The Catlins Area School
Fashion Designer Kaihoahoa Kākahu
Fashion designers design clothing and accessories.
Fashion designers may do all or some of the following:
- create or update fashion designs
- prepare drawings of the designs
- adapt patterns to a new style or create new patterns
- select and buy fabrics or have fabrics developed
- estimate how much the work will cost
- inspect the quality of garments
- plan clothing production methods
- market garments.
Physical Requirements
Fashion designers need to have normal colour vision and good eyesight (with or without corrective lenses).
Useful Experience
Useful experience for fashion designers includes:
- sewing, fabric cutting or patternmaking experience
- experience as a garment technician
- fashion buying experience
- clothing factory or workroom experience
- draughting or computer-aided design (CAD).
Personal Qualities
Fashion designers need to be:
- creative and imaginative
- motivated and dedicated
- organised
- confident
- adaptable
- able to work well under pressure
- accurate, with an eye for detail.
Skills
Clothing designers need to have knowledge of:
- current clothing styles and trends
- the history of fashion
- design and drawing techniques
- fabric types, colours and fabric care
- sewing and tailoring techniques
- garment construction and pattern-making techniques
- different body shapes
- computer-aided design (CAD) software.
Conditions
Fashion designers:
- may work long and irregular hours, including evenings and weekends
- work in offices, workshops, factories or clothing shops
- may travel to different factory sites and to local or overseas fashion shows.
Subject Recommendations
NCEA Level 3 is required to enter tertiary training. Useful subjects include design and visual communication (graphics), digital technologies, maths, processing technologies, and painting, sculpture, photography, printmaking combined.
Fashion Designers can earn around $48K-$50K per year.
Pay for fashion designers varies depending on skills and experience.
- Junior fashion designers with up to three years' experience usually earn between $48,000 and $50,000 a year.
- Intermediate fashion designers with four to six years' experience can earn between $50,000 and $75,000.
- Senior fashion designers with more than seven years' experience or designers who work with large companies can earn between $75,000 and $160,000.
Self-employed fashion designers may earn less than this.
Source: New Zealand Fashion Tech 2017; Competenz, 2017.
Fashion designers may progress to set up their own design business or become design room managers or product developers. Product developers design a whole fashion range for a retailer or clothing manufacturer, or can design items such as paint ranges or car upholstery.
Fashion designers may specialise in a number of roles including:
- CAD Operator
- CAD (Computer Aided Design) operators or computer-aided designers create clothing using CAD software.
- Costume Designer
- Costume designers create clothing to be used in theatre, film and television productions.
- Textile Designer
- Textile designers use traditional and modern textile manufacturing and decoration processes to create textiles for clothing and furnishings.
Years Of Training
1-3 years of training usually required.To be employed as a fashion designer you usually need to have a New Zealand Diploma in Fashion Technology (Level 5).
You may need a New Zealand Certificate in Fashion Technology (Level 3) and work experience to enrol for the diploma.
You may be able to learn through an apprenticeship in apparel.
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