Finding Your Place
In The Fashion Industry

What is your fashion calling?

Is it to design?  Manufacture?  Record?  Set trends?  What?

It's a question that hits my inbox regularly, from people of all ages and addresses.

I understand completely.

You have a need to do SOMETHING in fashion, but you don't quite know what it is.  You also know that your situation MUST be unique, for how in the world can you achieve your goals at your age/income/location/or whatever?

The answer?

It's easier than you think.

In fact, the more I learn about the fashion industry, the more opportunities I see every day.

To quote a line from THE LION KING soundtrack, “There's more to see that can ever be seen, more to do that can ever be done.”

All you have to do is take stock of your interests, goals, and situation, then look around for an opportunity to get the ball rolling.  If you do, you'll be AMAZED at what's available, regardless of where on the planet you happen to reside.

Now let me say upfront that this wasn't always the case.

If you know anything about the history of fashion, you know that fashion has always been a privilege of the rich.  While royals, landowners, officers, and merchants were keeping seamstresses, cobblers, and wigmakers busy creating ensembles for every occasion, everyone ELSE was getting by with a handful of clothes they'd made from fabric they'd woven and dyed themselves and that they would wear and mend until the pieces fell apart. 

But times change, and they certainly did for the fashion industry.  The 19th century brought many advances to the field of fashion, including ready-to-wear clothing for men in the 1820's, the sewing machine and pre-drawn patterns in the 1850's, and fashion magazines in the 1860's.

By the time the Industrial Revolution was in full swing in the 1870's, the wives of the “Robber Barons” were going to Paris twice a year for their clothes so that they could show them off in an opulent social life that is still envied today.  Every action and outfit of these people was chronicled in the press, and a subculture instantly emerged to reproduce designer apparel quickly and inexpensively for the rapidly growing middle class:  the knockoff artist.  Dry goods stores evolved into department stores to accommodate customer demands and help them spend their growing discretionary income.

With the dawn of the 20th century came the birth of the motion picture industry.  When the average woman saw her favorite screen star in a particularly fetching ensemble, she would head to her local department store and ask for the exact same outfit.  If she didn't live near a department store, she bought it from her Sears & Roebuck or Montgomery Ward catalog.  Cosmetics also became respectable again, after being condemned during the Victorian era.

By the time television arrived in the late 1940's, people were used to following the fashion trends they saw on the screen, large or small.  After John F. Kennedy used television to defeat Richard Nixon in the 1960 Presidential race, people began to recognize the power of image and began to study the topic in earnest. 

When two-income households and little spare time became the norm in the 1980's, the personal shopping, wedding planning, and direct sales industries blossomed to answer the call.  And when the Internet proved to be a fast, reliable way to shop for just about anything in the late 1990's, the fashion industry again responded by answering the call of e-commerce.

So, still think fashion is all about famous designers, supermodels, and celebrity stylists?

If you do, go back and re-read this article.

Here's what you'll find, if you read between the lines:

• Fabric design, production, merchandising
• Clothing design, production, merchandising
• Accessory design, production, merchandising
• Magazines (models, photographers, writers, editors, advertising)
• Haute couture
• Ready-to-wear
• Knock-off designs
• Newspaper articles (writers, editors, models, photographers
• Department stores (buyers, sales staff, window design, advertising)
• Motion pictures (costume designer, makeup and hair, stylist
• Mail Order (models, photographers, stylists, copy, fulfillment)
• Cosmetics (makeup designers, makeup artist, perfumers, skin care)
• Television (costume designer, makeup and hair, stylist
• Image Consultant (individuals, corporations, etiquette)
• Personal Shopper
• Wedding Consultant
• Direct Sales Consultant
• Internet (web design, photography, sales copy)

There's obviously a lot more out there, but I think you get the idea.  Fashion ISN'T just about what you see on screen or in magazines; it's about a multi-billion dollar industry that fans across the globe, works 24/7, and does most of its work so well that you hardly even notice it's there.  But boy, would you miss it if it weren't!

So how can you play a part in all of this?

1.    Decide what you like to do.

Do you like to design?  Write?  Take pictures?  Do science?  Sit in front of your computer?  Organize things?  Create monsters?  What?

Make a list of your favorite hobbies and the things you'd do whether you got paid for them or not.

2.   Figure out how to combine your passion with the fashion industry.

Let's say that you like science and fashion.  How do they combine?  Fabric technology, cosmetics, and skin care development are all scientifically intense areas of the industry.

How about organizing and fashion?  Try wedding planner, fashion show coordinator, retail layout and design, etc.

What about writing and fashion?  There are fashion books, freelance writers, fashion advice columnists, and the like.

See how easy this is?  Mesh your interests with fashion and see what you come up with.

3.  Determine how to make money from where you live right now.

Fashion doesn't just happen in big fashion cities like New York, Paris, London, Milan, and Sydney anymore.  Yes, there are big fashion hubs in each of those places, but there's lots of money spent in and on the industry elsewhere on the planet as well.

What?  You'd like to knit Alpaca sweaters from your home in Peru?  Then make them up and sell them to area boutiques or on the Internet, like these people do:  

World Folk Art
http://www.worldfolkart.com/sweaters.htm

You want Neiman's, Saks, and Bloomingdale's to sell your creations while sit on your farm in Wisconsin and design fabrics and paint home wares?  What a coincidence!  That's what this couple does:

Tracy Porter
http://www.tracyporter.com

Have a hankering to whip executives into shape by polishing their appearance, manners, and style?  That's what this gal does!

Gloria Starr 

http://www.gloriastarr.com/executivefinishingschool.htm

Wish you could plan over-the-top weddings that people will talk about for years to come?  This British planner transports couples back in time with themes like Camelot, Shakespeare, and Scottish Clans; what could you do where YOU'RE located?

Heritage Weddings
http://www.heritageweddings.com

Prefer to sit around in front of your computer all day, creating web templates for fashion websites?  That's just what this gal does:

Hoover Web Design
http://www.hooverwebdesign.com/templates/fashion-web-templates.html

4.   Get going with it already!

See?  It's NOT as difficult as it seems.  You don't have to wait until you have tons of investors, you move to a fashion town, you learn everything there is to know about fashion, or all of the planets are aligned just so.

All you have to do is identify your interests, see where they fall in the fashion industry, and see how you can make it work for you where you are right now.  Learn what you need to learn, but don't hide in your studies forever.

Swallow your nervousness and show your talent.  You may be surprised at just how many people are waiting for you to put what's in your head into concrete form.

Don't keep them waiting any longer than necessary.

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Diana Pemberton-Sikes is a fashion writer and image consultant and a contributing author to FabJob’s Guide to “Become A Fashion Designer.”  You can visit her online at FashionJobReview.com .