Job Description

Fashion Designer

Of the many jobs I have had, working as a fashion designer is one I will never quit. Every day is a different possibility, plus I love spending hours fabric shopping. 

A fashion designer is responsible for creating the specific look of individual garments, including a garment's shape, color, fabric, trimmings, and other aspects of the whole. Ordinarily, fashion designers are responsible for how a garment should look. They then turn that idea into a design and specify how to make it into clothing. Then the specifications are off to others, such as pattern makers who draft the pattern and sewists responsible for sewing the garment. Since I work alone, I have to also create the pattern and sew the garment, so this will be a slightly different description of what a fashion designer does. 

Three main tasks sum up the duties of a fashion designer:

    •    Design 

    •    Pattern 

    •    Sew 

Design

Creating a design can occur in many ways: 

    •    Idea 

    •    Sketch 

    •    Technical flat or "fashion flat" 

You know that feeling when you are super excited about doing something that you cannot wait to do it? Designing from an idea is the same thing. Sometimes I am so excited that I don't create an "official" design but base the garment on my vision. Sketches are usually on paper or digital on a tablet or computer. The sketch can be a simple outline of the garment or colored to create textures and show the different fabrics. A technical flat is an accurate drawing of the garment laid flat to show design details such as seams and stitching. 

Pattern 

There are many ways to create patterns, but I will focus on the three main pattern-making techniques.

    •    Pattern drafting from measurements 

    •    Creating a pattern from a block

    •    Draping on a mannequin 

Pattern drafting is a pattern-making process using the measurements of different body areas to create a pattern, they are sort of like blueprints. You can create these patterns on any large sheet of paper, such as gift-wrapping paper, butcher paper, or pattern-making paper you can buy. This paper has one-inch lines made from random letters and little crosses. 

Creating a block pattern is similar to drafting a pattern from measurements. The "block" is a simple pattern without any seam allowance and usually on heavy-weight paper like manila. The first step is to trace the block onto pattern paper and then can be "manipulated" to create a unique pattern. 

Draping on a mannequin gives you more creative allowance. Since the fabric lies on the mannequin, you can see the design in a human form. After you finish a pattern, place it on top of an inexpensive material such as muslin. Then it is sewn to ensure the pattern fits and lays nicely; this is also the time to make any changes. 

Sew 

Since there are multiple stitches and ways to sew and finish garment seams, I will focus on the most common and basic ways. 

    •    Machine sewing 

    •    Overlocking 

    •    Hand Sewing 

For the most part, sewing is on sewing machines. There are a variety of sewing machines, for example, mine has an extra attachment for machine embroidery. While sewing machines have many different stitches, the most useful and simple stitch is the straight stitch. A multiple-needle sewing machine creates an overclocking stitch. Some sewing machines have a simple version of an overlocking stitch. 

The most common use for the overlock stitch is on seams in stretchy fabrics like a t-shirt and for protecting edges from unraveling, if you look inside your clothing, you will very likely see an overlock stitch on the seams of your clothing. You can sew an entire garment by hand sewing, but I usually use it to hand stitch details, beading, or for a clean finish on the inside of garments.

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Grade Level: 9.3