Fashion Industry Skill Sets

and why you shouldn’t expect your freelancer to handle all of them…

There are many different jobs in the fashion industry and one big mistake I see job searchers make is trying to find someone who can take care of all of them. The fashion designer you hire will not be able to manage your production. The technical designer you hire will not be able to design a clothing collection. While some people can do a variety of tasks and several may overlap, if you’re starting a clothing brand, you’ll need to hire more than one person to complete it. Here are a couple of the main jobs in the industry.

Fashion Designer: This person’s main focus is the look of the collection. They research color, trend, fabrics, competitors, aspirational brands, the runway, and gather inspiration images in order to create a mood board that defines the direction of the collection. The fashion designer wants to make sure they are designing what is right for your customer. After the board is created, they will sketch ideas based on the board. I usually sketch 3-4x the amount of ideas than the final collection number of pieces. Not every idea will be a good one and the initial sketching is like a rough draft for the final selection. After getting all the ideas out on paper, the fashion designer will narrow them down to a cohesive collection. They will then create tech packs for each style with all of the relevant information.

Technical Designer: This person’s main focus is the fit and construction of the garments. At many companies, the fashion designer will pass their tech pack to the technical designer who will add the measurements for the pattern to be made (specs) and make suggestions based on their knowledge of pattern making and construction. When the first samples come back from the factory, the technical designer checks them over and measures them to make sure their specs where followed. They take the lead in fitting the garments and adding fit corrections to the tech pack for the factory to follow. Depending on the level of corrections, they may request another sample to be made. Once the sample is approved, they provided graded measurements for the other sizes.

CAD Designer: This person’s main focus is the print, fabric design, and embellishment that go into the collection. CAD stands for computer aided design. The CAD designer will use computer software to design these elements to fit into the collection and will fill in sketches with the different elements to show how the final collection will look.

Sourcing Specialist: This person’s main focus is getting the garments made. They work closely with the fabric mills, trim mills, fabric printers, weavers, embroiderers, and factories to get the samples made and production on track.

Production Manager: This person’s main focus is producing the garments. They work with the factories on grading, customs, approvals, packaging, and shipping.

Depending on the company, there are many other positions they may employ such as fabric manager, colorist, quality assurance technician, patternmaker, to name a few.