Hey, hey Party People! All right, so listen, there
are basically three ways to start your fashion design career. One, go to school get a bachelor of
fine arts at an accredited university or college put your resume and portfolio together and look
for a job. Number two, start your own business. Number three, become a freelancer and work
on a project-by-project basis for a variety of companies. Now, those last two options you
can definitely go to school to get started, but you don't need to. But you
do need to educate yourself, and that's where this video comes in.
I've put together a study plan for you and this plan resembles many American fashion
school programs, which is what i'm familiar with, and i'm going to include something schools don't
talk about enough in my opinion. And my opinions are based on having graduated from a nationally
ranked school, having worked in the industry for many years, and then having taught at another
nationally ranked university for over five years. This video will outline what you need
to study, why you should study it, and how much you have to study it. I have
not put these topics in order of importance. I have tutorial videos for a lot of these areas
of study, but not everything please check the description box for links and info on the books
I'll be going over in this video and I've also included some links to podcasts that i think are
educational. A note about my book recommendations, I taught a variety of classes in university, but
only ever used two books in my classes. The one I suggest on color theory and the one I suggest
on human anatomy. When I was in school myself, my teachers didn't use a ton of books either
so I have a lot more tutorial videos than book recommendations. Okay, on to the subjects. Subject
one: again in no particular order, first design. Some people will think, "No, Zoe, I'm bubbling
over with ideas! I have all the designs in my head already." Okay, that's a good start, but
that's not everything. The way I teach design process is about taking those ideas and developing
them, refining them, creating whole collections; and by learning processes and merging it with
your own methods and ideas. You can create even more ideas, and more often. teach yourself how to
recognize good design and to work around creative blocks all kinds of things that make you a better
more well-rounded, well-honed design machine. At your average American fashion school, a student
will take four-to-six design classes before they graduate, and there are, on average, two-to-three
design projects per class. Each project is from inspiration to colors, fabrics design
development, and final boards. And, yes, that is eight to 18 projects and that
is a lot of projects. And I encourage you to explore different seasons, different
color stories, different kinds of customers, different price points, and different clothing
categories in all these projects. Subject two: Color. Why is studying color so important?
Color is such an important factor in people's purchasing decisions. There is an entire
industry devoted to color services. Okay, given everything else is perfect, if an item
of clothing is not the perfect color for you, how often do you wear it? Did you even buy
it? Every single art and design major studies color theory and I love this particular book
because it has the theory, but also tons of examples of actual design applications in toys, in
fashion, in graphics, all kinds of applications. And fashion schools typically do one
or two semesters -- freshman year, the first year -- but then, you know, we
talk about color stories in design classes. you know every single class. Every single project.
Subject three: fabric. If you have watched a lot of my videos, then you know i'm always banging on
about the importance of designers knowing about fabrics. Listen, fabrics is a designer's true
medium. You know, I get so many questions on, you know, "Zoe, what watercolor should I use?
What markers should I use?" And, it's like, it doesn't matter for designers because
our medium is actually fabric. Pick any, whatever, alcohol-based, professional-grade marker
and get to work. And then, go study fabrics! Okay? I took a year of textile science in
school, but continue my education to this day. Fabric and Textile Technology is
the future of fashion, and I try to keep up with fabric news as much as I can. And, yeah,
go watch the playlist, pick up these books, visit fabric stores, and, you know, check out the
fabric. Check out the fiber content (it's usually listed at the end of the roll) and check out what
is expensive. Feel things in your hands. And, listen, I know that retail prices and wholesale
prices are different. But you know relative to each other, see what's expensive and see what is
cheap, and, you know, check out what's expensive, what feels good in your hand. Look at how things
wrinkle, how things fray, how things stretch. Go to clothing stores and feel the fabrics and
take note of their fiber content. All those tags have the fiber content listed. Study, study,
study! Fabric is a fashion designer's medium: study it obsessively. My suggestion is, with every
new design project you work on (remember those eight to 18 design projects?), deep dive into one
new category of fabrics for each project. Okay, maybe you do a fall winter collection for
moderately priced women's wear and deep dive into wools for that project. Okay, and then you
can roll your wools knowledge into your next one as you deep dive into another category. Subject
four: sustainability. Sustainability encompasses eco-friendly materials and processes, as well as
ethical and fair trade approaches to production and labor. If you think this area of study
is optional, you need to wake up. It is 2019. At the very least, there is nothing bad in wasting
less water, sending less crap to landfills, and treating workers better. Go watch my "Five
Ugly Truths of Fashion" video. Sustainability is not taught in very many schools, but it
should be. These two books are great places to start. This one, um, Sustainability
In Fashion and Textiles. The second one, uh, focuses on zero-waste or low-waist pattern
cutting, and they're they're really great, okay. They're so full of information. I have a
video on Sustainability and Design, start there; read a chapter in the sustainable, uh,
"Sustainability in Fashion and Textiles" book; and apply them slowly to your design projects.
Once you've covered the basics in your garment construction studies, start with the
basic projects in the Zero Waste book. The American Fashion Podcast is not
a sustainability fashion podcast, but focuses on many related topics in many of the
episodes, so, I've linked that below, as well. Subject five: drawing and illustration. I've
listed my videos on this in three categories: Figure Drawing, Drawing Clothes on Bodies, and
Fashion Illustration with Markers and Watercolor. Okay, so at this point, you need to think about
your goals, okay. If you want to start your own business, you don't need to learn how to draw
a ton, okay. You do not need to be a masterful fashion illustrator to run your own business.
My recommendation? Buy my figure templates at my Etsy store, watch my drawing clothes on body
series, and practice the basics of communicating designs quickly and efficiently. That's
really what you need. And, more importantly, flats. Learn how to draw flats. I'll go more into
that in the Technical Design section, but, yeah, business owners you need to learn how to do flats.
If you want to get a job at another company, or start pursuing a freelance career, you know
set up an online portfolio as a designer to get attention and jobs, you need to learn how
to illustrate so you can attract attention. My old department chair, she used to say,
"beautiful illustration starts conversations," and it does because we're we we buy into the visually
appealing. I mean, even restaurants, like, we eat with our eyes. Everything is about, like, the
beautiful presentation to start off with. Subject six: Technical Design aka Product Development,
which means drawing flats learning, how to spec out garments, and how to create a tech pack off a
template. Flats: flat drawings, they are basically drawings of clothes as they would appear if
you laid them flat on the floor or on a table. Videos, book recommendations, and listings to my
flats templates and tech pack templates are below. Of course, you can make your own templates
you don't have to buy mine, but you know, I already made them [chuckles]. Uh, for every
design project you do, you must do flats of every garment. I suggest you practice creating tech
packs for a few garments for each project. This is how you bring your ideas to life. This is a
process you need to learn to make actual garments. And for those of you who are freelancers,
I absolutely promise you, there are way, way more paying gigs for people who can draw good
flats in Adobe Illustrator, for people who can create good tech packs, and there are even more
gigs for beautiful fashion illustration, actually, than straight-up design. Very, very few people are
looking for help in the actual creative designing process because most people they want to do the
designing themselves, and they'll pay other people to do the things they don't know how to do or
don't want to do. Subject seven: Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. Learning these programs are a must
in the current fashion industry. People ask me all the time if I would recommend any alternative
programs. And, yes, I have heard of some, but the thing is, Adobe products are the industry
standard. So, you know, I wouldn't recommend people learn another program just to have to
learn Adobe, you know, later on, anyway, when they get a job or a client insists on it (which
it's inevitable, okay). And I know Procreate is becoming popular as a digital drawing tool, but
Procreate is compatible with Adobe, so that's fine. You will need to learn Adobe Illustrator
to draw flats, at the very minimum. You need to create your flats in Illustrator to insert them
into your tech packs and into your line sheets. Basic Photoshop skills, I mean in this day and
age, it's like knowing Microsoft Word and Excel. It's like, these computer skills that you need for
a huge variety of scenarios. I have a few videos to get started, I don't have a ton, I recommend
Robin Schneider's channel, which i've linked below for more lessons. Robin, as you may know,
has guest-lectured on this channel. She makes, you know, she's a great teacher. She teaches at
my alma mater, Otis College of Art and Design, and has her own lessons on Lynda (aka LinkedIn
Learning), she's great! Subject eight: garment construction by this I mean pattern
drafting draping and sewing. This is another area where the level of learning depends on what kind
of designer you want to be. I explore this more in depth in my video "Do Designers Need To Learn How
To Sew?" Basically, I strongly suggest you learn some pattern draping and sewing basics so you can
speak intelligently with your sample-making team and production facilities. If you start your own
line, do you need to learn garment construction,? Okay, the thing is, the more you know the
more control you have over your product, okay. Another very important aspect of learning
construction and quality is to go shopping in person, okay. If you don't want to learn how to
cut patterns or sew, what you absolutely must do is visit stores in person -- online shopping will
not help you -- go to stores look at the quality of the construction of the clothes, the quality
of the fabrics, feel them, look at the colors and look at the stitching, look at the insides, how
well it's been lined, what materials they use for lining. You know, how good the pockets are,
(you all know how i feel about pockets, okay), and then look at the price and think about whether
you think the price reflects the quality. Yeah, if you can, try things on. If you can't, maybe take
a friend, you know, that's also good. When you're working on your design projects, okay -- let's
go back to that fall winter moderately priced women's wear with a lot of wool fabrics, okay
-- when you're working on that design project, I want you to go to a store, and i want you to
go look at a lot of wool coats, and jackets, and suits, and pants, and all that; and check
out the fabrics, check out the construction, check out what they're doing with
their linings and their pockets, and all these things and check out the pricing, check
out what is being done at the price point that you are designing at and take all those notes home and
apply that to make your own design project better. On the flip side of that, you know there are so
many boundaries, creative boundaries you can push, learning how to draft patterns and drape, and sew.
And, you know, people think you can only design with sketches, but tons of people prefer draping
to design, Madeleine Vionnet is one. The more you learn about construction, the more avant-garde of
a designer you can be, pushing the boundaries of creativity. So, again, this category how much you
learn is really about what kind of designer you want to be. Subject nine: apparel manufacturing
and business practices. Production, you know, distribution. And, you know, if you're gonna
start your own line, this is so important, okay? Everyone wants to be a fashion designer, and, you
know, want to see their own name on that label, but it's not all about designing cute
things. So much of it is production, sales, distribution, ordering shipping boxes.... Like, if
you're gonna start your own line, you should watch all these videos, and pick up these books, and
also pick up a book on business law for whatever city, state, province, country you're going to set
your business up in, okay. All designers should have a cursory understanding of the production
and business parts of fashion even if your role isn't especially in production; but for business
owners, this is really, really important. Subject 10: fashion and costume history. Most
schools require a few Art History courses; and most schools require a basic
Costume History course; and some schools even have electives in this area like
Hollywood Costume History. I think you should study the basics of 20th century fashion history.
Like, what were the major trends in the 70s? And, what were the main silhouettes in the 60s?
Because, this is the kind of stuff that is practically expected. This is common, you know,
expected to be common knowledge for anyone working in fashion today. Whether you're a designer, a
stylist, a journalist, okay, you should just know this, okay? Anything older than that, I feel
you can study on a project-by-project basis. And, don't forget countries and cultures outside
your own. I love this book that I'm flipping through on the screen because it gives, more or
less, equal coverage to the cultures all over the world. Because, often, costume history books can
be rather euro-centric. I do not have any fashion history videos. If you want some videos on 20th
century fashion history, drop me a comment below. For those of you panicking about the sheer
volume of work I just threw in your face, don't. Remember, this amount of work is equal
to four years at a fashion school. No one is expecting you to be able to study everything
in a few months, especially if you're working a day job while studying. I also get a bunch of
people asking me, "Zoe, what is the bare minimum you need to learn to be a fashion designer?"
I just posted the bare minimum in this video. If you are running your own business, you know,
for everything that you don't know, that you don't study, that you don't do, you have to pay someone
else to do it. That's the reality! No judgment, you just need to figure out how much money you
have. Or, how willing you are to just do things by trial-and-error. If you want to be a freelance
fashion designer, every skill you learn is a skill you can offer clients and make money from. And, of
course, the opposite. Every skill you don't learn, you are limiting the services you can offer and
make money from. Every skill you don't learn, limits your creativity because all these skills
are interconnected. I haven't even covered all the wonderful subjects within the fashion
design umbrella you can explore: like learning embellishments, like embroidery and beading,
learning textile dyeing and print design, all kinds of fabric manipulation, all things that can
help you stand out as a designer because i wanted to stick to the basics of this video. Alright, and
that's it! Uh, please give this video a thumbs up if you learned something new today. Share this
video with everyone you know who's considering a career as a fashion designer. Subscribe, hit
the little grey notification bell, and remember to keep your comments respectful to me and to
each other. Uh, check the description box for video links and info on books. Good luck with your
studies, and i will see you in the next video!
