. It is done in order to maximize profits. Fashion merchandisers stay aware of fashion trends to predict what consumers demand. Fashion merchandising is a dynamic profession.

The curriculum and syllabi covered by Susanne Tide-Frater[L1] on ‘Business of Fashion’ is a good online fashion course to learn about the in-depth aspects of fashion merchandising.

11. Colour Study

A colour study is usually a small painting or drawing which focuses almost entirely on colour arrangements. The goal of a colour study is to understand everything about colour combinations and dos and don’ts. For fashion designers, the colour study is very important. So, if you want to master this skill you can opt for the “Fashion Color Psychology” online fashion designing course offered by Udemy.

12. Fashion Business

Fashion business is one of the skills in fashion industry. It includes everything an emerging designer needs to know to start an independent fashion label. It is important to learn this if you want to start your own business and be an independent designer. You get to learn the basics of the fashion industry with this course, which acquaints you with the prerequisites for opening one’s own fashion-related business venture.

If you are a beginner in the fashion industry, then out of the many online fashion design courses, the “How To Start A Successful Fashion Business” course offered by Udemy will be a great choice, as it comes with 4 hours of on-demand video, with 14 downloadable materials for later consumption. It also has a 170+ page e-book to accompany the video content.

13. Embroidery

Embroidery is one of the skills in fashion. It is the speciality of decorating texture or different materials with a needle to apply string or yarn. Embroidery may likewise join different materials, for example, pearls, dots, plumes, and sequins. It is done on everything from shoes to hats. There are many types of embroidery but learning a few can help you explore new things.

“Learn Painting with Thread: Modern Embroidery for Beginners” is among the top online fashion design courses to learn embroidery. It is offered by Skillshare.

Learning these fashion designer skills and qualities can help you in your fashion designer course. The online fashion designing course supplements increase your skill set. Further, you can pursue a master's in fashion design. These skills set you apart from others and help you to get better employment opportunities.

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Conclusion

Going through this article you will clearly understand what a waste, adventurous yet treacherous field of fashion designing is. One day you will be on top and the next day without realizing you may be in the pits of despair groping and grappling to understand what is wrong with the designs that you work on. Enjoy what you create is the crux and when you start creating for the market and not yourself and your work does not give you pleasure is when you should understand failure is around the corner. To be a successful fashion designer one needs to be truthful to oneself and in the process amalgamate the demands of the market smartly with your creation and possess the essential skills needed for fashion designer.