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In the fashion industry, the most important task for any professional is that of designing, as it not only depicts the individual competence but also reflects upon the fashion trend and culture of a particular region or a country. The designing for readymade garments is different from that of fabric or textile. Also, in readymade garments, designs vary for children, females or sportsmen and may further be segmented as per the specific requirement, say costumes for films, stage-shows and social events. Today with the growing number of TV programmes, fashion shows and beauty contests, fashion designers are in high demand all over the world. The task of designers include, research work in which they have to find out the needs of the individual client, customers within the country or in a particular foreign country. The selection of colour, fabric, print, reliability and functionality in a particular climate or region, costing, etc. are included in their task. After designing, comes the task of presentation to the clients and production department of the conceived design or pattern. Changes are incorporated and final design is then approved for manufacturing in the production department. The next important task of professional is that of market research. Since global market is highly dynamic and any change abroad affects the local market also, market research personnel have to be constantly on their toes to keep continuous track of the changing trends and should also be able to foresee the trend in future. Market research is extremely crucial for textile and readymade garment units, retailers and distributors or export houses, as heavy investment are involved in the development of fabric or garment. Product pricing and its distribution are directly dependent on market research data. Researchers with at least 5 to 7 years of experience in the related field or sometimes designers themselves are involved in the process of market research. After designing and market research, comes the task of manufacturing. Professionals involved in this section of fashion industry are engaged in the purchase of textiles, fabrics or raw materials, training of workers, production planning and scheduling, pattern making and finishing. They also supervise the quality control of the finished product as per the final design specification and sizes. The production supervisors provide work with different operating staff like tailors, assemblers, embroidery experts, etc. and in units where machines are used, they look after their maintenance and operation. Apart from manufacturing and quality control, the professional in production unit are also required to oversee packaging of the product, especially for export market. The distribution, retailing, marketing and merchandising is another vital aspect of fashion industry on which a success of any product depends considerably. Fashion designers, researchers and production personnel are employed in the manufacturing units, export houses, retail and wholesale garment businesses, tailoring units, boutiques, government and semi-government manufacturing units like handlooms. Fashion shows organisers also employ these professionals. Career opportunities also exist with fashion-related magazines and Websites, film, theatre and television as costume designers, training and education centres as instructors, etc. Fashion design professionals also earn substantially by working as freelancers or consultants. In fashion shows, films or television, they work mostly on contract or project basis. Universities do not have specific curriculum on fashion designing. It is mostly the government sponsored or private institutes that provide training in design, manufacturing and merchandising. Some of the reputed institutes, where specialised undergraduate and post-graduate courses of duration 1 to 3 years are conducted, are National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) at Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Hyderabad, National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, International Institute of Fashion Technology, Delhi, SNDT Women University, Mumbai, Design and Development Institute, Noida. The fees charged are normally Rs.20,000 to 30,000 per annum. On an average, a fashion designer may start with an earning of Rs.1 lakh per annum, which gets multiplied several folds, if they succeed. The job requires travelling both within and outside the country. Mostly these professionals are required to lead a highly social life and must therefore have an ability to communicate well with the others. With the growing competition especially in global market, fashion designers are required to upgrade their skills regularly so as remain ahead of others. For achieving higher skills, they need to switchover to latest available technologies. Information technology has now provided an immense opportunity for these professionals to make full utilisation of computers and related digital medium. Fashion designing on computers is gaining vast popularity in fashion industry primarily because of their numerous advantages. The ready-to-use software are so simple that even an inexperienced person with working knowledge of computers can create design with unlimited options of colours, prints, patterns, etc. Also the design so created can be easily modified, edited within the shortest possible time and their print can be taken out on the printer or plotters. Besides with the help of computer simulation, a designer or a tailor can virtually view the 3-dimensional picture of their creation. A merchandiser and marketing professionals can make presentation of their designs to customers and business clients on the computer display. Electronic copy of designs so created can also be passed on to the export customers through e-mail, Website, etc. Computer-aided fashion designing has revolutionised the complete fashion industry and as a result more innovative and abstract designs are now coming up, which were till now were difficult to create. With growing dependence on computers
and related technologies, fashion institutes are now offering
computer-aided fashion designing courses. Arena Multimedia is among such
institute that conduct such specialised courses through its centres
throughout the country. Students are exposed to real world situations in
the classroom itself with the help of specialised software and hardware.
Companies like Adobe, ModaCAD, Metacreations, Monarch, etc. have
developed several computer related products for the fashion industry.
IMFAA is also offering a module on Computer aided fashion designing, and
introduces the students to windows, use of colouring tools, pattern
making and dress designing, Corel Draw, Adobe Photoshop, etc. |
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RITU
BERI, Rohit Bal, J.J.Walia, Bhanu Athaiya! These are some of the names
that can easily be identified with the glamorous world of fashion
designing even by school children. Presently, all over the world,
fashion industry is among the most sought after and growing industries
and has therefore become synonymous with the culture and development
of a particular country. Till few decades ago, fashion was thought to
be relevant only to countries like France, UK and the USA and was
meant only for the rich and elite. The suits, gowns, shirts, ties,
shoes, hats, or even jewellery were some of the items that were used
to be designed and created by designers according to the personality
of an individual or as per some particular occasion or an event.
However, in recent years, people in several other countries, including
India have become extremely fashion conscious. Today, fashion is not
restricted merely to the upper class but has found its way onto the
every section of the society – be it students, housewives,
sportsmen, theatre or film personality. With the liberalisation in
economy, fashion industry in India has grown tremendously and now
accounts for sizeable proportion in our export revenue.