Do you get shivers of excitement when you hear names like Louis Vuitton and Versace? Do you use every invitation as an excuse to go shopping for a new outfit? Have you ever sported a unique style that ended up wildly popular six months later? If the answer to any of these questions is “yes”, you might have an exciting career ahead of you in the fashion industry.

What does a career as a fashion designer entail?

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, about one quarter of fashion designers are self-employed. This means that they have their own labels and sell designs to stores, work as freelance designers for high-profile clients, or run their own boutiques. The highest concentrations of fashion designers are in New York and California (where the field grew by 36.4% between 1998 and 2008), but if we’ve learned anything from Project Runway, it’s that great fashion design can happen anywhere. Many other fashion designers are employed by individual clients or by retail establishments.

What does a fashion designer do?

Put most simply, a fashion designer creates clothing and accessories. Everything you wear, from jeans to ball gowns, earrings and shoes are dreamt up by fashion designers. Fashion designers are also responsible for designing accessories that wouldn’t immediately come to mind, like luggage and iPod skins. Project Runway’s Santino has designed boxes for Camel cigarettes, and Chloe Dao designed an electronic accessory line for Circuit City.

A designer must be able to sketch, make patterns, choose fabric and materials, and sell work to buyers. In addition, a successful designer must keep up with current industry trends by reading magazines, attending fashion shows, and visiting textile showrooms. Artistic talent, organizational skills, ambition, and business sense are important traits for any fashion designer to have.

A fashion designer will specialize in one of three areas. An haute couture designer will design an outfit for a single client. It will be made once, usually by hand, and the end product will be a high-quality, expensive garment. The fabulous dresses movie stars wear to award shows are examples of haute couture.

A mass market designer makes clothing or accessories to be mass produced cheaply and sold at retail establishments. Most, if not all of the clothes in your closet, are considered mass market.

A ready-to-wear designer will create a collection (usually for Fashion Week) to be produced in small quantities for buyers. These clothes are expensive and considered a hybrid between haute couture and mass market.

How do I get started as a fashion designer?

Competition for fashion design jobs can be fierce. According to the California Employment Development Department, many employers prefer to hire designers who have attended a career school or a community college over people who attended traditional four-year colleges. This is because vocational ...