Fashion Designing

credit: Samantha Hahn

This is only advice that I'm passing on through personal experience.
If any of you are thinking of going into the fashion design business, here are some things to consider:

Your dream shouldn’t be focused on being seen as a designer. It should be focused on BEING a designer. Don’t be in it for the wrong reasons….fame…popularity. You have no idea how much work is involved in designing. Its not just about coming up with ideas and sketching them out. It requires so much more than that. It requires hard work, discipline, sweat, blood and PASSION. These ingredients are all important. I’d have to say passion helps me the most when Im faced with obstacles and discouragement. When I was at Blanche we started off with about 20-some ppl and by the end, half the class dropped out or got kicked out bcos the work and stress wasnt that they expected.

You will live, eat & breathe your business. Designers work 7 days a week and work at LEAST 12 hrs a day with barely any time for anything else. It will be your lifestyle. and it demands self-discipline to follow your own structure, meet deadlines and stay focused on your daily goals.

As I said before, a designer takes on many roles. The reality is you’ll be designing only about 10% of the time. The rest of the time you spend is on paperwork, pattern making, sampling, sourcing, production of your garments, researching your target market, following up on emails…the list goes on.

If you’re not organized, learn to be. This is one of the biggest challenges I faced because I am such a scatterbrain. Its important to give yourself structure or else you’ll end up getting distracted & lose focus on your daily goals. You need to be able to handle things financially… keeping records of your expenses and all that stuff. If not hire a professional to help. If you dont, in the end you will lose money. This is my current challenge =P

Dont force your creativity. The more pressure you put on yourself the more frustrated you will become. Creativity is natural so let it come naturally. If you find yourself stuck, take a break and get inspired. Go to the art gallery, flip through magazines, click around on the internet. Dont just limit yourself to fashion…look for inspiration in nature, in architecture, in illustrations, paintings and other artists’ work.