Fashion Designer
Primarily fashion designers create new clothes and accessories. However, their other job tasks may include analyzing fashion trends, marketing, sales, production of garments and accessories, and promotion of their finished products. Fashion designers can attend a two or four year program for a degree in fashion design or fashion merchandising. Generally, most designers start out as interns and move through the ranks as junior designers to design assistant to assistant designer to associate designer to fashion director.
Fashion Merchandising
Fashion merchandisers create and implement displays for stores and catalogs. They are also responsible for designing the layout of department stores, fashion showrooms and trade shows. They have to have a strong familiarity with the consumer market and an artistic flair. Generally, fashion merchandisers hold a bachelors degree in visual or fashion merchandising. They usually begin their career as an assistant and work their way up to visual merchandising director.
Fashion Stylists
Often we think of a fashion stylist as being the brains behind a celebrities look. While that is partially true, fashion stylists also choose wardrobe for photo shoots, commercials, print ads, television, movies and music videos. Additionally, many work as personal stylist to average people in need of fashion advice. Stylists can find employment with magazines, newspapers, retailers, television and film production companies, catalogs, PR firms, advertising agencies and music companies. To be a fashion stylist one must work their way to the top from the ground up. This often means starting out with an internship. Most stylists also earn a degree in fashion design or fashion merchandising but it is not required to work in the field. Networking is everything to the success of a stylist, so they must constantly be gaining new contacts and maintain their existing contacts.
If you are unsure what career path you want to follow in the fashion industry you can begin your education with a degree in either fashion merchandising or fashion design. Either of these degrees can be parlayed into any of the above mentioned career paths once you make your final decision.
