online fashion design degrees

Earning an online fashion design degree is a perfect choice if you're thinking about a career in the fashion design or fashion merchandising industry. Whether you are trying to enhance your fashion awareness, switching to a whole new career, or even taking the first step to achieving a lifelong goal, earning an online fashion design degree is the perfect first step.

Read about a career in fashion design.

Exploring Fashion Design as a Career

Expected Earnings

Useful Personal Characteristics

To become a fashion designer, you must possess a good eye for color, detail, proportion, and balance. You should also be able to sketch proficiently in addition to having a working knowledge of CAD (computer-aided design). Knowledge of sewing, pattern making, fabrics, textiles, ornamentation, and current trends in fashion are also a must. A portfolio containing examples of your best work is often crucial for breaking into this field, as are sales and communication skills in order to encourage potential clients to consider new designs.

Educational Requirements

While there are no specific educational requirements to become a fashion designer, most employers would like to see a 2 or 4 year degree in a relevant field. A bachelor's degree, or associate degree in fashion design or fine art are both appropriate, as are programs in private art and design schools.

Some fashion designers choose to broaden their training by earning an additional degree in marketing, business or fashion merchandising. This can truly pay off if you decide to go into business for yourself. Whichever educational path is chosen, coursework should include textiles, sewing and tailoring, color, pattern making, CAD, drawing, history of fashion, and varied design courses. Additional study in mathematics, anatomy, and psychology often proves useful as well. No licenses or specific exams are required.

Many fashion designers begin their careers through internships with design or manufacturing firms. An alternate route is to learn about the industry by working in retail stores as a custom tailor or personal stylist. Student and amateur contests are often helpful in gaining exposure to possible employers. Entry level positions in the fashion design field, on the other hand, are pattern makers and sketching assistants. These jobs can lead to fashion designer positions and experienced designers may be promoted to chief designers, or design department heads.

Job Responsibilities

As a fashion designer, you would be responsible for keeping current with fashion trends, sketching clothing or accessories, selecting fabrics and colors, and supervising all stages of production. The time between formulating the original idea and final production generally falls between 18 and 24 months.

The entire process begins with research and predictions for future fashion trends. You then must choose to conduct his or her own research in the field, or refer to trend reports published by the fashion industry trade groups. Sketches may initially be made by hand and then translated to a CAD computer program. CAD allows you to view a design idea in many colors and shapes or on virtual models. As such, it can save you a great deal of time.

When the initial garment design is created, the next step in the process involves visiting fabric manufacturers and trade shows to choose fabrics. You can then use cheaper materials to assemble a prototype garment, which can then be worn by a model to determine if any adjustments to the design are necessary. It is at this time that you will decide which designs are truly working and worth offering for sale. You can then make final adjustments and sew sample garments from the true materials. These samples are marketed to clothing retailers and featured at trade shows. After orders are placed, garments are manufactured and delivered to wholesalers and retailers.

Your involvement in all aspects of design and production varies depending on the size of the firm you work with. In larger firms, there is often a lead designer who creates designs and chooses colors and fabrics. The supervising technical designers then turn the design into a sellable product. They create the patterns and prototypes and oversee the production process. In these large design firms, individual patternmakers, hand sewers and tailors are often employed. In small firms all of these tasks may be handled by one designer.

Job Outlook

The fashion design industry is extremely competitive. Many people are drawn to this creative and glamorous field. Job openings, however, are few due to low job turnover and the fact that only a small number of new jobs for fashion designers are created each year. For these reasons, it is expected that employment of fashion designers will grow more slowly than average through the year 2014.

While there are increases expected with apparel wholesalers, this will be offset by declines in cut and sew apparel manufacturing. Employment growth in the fashion design industry will come from our growing population. There will be an increased demand for affordable stylish clothing and job opportunities will arise in design firms that cater to mass market department stores, retail chains, and wholesale firms. The outlook for designers in the high-end and high fashion areas is less optimistic. Two thirds of fashion designers are employed in either New York or California, so for those who would like a future in this field, relocation may be necessary.

To find out if a fashion design career is right for you, you may be interested in reading our article A Peek at a Fashion Designer's Day.

Is there an online fashion design degree that we don't have listed? If we do not have a certain program listed that you know to be reputable, we would love to hear from you. Please email us regarding any programs that you think should be listed on our website.