Fashion education

Fashion education

A classroom filled with sewing machines and mannequins.

A student fashion show, 2007

Most fashion designers today have attended some kind of art school. There are a number of well known fashion design schools worldwide. Possibly the most famous is Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London. Alumni of St Martins include John Galliano, Stella McCartney, Alexander McQueen and Hussein Chalayan. Other notable London Fashion Schools include the London College of Fashion,The Royal College of Arts in London and the University of Westminster, whose alumni include Vivienne Westwood, Christopher Bailey, and Stuart Vevers.

Notable American fashion design schools include Pratt Institute, Parsons The New School for Design and Fashion Institute of Technology (F.I.T.) in New York City, Lasell College in Newton, Massachusetts, Drexel University and Moore College in Philadelphia, Woodbury University, The Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising (F.I.D.M) and A.I.U. in Los Angeles alumns include Uriel Saenz and Ashley Paige, and more specialized in French Haute Couture techniques, Academy of Couture Art in West Hollywood. According to the annual survey from US News, Parsons has recently lost its position as the top school in the U.S. for graduate art programs; now The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (S.A.I.C) has shifted up in the list and taken its place. This is being attributed to Parsons' loss of Tim Gunn as a faculty member of their fashion program, who resigned to become the Creative Director for Liz Claiborne. SAIC: Founded as the Chicago Academy of Design in 1866 by a collective of studio artists, the institution went through many changes before the turn of the century, some necessitated by the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. The collecting arm of the School was founded in 1872, and The Art Institute of Chicago was born in 1882 to accommodate a distinct museum and school. The Art Institute moved to its current iconic location on Michigan Avenue after the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893, and it remains the largest museum-school partnership in the country. Notable fashion alumi include Halston, Gemma Kahng, and Cynthia Rowley.

A another example would be the very prestigious Pakistan School of Fashion Design (PSFD). PSFD is a graduate school for fashion design located in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan. The school was founded in 1995 and is known as the preeminent fashion school in Pakistan. PSFD was the first institution to offer graduate training in fashion design in Pakistan. It is affiliated with [[Les Ecoles de la Chambre Syndicale Parisienne [[in Paris, France.

In 2006, the PSFD and the French Federation for Ready to Wear Women Garments (FFPAPF) decided to formalize cooperation and collaboration for the exchange of knowledge and skills and promotion of business between France and Pakistan's garment industries. The agreement envisages a programme for development of the PSFD into a modern international fashion marketing institute, which could support and prepare Pakistan’s garment industry for the international market. It also creates links between the Pakistan and French garment industries for exchange of information, awareness raising, delegations and seminars.

The most famous institute on the Indian subcontinent is National Institute of Fashion Technology (N.I.F.T.). NIFT has 8 centers across India and their New Delhi Center is regarded as the best fashion school on the Indian subcontinent. NIFT is planning to come up with at least 2 more centres in the North Indian city of Patna and in Kerala in South India. The School of Fashion Technology (SOFT) in Pune has a three year degree course in fashion apparel design. It has diploma courses as well. The Pearl Academy of Fashion has 5 centres in India and one in the UAE.

Most fashion design courses last for three years. As well as teaching students about the artistic and technical side of the subject, some courses include a year working in the fashion industry, to give students a taste of commercial fashion design. Others offer the chance to visit fashion houses abroad. At the end of their final year most students produce a collection which is then shown to buyers and prospective employers at the college show. To keep cost down, each collection consists of around three to eight outfits (the number varies from college to college). To put across a consistent and memorable look within this limited range of garments, students specialize in one particular area. Many colleges enter students for design competitions, sponsored by clothing or fabric companies.

Most of the time, people who want to become top designers will work with other designers and gain hands-on experience.

Fashion design around the world

Most major countries have their own fashion industry, including Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Brazil, India, The Netherlands, Germany, Poland, and Australia. However, only five nations have established truly international reputations in fashion design. These countries are France, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Italy, and Japan. Below are brief descriptions of the fashion industry in each country.

French fashion design

Most French fashion houses are in Paris, which is the capital of French fashion. Traditionally, French fashion is chic and stylish, defined by its sophistication, cut, and smart accessories. Among the many Parisian couture houses are Chanel and Christian Dior, who present exclusive fashion shows in their salons; other designers display their work at the designer collections that are held twice a year.

British fashion design

As in France, the majority of British fashion houses are based in the capital, London. British fashion houses are associated with a very traditional, British style: elegant, yet conservative cuts, fine yet not overly extravagant materials and a sort of noble, even 'imperial' elegance, such as that of traditional 'Fifties debutantes' gowns, compared to the French 'chic'. The first fashion designer, Charles Worth, was a native of Britain, although he made his name in Paris in the 19th century. British Designers include Vivienne Westwood, Paul Smith, John Galliano, Alexander McQueen, Stella McCartney, Matthew Williamson, Sir Hardy Amies, Christopher Bailey, Bruce Oldfield and Christopher Kane and the infamous founf Shaista Mirza

American fashion design

The majority of American fashion houses are based in New York, although there are also a significant number in Los Angeles, where a substantial percentage of clothing manufactured in the US is actually made, and Chicago, which was once a center of American fashion. American fashion design is dominated by a clean-cut, casual style, reflecting the athletic, health-conscious lifestyles of many American city-dwellers. A designer who helped to set the trend in the United States for sport-influenced day wear throughout the 1940s and 50's was Claire McCardell. Many of her designs have been reviv

Italian fashion design

Most of the older Italian couturiers are in Rome. However, Milan is the Italian fashion capital and of the world because it is base to most of the well-known designers, and it is the exhibition venue for their collections. Italian fashion features casual elegance and luxurious fabrics. The first Italian luxury brand was Salvatore Ferragamo (who has exported exquisite hand-made shoes to the U.S. since the 1920s); among the best-known, exclusive fashion names are Valentino ("Rosso Valentino" [Red Valentino] line), Gianfranco Ferrè, Giorgio Armani, Gianni Versace, Fendi, and Dolce & Gabbana; per BusinessWeek.com, Gucci is the greatest-selling Italian fashion brand, with world-wide sales of $7.158 billion dollars.

Japanese fashion design

Most Japanese fashion houses are in Tokyo. The Japanese look is loose and unstructured (often resulting from complicated cutting), colours tend to the sombre and subtle, and richly textured fabrics. Famous Japanese designers are Kenzo, Issey Miyake (masterful drape and cut), and Rei Kawakubo, who developed a new way of cutting (comparable to Madeleine Vionnet's innovation in the 1930s).

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ed in recent decades. More modern influences on the American look have been Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, Anna Sui, Donna Karan, Kenneth Cole, Marc Jacobs, Michael Kors and Tommy Hilfiger.

Fashion design

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Fashion design is the applied art dedicated to clothing and lifestyle accessories created within the cultural and social influences of a specific time.

Fashion design differs from costume design due to its core product having a built in obsolescence usually of one to two seasons. A season is defined as either autumn/winter or spring/summer. Fashion design is generally considered to have started in the 19th century with Charles Frederick Worth who was the first person to sew their label into the garments that they created. While all articles of clothing from any time period are studied by academics as costume design, only clothing created after 1858 could be considered as fashion design.

Fashion designers are self-employed and design for individual clients. Other high-fashion designers cater to specialty stores or high-fashion department stores. These designers create original garments, as well as those that follow established fashion trends. Most fashion designers, however, work for apparel manufacturers, creating designs of men’s, women’s, and children’s fashions for the mass market. Designer brands which have a 'name' as their brand such as Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, or Sean John are likely to be designed by a team of individual designers under the direction of a designer director.

Culture beginnings

The first fashion designer who was not simply a dressmaker was Charles Frederick Worth(1826–1895). Before the former draper set up his maison couture (fashion house) in Paris, clothing design and creation was handled by largely anonymous seamstresses, and high fashion descended from that worn at royal courts. Worth's success was such that he was able to dictate to his customers what they should wear, instead of following their lead as earlier dressmakers had done. The term couturier was in fact first created in order to describe him. It was during this period that many design houses began to hire artists to sketch or paint designs for garments. The images were sh Types of fashion

There are three main categories of fashion design, although these may be split up into additional, more specific categories:

Haute couture The type of fashion design which predominated until the 1950s was "made-to-measure" or haute couture, (French for high-fashion). The term made-to-measure may be used for any garment that is created for a specific client. Haute couture, however, is a protected term which can only be officially used by companies that meet certain well-defined standards set by the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture. Nonetheless, many ready-to-wear, and even mass market labels, claim to produce haute couture, when in fact, according to established standards, they do not. A couture garment is made to order for an individual customer, and is usually made from high-quality, expensive fabric, sewn with extreme attention to detail and finish, often using time-consuming, hand-executed techniques. Look and fit take priority over the cost of materials and the time it takes to make.

Ready-to-wear Ready-to-wear clothes are a cross between haute couture and mass market. They are not made for individual customers, but great care is taken in the choice and cut of the fabric. Clothes are made in small quantities to guarantee exclusivity, so they are rather expensive. Ready-to-wear collections are usually presented by fashion houses each season during a period known as Fashion Week. This takes place on a city-wide basis and occurs twice per year.

Mass market These days the fashion industry relies more on mass market sales. The mass market caters for a wide range of customers, producing ready-to-wear clothes in large quantities and standard sizes. Cheap materials, creatively used, produce affordable fashion. Mass market designers generally adapt the trends set by the famous names in fashion. They often wait around a season to make sure a style is going to catch on before producing their own versions of the original look. In order to save money and time, they use cheaper fabrics and simpler production techniques which can easily be done by machine. The end product can therefore be sold much more cheaply

own to clients, which was much cheaper than producing an actual sample garment in the workroom. If the client liked their design, they ordered it and the resulting garment made money for the house. Thus, the tradition of designers sketching out garment designs instead of presenting completed garments on models to customers began as an economy.