If you're studying fashion design it can be hard keeping on believing in what you're doing: you may be talented, but then you realise that talent is not all in this industry. The trend in recent years has indeed been hiring trendy and cool Creative Directors or even celebrities. As hip as they may be, they obviously do not have any formal training, but most of them have quickly learnt how to master the art of fashion as money can afford them the best clothes and the best stylists and fame ensures fashion houses are willing to give them exclusive designs to wear.
Young fans read and dream about fairy tale-like stories like Virgil Aboh's, a creative mind with Insta-appeal but lacking strong and powerful messages, currently working as Creative Director of menswear at Louis Vuitton, or Rihanna launching a fashion house and produce ready-to-wear, leather goods and accessories under her own name with French conglomerate Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy, the largest luxury group in the world (an understandable decision if you consider the success of her lingerie label and cosmetics line).
At the same time people studying to become fashion designers may feel cheated, after all if big fashion groups and brands favour celebrities, what's the point of keeping on studying hard for us ordinary mortals? In theory, you could still land a job as a ghost designer in a team headed by a celebrity, but what you would design would be produced under that celebrity's name, so in practice it wouldn't be "yours".
Yet there is actually a way to prove you're better than any celebrity out there and that's learning very technical skills or coming up with a very original research that may lead you to produce an innovative textile or project. In yesterday's post we looked at a historical business closing down in Italy, but trends prove there is an interest in re-learning certain artisanal techniques, maybe also as a reaction to the digital overdose we all got in the last few years that brought us to lose our manual skills.
A while back we looked at cinematic embroideries and you may be happy to hear that Royal School of Needlework (RSN) graduate Laura Baverstock, a specialist hand embroiderer, but also an illustrator and textile artist, has recently worked on another film.
After getting a BA (Hons) Degree in Hand Embroidery for Fashion, Interiors and Textile Art from The Royal School of Needlework, Baverstock collaborated on the embroideries in Kenneth Branagh's "Murder on the Orient Express" (with costumes created by Academy Award winning Costume Designer Alexandra Byrne).
More recently she created the embroideries for Margot Robbie's dress as Queen Elizabeth (and also did some beading work, embellishing for example her standing collar with black jet beads) in Josie Rourke's "Mary Queen of Scots" (again with costumes by Alexandra Byrne, who worked a lot with denim in this film, combining Elizabethan styles with modern details).
Baverstock is also working on the embroideries for the costumes in Tom Harper's "The Aeronauts" starring Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones and due to be released later this year.
Pattern cutters also do a very technical job, but they end up working the fashion industry, for theatre and opera companies or for the big screen and this could therefore prove to be a versatile career.
But there are more careers to discover when it comes to yarns and textiles and obviously research projects that may take you to work with other professionals including scientists and biologists.
In a nutshell the industry may be looking for celebrities to sell, but they will still need people with very specific knowledge and skills. Though they seem to be always trendy, all celebrities get eventually replaced by somebody younger and cooler people, yet, while you have to keep your skills updated especially in a fast-paced industry like fashion, nobody will ever take them away from you. Last but not least, companies often engage in musical chair games with creative directors, but individuals with specific and unique skills are rarely dismissed as they are considered as assets. So get technical, develop your own knowledge and refine it, you'll soon discover there's creativity in all sorts of fields linked to fashion, fields where it's unlikely you'll ever encounter a celebrity who will be able to steal your job.
Comments