Do You Need a Degree to Be a Fashion Designer?

So you want to be a fashion designer. But perhaps you're thinking you'd rather not waste your time going to some school that will only teach you a bunch of dead design rules, because you're an innovator and want to push beyond those rules. Surely you can launch your own fashion design career without taking a bunch of courses and getting a piece of paper that declares that you a designer? You're a designer right now. And hasn't it happened before, that great fashion has been created by people who haven't had any formal schooling?

In fact it's true that a rare, budding fashion designer will be so spectacular, and undoubtedly had colossal luck, that they managed to break into the fashion world on their own, and bypass years of schooling. But ask yourself whether you're likely to have similarly amazing luck, or are really such an incredible designer that you'll manage to get past all the cutthroat competition and create a fashion career without the extra education and connections you'd get from attending a school.

Usually, whether it's art, language or another discipline, you can't really "break the rules" until you know what they are, and understand them thoroughly. A fashion design school will teach you the underlying principles of good design, so that if you break them and do something different, you'll understand why it works in some cases and doesn't work in others. If you don't have that intrinsic grounding, your innovation will be very "hit and miss," and not likely to make you a successful designer. You may find yourself scratching your head, thinking, "Well it worked last time, what happened this time?"

Remember just how many successful designers, with obvious talent, attended fashion design schools. Someone like Byron Lars, who took the fashion world by storm in the early 1980s, was a brilliant talent, yet even with the schooling he had, he endured some low points in the 1990s. His formal education as a fashion designer was undoubtedly what helped him keep going and return to a point of success. Consider his example and that of other successful designers, and remind yourself that in the very competitive world of fashion design, you need all the advantages you can add to your repertoire.

Related topics about fashion designer
A Fashion Design Course is So Much More Than Clothes
You may be surprised to learn that an anatomy class can be just as important to fashion design as a textiles class. This is because even though you do need to learn about textiles, how to make patterns, and so on, you also need some understanding about how they will fit on the human body. This isn't just to know how well something will hang or drape, but the way the clothes will move or stretch without strain, as the body moves.

Design Schools Offer a Career in Fashion
Does the idea of design schools include only the post-secondary institutions that concentrate solely on fashion or other types of design? Or can the concept be expanded to encompass other types of schools as well? One high school in New York certainly assumes that fashion design programs don't need to be strictly limited to the higher echelons of education. It aims to educate its students in all aspects of the fashion world, while not shirking any of is other academic responsibilities.

Fascinating Facts on Fashion Designers
The same sort of recognition has gradually come to black Americans in the fashion industry as well. Fashion designers like Tracy Reese and Patrick Robinson, both of whom have fashion degrees from Parsons School of Design, have achieved considerable success. Reese has two women's designer labels that have been selling at upscale stores in New York and elsewhere for over a decade.