Cut from the Right Cloth?
The spark to imagine, the daring to innovate, discipline to plan and skill to do sums up the profession of a fashion designer. While it was glamour that attracted students to take up a fashion designing course, it is passion that drives the students of today. With support from friends and family, fashion designing students are finding success in pursuing their passion. Drawing and colouring, cutting and shaping, they strive to make their clients look like princes and princesses.
“A large number of students, even graduates from other fields, are taking up fashion designing courses these days mainly due to the immense opportunities in the field. As I look at it, the new generation likes to be more creative, independent, experimental and innovative than before,” says Salju Jose, a fashion consultant in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala.
“Among the present students, 50 per cent would like to become fashion entrepreneurs and freelance designers, 40 per cent want to join other design industries and export houses. The rest 10 per cent join the course to be more informed and also just for glamour or namesake,” she adds.
While most of the students are absorbed by big Indian and foreign designer brands, export firms hire freshers for internship and further give jobs in pattern making and garment production management. Some work as merchandisers, product development personnel and coordinators, others in fashion marketing and retailing, texture development, fashion draping and many more.
“Several institutions are coming up and expanding its branches due to this demand. India is still competing with many countries in terms of designs and expertise. Every month, every season the life of a garment design, lifestyle of society keeps changing and there arises a void to fill in innovative ideas. To use a global approach, Indian institutes are upgrading their standards to cater to the new generation,” says Salju.
Although both men and women are part of the field as designers and stylists, the number of women is higher when it comes to those pursuing the course. This is seen across courses like fashion design, fashion retail, fashion marketing, textile design, garment manufacturing technology, fashion media and communication, fashion styling, and fashion modelling. “Take any institute and you will see 80 per cent of them are female students. This is the same when it comes to the teaching profession too. But some of the top designers in the country are men. In the field, they are at par with women. Also, in this field, it takes a lot of time to establish yourself,” says Jobin Joy, head designer at J J Valaya, New Delhi.
Teachers too are preparing students to face the challenges. Right from the selection process, the students are made aware of what the industry demands from them.
“Students today know that the course requires a lot of time and hard work. At the time of interview and screening itself, we tell them about what goes into being a designer apart from the colourful clothes. We don’t want them to come expecting a flowery world and then feel stressed. Most of the students today come prepared and are passionate,” says Lekha Sreenivas, Head of the department of Fashion Designing and Apparel Merchandising, St Teresa’s College, Ernakulam.
While choosing what to study, support from family proves to be crucial for most students. Although fashion designing is not a traditional course which parents push their chidlren into, many parents are now supportive of their children who want to take up these courses.
“I used to draw when I was in school. My parents weren’t sure of what future I would have in this field. But when they saw that I was passionate about it, they let me pursue the course,” says Arsha Sankar, third year student of BSc Fashion Designing and Apparel Merchandising, St Teresa’s college, Ernakulam.
“There were students who could draw really well and students who could not. All of them received their basic training of drawing lines and blocks in their first year. By the time they are in their final year, they learn to design for special occasions,” says Ben Joe, her teacher.
Institutes offer BA degree (three years), PG Diploma (two years), BA Hons (four years) and short-term certificate courses and specialisation. There are also Masters and PhD research-based programmes in India and abroad.
Academicians say that in regular colleges the percentage of students may be less due to the time schedule. For this reason, institutes have evening courses and holiday workshops for every category of candidates interested in acquiring knowledge on fashion-related subjects.
Shalini James, founder of Mantra Design House, has been in the business for over a decade. A woman entrepreneur who graduated from a fashion designing institute, she has her own manufacturing unit and showrooms with hundreds of employees who design and deliver products everyday. “It is extremely important that you love what you are doing. When you love your work, you will tend to make it better each day,” she says. The biggest challenge for her is, perhaps, to be able to deliver the right product to suit the customers’ personality, profession, purpose, time and season.
“The first thing students need to remember when they pursue this discipline is fashion is temporary. There are people who start a boutique right after they graduate. They design and produce a garment in about 20 days and by then the fashion would have changed. Then there is fashion that is never outdated. It is like old wine in a new bottle. For beginners, it is easy to stick to that. Time is what matters,” says Jobin Joy.
revathi@newindianexpress.com