Anyone with a fashion design degree here?

If you're interested in the academic side as well (history of dress, textile sciences, etc) you can study clothing and textiles in a university 'Human Ecology' program. My sister got a 4-year bachelor's degree in HEcol; it was a bit of business, a bit of dyeing, a bit of sewing and drafting, and a practicum placement at a textiles studio.

 

She worked her practicum at Maiwa in Vancouver. They do a bunch of stuff with natural dyes and ethical textiles:
Maiwa Online Store

 

There's the costume technician who does a lot of the actual making of the pieces.

 

I'm seeing this thread a bit late, since it was posted 2 years ago. I'm hoping you found the direction you wanted to go.
I have a degree in Theatrical Costuming. Which is closely related to Fashion design. I got my degree from a California university.
For fashion design specifically. There are two top schools that I'm aware of. Parsons New
School of Design in New York and FIDM (Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising) in Los Angeles.
Fashion design is a very competitive field. If you have the passion and determination it can be very rewarding

 

I watch Project Runway religiously. I learned a lot about ways different people from different backgrounds and different educations have gotten into fashion design careers. Not all of them went to a 4 year design school. There are two-year courses you could take which would give you the knowledge you need to start a career in design.
I recommend concentrating on learning about textiles, pattern drafting, draping, fashion history, as well as drawing and general design principles. Fine art is definitely NOT a requirement. Most designers, both in fashion and costuming, use colored pencils for their renderings.

 

In the meantime you can always practice designing for your doll(s).

I have a 2 year fine arts degree. Take at least one Life Drawing to get people drawing skills.

At my school I discovered that I didn't have to take speech or public speaking if I did a semester in the theater. Because I didn't want a big part I ended up working on the crew, props are fun for creative people and usually understaffed, got a good grade and that category of my degree was done and done.
Hopefully they still have a thing where you can test out of certain classes, if you can pass the math final you don't have to take the class, to save time.
For the science portion look for a qualifying class in a speciality that might interest you, biology, geography, astronomy. I didn't know I was going to ace physical geography but it brought my GPA up.

 

That is exactly what I did. I started at a community college (2 year) and was majoring in art. I took a costume design class to fulfill a requirement, and ended up doing props for one of the productions. That led to doing costumes for the college productions and my decision to pursue it as a career. I did end up getting my Bachelor of Arts degree (4 year) at a university, but was working doing costume design while taking classes whenever I could.
Oh and for the science requirement classes I took anatomy which helped with my figure drawing.

For anyone considering a fashion career, the best thing is to work on developing your individual style. Design a line of clothing, even if its just on paper at first and then build a line of your clothing. Education is not as important as having a unique style and developing a line. Get your clothes into boutiques to start, and build experience.
Having a thick skin is important too, Anyone going into a creative career, is going to experience rejections and setbacks for a while. But persistence can pay off in the end.

 

To my knowledge a two year course without the general education requirements is called getting certified or getting a certificate. In most fields that should do fine to get you started as it would show you've had the specialized training.

Anyone with consistent learning problems should go to their disabled students office and ask for a learning disabilities test. If you have any you can then get accommodations for tutoring and testing to help you learn and pass your classes.

 

I remember The Great British Sewing Bee. I saw two seasons of it years ago. I think it was shown on Netflix here in the US, but I don't see it listed anywhere now. It was on BBC One in the UK I believe.
Google is saying it's on Amazon Prime, but I subscribe to Prime and it's not on there.

I'm not sure if there are any 2-year fashion design majors through community colleges. You could check out art classes (NOT fine art) and they might have a class in fashion design. But the drama department would have costume design classes which would teach the same skills and principals. The skills you would need are textiles, sewing, pattern making and drawing.
You could probably develop those skills on your own too, without taking any college. I know that some of the contestants on Project Runway were self-taught.

By the way, I suck at math too. I barely passed the math portion of the college entry exam and so was excused from having to take a math class. Creative people are not always the best at logical things like math. It's that right brain/left brain thing

 

I'm a theatre major but have taken multiple classes for set and costume design!! I don't think that I'll make a career out of costuming, but it's super fun to learn about! I love it for the drawing/designing parts and the sewing is super helpful as well!

 

No experience how?

For general art instruction in general I'll tell you to get books called Fun With a Pencil by Andrew Loomis and Pen and Ink by Alphonso Dunn (also has a Youtube channel). Check anywhere with public domain books for art, design, and sewing instruction ones. Some of the old timey teach yourself to make your own dresses at home books do a better job at explaining things than modern ones.

For practical design and sewing make stuff for your dolls. Before fashion shows dolls would show off the latest trends to customers.

 

Good advice, DollyKim.

 

Anyone interested in a fashion design career or just interested in fashion design for fun, should really watch Project Runway. You will learn a lot about what goes into the career and all different types of designers, many of whom did not get a formal fashion education. I was in the design business for over 30 years, and I still learned new ideas and techniques. I even got ideas for sewing for my dolls. The show also gives a good idea of what sort of skills are important to have.
Seasons 6 through 19 are on Amazon Prime Video
Watch Project Runway | Prime Video

 

. "I will look into Project Runway. I am still very skeptical about it, but if it will help I'm still gonna try."
Huh? What's there to be skeptical about. It's a fun competition show, even for someone who isn't interested in a career.
You originally said you were debating whether to choose fashion design as a career path, and whether to choose that for your college degree. It kind of sounds like you've talked yourself out of it. I hope I didn't say anything to discourage you.

 

As an eldest daughter who takes a lot of Repressitall I know about the feeling of failure. I got my two year degree because I was hoping it would get me out of that. I did manage to break the chain tho.
There is going to be some math in art. You're going to need to have a basic understanding of fractions, degrees of angles, being able to deal with yards and meters.
With sewing, like art, getting your hands dirty and making things is the best way to get better.

 

In my case, I never did think I would go to college, and even doubted I would graduate from high school. I was abused and bullied at home, and the only girl. I was depressed and full of fear and anxiety my whole childhood. As a teen it got even worse.
My anxiety made it impossible for me to concentrate in schooI, and failed every class in high school except art and home economics (cooking and sewing). I dropped out of school at the end of 10th grade. I was so severely depressed and full of anxiety that I started having panic attacks if I had to leave the house. At 16 I had a total nervous breakdown. I'm still amazed that I survived that dark period of my life.

Things changed for me when the male relative who had been abusing me all through my childhood, died. It was like the dark clouds parted and sun began to return to my life. I made the decision to pull myself out of myself and go back to school. I did that by attending adult high school. And in one year got my high school diploma.

I worked for a year after that, and didn't really think about getting any more education, but a co-worker convinced me to enroll at the community college.
My first major at the 2-year college was anthropology. I had the crazy idea that I wanted to be an archeologist. But the math required was impossible, since I'd failed all my high school math classes. I couldn't grasp algebra at all.
But luckily I had a friend who was a theater arts major and he was cast in the school musical, Carousel. For fun I went to one of his rehearsals. I was watching the rehearsal and the student in charge of costumes had not shown up to do fittings.
The instructor who was directing the production saw me and asked if I knew how to sew. I said I did (basic high school sewing class) and he recruited me to help out. It was so much fun, and for the first time in my life I felt like I was doing something important and was appreciated. After that I was hooked. I switched my major to theater, with a minor in art. The art classes taught me basic sketching.
Before I left the community college I started getting jobs doing costumes for small community theater. The more I did it the better I got, and the more confident I got. Eventually I was hired on the staff of a real professional theater. I worked sewing costumes, and they started letting me help designing too, I knew at that point, that this was the life that I was meant for. I eventually won a scholarship to university and finished my costume design degree.
Now I've been retired after a lifetime working doing something I truly loved.

I still suffer with depression, and during covid lockdown the old anxiety and panic disorder returned. So now I channel my emotions into my dolls. But I'm really proud of the career I ended up with. That feeling of accomplishment will never go away.

 

Start at a community college. If you're paying out of pocket take something like Life Drawing, it's beneficial to art and fashion. You will find yourself at a crossroads of people of all ages and abilities who are in that class because they want to improve their people drawing skills whether or not they've even taken an art class before.
Even a basic drawing or the first semester of any other art medium at a CC is going to be opening and welcoming to anyone who has never done art before but wants to learn how.
And seriously, look up Fun With A Pencil, you can find it legit free on the internet, read it and try the exercises inside. This is the book I wish I had when I got serious about my art instead of the environment I was in.