Clothing Designer

Job overview
Clothing designers design clothes and accessories.

What do people do in this job?
Clothing designers need to have a sense of what fabrics and designs are in fashion and in demand.

They must be able to design, carry designs through to the finished sample garments and then cost them so that they are marketable.

Main career possibilities include designing for individuals, for wholesale or for mass production.

• Custom designers make clothing for special customers who want truly unique creations. Clothing made by custom designers is usually expensive because of the labour involved in the time-consuming processes of design, fitting and finishing.
• Couture designers, who are usually well known, produce clothing in limited quantities with their names appearing on the labels. They produce seasonal collections of clothes that are shown to clients, who then place their orders.
• Stylists select popular garments to be copied. They may adapt or change the style to make the garments less expensive to produce.
• Freelance designers sell sketches of designs to manufacturers.

What kinds of people are suitable for this career?
Clothing designers should be creative and imaginative, with an eye for detail and a feel for line and colour, and their interest in fashion should be genuine.

They must be able to put their ideas into reality, solve problems of a practical nature and initiate changes.

They must be able to work under pressure to meet deadlines?

What qualifications are needed?
There are no formal qualifications, although schools sometimes give instruction in sewing and design and post-school courses are available at technical colleges.