How does the fashion design process work?

A fashion designer has many things to consider whilst planning his/her collection. These variables include research on sales, themes, trends and the most crucial part, the storyboard or the mood board. Collection planning and creation includes designing a complete range of garments that fit into a chosen mood, theme or trend. However at the same time there will be a commonality running throughout the entire collection. Moreover, garments in the collection should complement each other and carry a specific design characteristic that is identifiable to either the designer or the brand or label.

Large retail chains plan their collections meticulously, some working more than a year in advance. Their plans typically include the type of garments, number of styles, fabrics too use, price points, etc. In order to do this the designer needs to have an in depth understanding of the manufacturing process as well as the costs involved in order to be able to design for different price groups.

Collection planning is an important part of the fashion designing process and is based on historical sales data and is created to achieve maximum sales results so as to make the designer appealing to the end customer. The planning process will also include identifying colours and ratios to gain popularity with consumers. Sometimes at the beginning of each season, some fashion designers might also undertake inspiration trips as a part of their research. The aim of this research is to seek out new detailing, fabrics, silhouettes, etc that they feel will appeal to the target customer. A designer might choose to buy samples to refer as well to refer during the fashion design process.

From here on, the designer will start putting together ‘storyboards’or ‘mood boards’ that illustrate the collections theme or trend. Following which the designer might select certain themes that might suit his/her target market. Story boards or mood boards include images that depict the mood or inspiration behind the theme that the fashion designer has chosen. The pictures include silhouettes, colours, trims and text describing the so called ‘mood’.

A typical designer works on multiple trends so that all areas are covered to offer something new and updated at regular intervals. The reason behind this is that the designer will have something that appeals to everyone’s tastes. Once the story board is over, the designer will move onto creating colour palettes which embodies creating and using a wide array of colours that complement the theme and usually will include a core colour accompanied by highlight colours. Designers choose colours for their collections using fabric swatches, Pantone books, accompanied by the research and inspiration from early on in the design process. Once this is completed, the fashion designer can start designing her collection.

So where does one learn all of the above. In order to understand and learn the abovementioned processes, a candidate has to undertake the study of fashion design or fashion designing. Many institutions offer a variety of career oriented fashion design courses. These can either be diplomas in fashion design or a fashion design degree. One can also do a short term certificate Courses in fashion design. Newer courses also integrate fashion design and retail management together or offer the fashion design degree with a specialization such as luxury management.

Indian Fashion Industry: Strengths and Opportunities

With the flowering Indian fashion & e-commerce industry growing at an industrious pace, the demand for fashion designers is also growing substantially. The organized retail sector has always seen a demand for fashion designers with companies such as the Future Group and Reliance Retail recruiting for their respective in house brands however exporters have also starting recruiting heavily as competition from other countries such as China & Eastern Europe grows.

In addition to this, the emergence of Indian e-commerce has also seen a heavy demand in fashion design related jobs. Companies such as Snapdeal, Jabong, Myntra, Flipkart, etc require fashion designers, stylists, merchandisers, fashion trend forecasters, fashion bloggers, accessory designers, etc which does at the end of the day require a keen sense fashion and style. However, what lacks till date is the lack of quality fashion design courses and infrastructure to teach such courses. What the market demands as such are job oriented courses that follow international pedagogy so that students get the necessary exposure to meet the challenges of the ever changing job market.

What has also changed globally in the fashion industry is the emergence of new materials, patterns, cuts, designs, colours, etc and our present institutions are not capable of managing such rapid change in the sector.  The National Institute even though has been around for over twenty five years and has seen almost all of the country’s top designers as its alumni such as RituBeri, JJ Valaya, Sabyasachi Mukherjee and noted international names such as PrabalGurung and Manish Arora as well. However, neither them nor the private institutions have been able to play catch up with the catwalks of the west. This is where institutions such as NILA (New College Nottingham India Lifestyles Academy) in Gurgaon come in. Set up as a collaboration between New College Nottingham, UK and BWI Educon Ventures Pvt. Ltd. (a Batra Group promoted enterprise and a sister concern of Batra Hospital), NILA aims to bridge this gap between the west and the east and provide career oriented courses in fashion design. 

The curriculum NILA provides has been designed to provide students interchangeable academic and practical skills that enable them to meet the ever evolving needs of the fashion industry. Moreover, the course demands students to experiment with their imagination and come up with innovative designs. A strong emphasis is placed on practical presentation skills and garment manufacture and that is the reason why the academy has the best in machinery such as sewing machines from JUKI to the state of the art CAD/CAM suite for pattern designing and cutting. Lastly, NILA will also provide students an opportunity to visit and interact with reputed fashion designers, fashion companies, export houses, professional bodies so as to gain the necessary exposure to the latest trends in the fashion industry.

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Induction at NILA: An intuitive affair

Every student wants his first day at the college to be special, and so NILA did!

A three day long induction program was scheduled for students to basically equip and introduce them to their courses, curriculum and faculties. The process was to provide all the students with valuable knowledge on a range of different areas, such as, institute committees, vision and culture of NILA.

New College Nottingham International Lifestyles Academy (NILA) being a unique enterprise underlining the growing need for global collaboration called upon some of the most dynamic and successful people from diverse backgrounds to conduct interactive sessions.

Tanieya Khanuja, an intentionally acclaimed fashion designer, who has participated with her coveted design in many fashions shows around the world interacted with students and shared her insights about the fashion industry and the professionalism needed in this stream. She shared her valuable comprehensions about the designing industry.  She has assisted  many bollywood celebrities and clad them in her scintillating designs for magazine cover shoots and events.

Another speaker of prominence Mr. Santanu Choudhury, Manager, India Global Corporate Security McGraw Hill Financial  briefed students about Health and Safety issues. He shared his valuable observations in his field and how students can excel and find opportunities by overcoming all the short comings in academics.

Being one of the pristine institute of Hospitality management, the college also invited Mr.Vivek Shukla- General Manager, The Lalit Hotel. Mr Vivek addressed students and introduced them to the potential of the hospitality industry, the short comings and quality manpower required in this field.He extended his support to  NILA’s hospitality course, which is  designed to address to provide qualified candidates to the industry. 

Our another valued guest,Ms. Jyoti Joshi,Sr. Vice President of Training & Development, Franchise India shared her experience with our students and provided guidelines on Retail and Hospitality Indutsry. 

The faculty members led an emphasis on helping each other on day to day basis in general course-related queries to make their academic experience  better and resilient.

  
About Nila: Nila provides courses in Hospitality Management, Business, Interactive Media, Retail Management and Fashion Management emphasise on the current industry trends, to help our students bridge the Skills gap, in terms of the required expertise and professionalism. Our academic partner, New College Nottingham (ncn,) is one of the largest Further and Higher Education Colleges in the UK with a wide range of full and part-time study programs. It operates across five campuses and has a wide presence in numerous communities and businesses across UK.