Thinking about careers

Within the  PPD sessions recently we thought about presentation skills as well as possible careers for the future. It opened my eyes a lot to the scope of different careers there are out there and what would be best suited to myself. I was given garment technologist. This is definitely an area I would like to avoid, there seemed to be a lack of creativity and being in the position of working for someone else without the freedom of creating your own ideas. It seems very stressful, with having to think about lots of areas at once. Its seems for of a technical area, quite black and white. Within the session others within the group presented their job type to the group. There was a lot of variation, which careers including;

Buyer

Fashion journalist

Pattern cutter

Merchandiser

Coolhunter

Fashion PR

Fashion illustrator

Fashion stylist

Brand guardian

Product developer

Sample machinist

Visual merchandiser

Fashion designer

Fashion forecaster

Fashion photographer.

At first look I think the areas that most interest me would be fashion illustrator, stylist, visual merchandiser, forecaster or buyer. These are areas that I feel offer the most visual creativity. They are more focused on working with what happens after the garments have been produced, communicating them as a package.

Fashion Buyer;

 Working for retailers buyers are generally responsible for overseeing the selection of products. The buying role can vary significantly between companies and market sectors. They decide on styles to be bought and they also negotiate production with suppliers.

Roles on a day to day basis include negotiation of retail prices, planning trips to material and fashion fairs, gaining inspiration from fashion shows, working with suppliers and in house designers, researching current trends, etc.

If a buyer was too work for a department store or outlet store like Selfridges, they would be in charge of stocking the store with well known brands and garments, taking into consideration the styles that sell best and those that will make them the most profit. In contrast if you were working for a brand like Topshop, a buyer would be responsible for overseeing the complete product development process before arranging the delivery of the finished products. This would also include choosing particular ranges, styles and garments to correspond with the trends on catwalks, ensuring there would be a high appeal to the customer creating profit for the company. A wrong decision could be threatening.

The salary of Fashion Buyers can range from as little as £13,000 to as much as £70,000. The type of salary you may earn depends on experience, success of brand and what type of buyer you are. The process of career development usually goes as follows:

-Buyers Admin Assistant

-Assistant Buyer

-Junior Buyer

-Buyer

-Head of Buying

-Buying Director

 The amount of buyers and levels of experience would vary in each company. Although for example if you were working for a department store there would usually be many buyers and then a head of buying in each department eg: Womenswear, Menswear, Homewear etc. Then a buying director would oversee all departments.

There is alot of travel involved in the job at a higher level, this can be seen as both a good and bad thing depending on personal preference, personally i would love this experience.

As a buyer you would be working with lots of others that are involved in the fashion business including, imports and exports, garment technologists, fashion merchandisers, visual merchandisers, retail branch managers and more.

 I also looked more into Visual Merchandising;

They dress windows, arrange floor layouts and promote the image of the line or store. I have previously dressed windows for my job at home, which I really enjoyed. I work in a small independent shop, so this offers me the freedom to arrange the windows to which I feel best reflects the shop rather than being giving a pack and following a tight brief. This seems to me mainly a freelance career, meaning its unstable and unless you end up working for a major line the salary is low. Even though there are some bad points about this career, there is possibly travel opportunities and opportunity to gain awareness of all kinds of brands. 

Fashion PR    Public relations / Personal Relations

Salary ranges from 10,000 - 50,000

Fashion PR tasks include Appeal companies to retail stores, build and maintain a favorable public image. Because they do not have to pay for publicity or media coverage.

jobs within PR Promotions Assistants- Public relations specialists to public relations co-ordinator to director of public relations

Perks of the job are free clothes,shoes,accessories and other fashion related produce.

Other jobs you may have to do is preventing bad press, or stories that may portray an image that is not suitable or damaging to a brand.

Fashion, Art and Culture

Back from reading week and I feel like i've got a better idea of how im going to tackle this brief after lots of research and thinking. My 200 words proposal is;

My idea behind this theme is to focus on the concept of the mismatch and homogenisation of cultures around the world throughout the years. With this I want to touch on the idea of how the mixing of these cultures is controlled by our capitalist government in the amount of exposure we have to them. I want to explore how people have found their identity in adopting similar dress codes to people they are surrounded with, for example how there is a particular look which the mass adopts throughout the decades. Boundaries between cultures have broken away due to globalisation and migration, making it increasingly hard for cultural identity to be achieved, sometimes causing status frustration thus rebellion in such things are graffiti art. This identity confusion is to be reflected in my final outcome where these ideas will be translated in an innovative garment reflecting a mismatch of traditional cultural dress from around the world communicating what is meant by cultural identity today, under the control of a capitalism through appropriate styling, setting and photography. This will be a representation of the modern person today, demonstrating their influences from society weather being the influx of cultural dress codes or the mass production and branding all through globalisation. 

I feel i may need to focus this and change it slightly to exactly what im going to be doing after completing some sheets on idea development. I think i may have got a bit excited with my research and touched on too many areas within the subject. The next thing i'm going to do is edit this into something more focussed. 

New Year

Its already February and I hadn’t realised how long it had been since I last wrote in this blog. A lot has happened and I don’t really know where to start. I've fully settled in now and have learnt from my mistakes. I think I’ve gained a better understanding of how I work recently. I tend to be stronger in the initial stages of research and need to know when to stop, and gain a better focus on developing my designs.

Christmas has come and gone and the deadline for Creative Design Practices was last week. I feel like this went quite well, I worked hard on it although sometimes I think I got the wrong end of the stick with what I was doing sometimes. I found I was tending to do more pointless arty things rather than focussing on the objective of developing a range of garments. Although I think it came together okay in the end. I liked the first part of the project, the shop report. It was different to anything I’d really done before, and opened by eyes a bit to the way brands are packaged to their target audience. I initially found it hard to cater my designs to a mass-market audience as I was always use to being a bit more expressive but was a good way for be to get a grip of fashion design in a more realistic way. I chose the brand ‘Free People’ at Urban Outfitters as it was more of a quirky brand, which offered me a bit more freedom with prints and colour, plus it suited by theme of birds an bird cages.

This new project; Fashion, Art and Culture seems more my way of working. It has more of an art approach, exploring a theme around cultural identity throughout the decades covered in the lectures throughout the past three weeks. Ive been doing some research and I found the idea of capitalism in conjunction with this could create something innovative. I want to produce something with the idea of how globalisation under capitalism has had an impact on the way we dress, how clothing within cultures has blended due to the exportation of them both ways. Im looking forward to looking into this further to produce something visually exciting and putting across a strong and contemporary subject matter.

Designing for the high street

Designing for the high street gave my such a good focus. In the past I tend to get a bit carried away with things like research but having a set market and season to design for let me focus and develop my ideas with something to aim for. I really enjoyed researching trends and market levels, giving me a better grounding for this project and future work. 

My target market- Free People at Urban Outfitters

Through research into the brand it allowed me to focus on fabric types and design details, for easy decision making in the design development process. 

My final line up:

I think this was a success. A balanced collection for spring/summer and clearly communicates the style of the brand. Could have benefitted from more use of CAD for more of a professional look. Although I am pleased with the use of CAD here.

New project

Creative Design Practices had just been started, it’s a good change to what we were previously doing- being a more analytical approach to the fashion world involving looking at trends and how the retail world works. I’ve already been looking around Leeds high street shops to look at how trends have transcended from the catwalk to the high street for a/w 08.  The first part of the module involves exploring visual research in categorising colour, shape etc into four trends of the season. I have started with taking pictures as primary research in making a connection from high and lower market fashion.  I have also registered with wgsn-edu.com and looked ay fashiontrendsetter.com to further my initial research. 

Looking at locations, window arrangements, branding, fabric, construction, trends etc.

Two examples of my four trendboards I completed over Christmas. Really enjoyed doing this, although i initially found it hard in terms of use of space and arrangement. I always tend to try and do too much at once, need to self edit!

I think my trendboards successfully communicate the trends from AW 2008. 

Two down

I feel I have settled more into the course now two modules are finished and I have a clearer idea of what is expected of me in terms of content and quantity. I’ve definitely improved in many areas such as research skills and developing initial ideas. I definitely enjoyed creative approaches to fashion as it allowed me to work independently and try new approaches in techniques in both parts. I hadn’t previously worked too much with CAD so it was a good chance to explore new ways of illustration.  The second module- Creative design realisation had a more professional and realistic outlook in terms of designing and constructing a garment. I had never previously touched on flat pattern cutting so this was a completely new take to how I had produced garments in the past.

It was a good way to gain an understanding of the realisation of ideas and designs from 2D drawings to 3D finished products as well as exploring the manufacturing process using new machinery, equipment and techniques being used safely and professionally. I am pleased with my final prototype garment and surprisingly found it a creative process transforming a flat block pattern into something with shape and full silhouette by dart manipulation as well as slash and cut techniques.

I used my time effectively either independently and within session time to meet the deadline set.  The handbook was very useful in terms of helping within independent study time and for managing my workload as set out in the schedule.  I have definitely gained an awareness of fashion as a professional activity, which is a natural progression to degree level from my previous foundation course.  I’ve developed a better understanding of the technical constraints within fashion design and will try to reference these as much as possible in my future designs, knowing that the technical and creative aspects of design have to work together to be realistic in producing a final outcome, this being important in becoming successful within the competitive industry.

I picked up these new methods and processes fairly quickly and built up a useful file for future reference. I definitely made a few mistakes along the way but through trying to solve these problems I feel I can definitely learn from these to help me develop my skills within the area. Within the module I probably tried too hard to work independently sometimes and at these early stages of learning I should maybe ask for more help during session time to make sure I am working effectively.  Another mistake I made during the process was that I wasn’t as precise as I maybe should be, which is a very important factor when it comes to the assemblage of the garment, which I will pay attention to next time. It’s exciting to have a good understanding of this area to bring my design ideas to life as well as improving professional presentation skills.

Creative Design Realisation- Professional & Creative Techniques in Fashion

Evaluation

Within this module I feel I have a more professional and realistic outlook in terms of designing and constructing a garment. I had never previously touched on flat pattern cutting so this was a completely new take to how I had produced garments in the past.

It was a good way to gain an understanding of the realisation of ideas and designs from 2D drawings to 3D finished products as well as exploring the manufacturing process using new machinery, equipment and techniques being used safely and professionally. I am pleased with my final prototype garment and surprisingly found it a creative process transforming a flat block pattern into something with shape and full silhouette by dart manipulation as well as slash and cut techniques.

I used my time effectively either independently and within session time to meet the deadline set.  The handbook was very useful in terms of helping within independent study time and for managing my workload as set out in the schedule.  I have definitely gained an awareness of fashion as a professional activity, which is a natural progression to degree level from my previous foundation course.  I’ve developed a better understanding of the technical constraints within fashion design and will try to reference these as much as possible in my future designs, knowing that the technical and creative aspects of design have to work together to be realistic in producing a final outcome, this being important in becoming successful within the competitive industry.

I picked up these new methods and processes fairly quickly and built up a useful file for future reference. I definitely made a few mistakes along the way but through trying to solve these problems I feel I can definitely learn from these to help me develop my skills within the area. Within the module I probably tried too hard to work independently sometimes and at these early stages of learning I should maybe ask for more help during session time to make sure I am working effectively.  Another mistake I made during the process was that I wasn’t as precise as I maybe should be, which is a very important factor when it comes to the assemblage of the garment, which I will pay attention to next time. It’s exciting to have a good understanding of this area to bring my design ideas to life as well as improving professional presentation skills.

The final image for the Creative Approaches to Fashion Module;

"It fell from the sky"