Studying fashion online – Advancing your fashion career with the use of modern technology

The Novel Coronavirus or COVID-19 has forced most of the institutions around the world to switch to Online or remote teaching.

Without a doubt, competition is unmistakably high in the 21st century with globalisation everywhere churning out dozens and thousands of competitors. Each armed with specialised knowledge, deep hunger and a keen sense to prove themselves. How can you then set yourself apart from the rest? How are you going to make it big in the world of fashion? How are you able to reach the heights of people like Karl Lagerfield, Tom Ford or Hubert de Givechy?

However, fret not young and zealous one. For there is definitely a way into learning the essential knowledge needed to advance your career. Whichever specialisation of fashion you are in. The answer is not even complicated, like really.

Well, the answer is not as far as it seems! Surely there has to be a modern solution to a modern problem! Alas, the answer is nearer than you can imagine. Think about how tough it is to find true apprenticeship with a famed fashion designer. Unless you are a top graduate from some of the biggest and best fashion universities, one should not even dream about landing the top job with the likes of Hermes, Louis Vuitton and Burberry.

Afterall, these companies receive an abundance of resumes day after day like a never ending waterfall. With such high demand for limited positions and internships, the chances of one landing a job at such companies would naturally be slimmer than a cobweb in the morning.

The Solution: Studying fashion online

Almost all sectors of the educational fields are now offering and tutoring online. This is the same with the fashion designing industry, with universities and colleges offering online fashion courses instead of the traditional classroom lesson.

With the online teaching medium, many students or those that wanted to learn the ropes of the fashion industry are left without any choice, they have no idea if the colleges they wanted to go to now offer online courses and if they don’t then what are the alternatives where they can get the same knowledge as they would have in the first. Hence, studying fashion online has now become an effective avenue for anyone keen in pursuing a career in fashion design.

With online courses, there is always a risk for sure. Using some of the methods above would certainly drive increased chances of success in achieving your goals in learning the right skills needed for your fashion career.

One of the methods to consider would be to assess the pricing of the academic courses one intends to pursue. Should the price be extremely high, you should consider searching online for cost effective alternatives that provide the same value.

How to assess the credibility of a fashion institution?

How do we find the right fashion institution then? There are a few steps to look at for sure. Firstly assess the credibility of the institution. Perhaps the school that you’re looking at has a good reputation, with outstanding testimonials. However, have you taken a look at the programs the institution offers? Always ensure to check with the right people such as friends and family who have previously taken a course or are graduates. Otherwise, look at online reviews to see what past students have said about the curriculum.

With the above issues resolved, learning from a good mentor online has never been easier. In fact it is much easier to find a true expert to learn from. If doubtful, do a search on Google and see if you can find any big names in fashion offering their skills in exchange for money online. Once you’ve identified a few fashion experts, look at their history, background and accomplishments. If they have proven themselves, then it’s certainly worth signing up for their course or becoming their apprentice. Although the latter is tougher to achieve, certainly it is more worthwhile should one succeed.

In these busy and modern times where everyone is rushing to pursue life without truly pursuing it, efficiency is certainly highly regarded. Hence, one easy way to level up your fashion career would be to sign up for a credible course taught by an expert from the industry. This way, you’ll be able to avoid huge commitments (for instance, going for an apprenticeship) and still be able to learn highly valued fashion skills that will allow you to create your own masterpieces.

With the advancement of technology, learning specialised fashion techniques has never been more accessible. All you have to do is simply go online to search for a credible institute of your choice. Clearly, not all such institutes are easy to get in. And for the busy professional, taking a diploma or degree full time would not be available for everyone. Unless you have the resources, time and money, you’d be like everyone else, working your guts out day and night. So the obstacles to reaching your goal seem unshakable indeed.

Credible online fashion institutions

Fortunately, there are some institutions that offer online fashion courses. One has to make a sensible decision too in this regard. That is finding the right academy to pursue when considering to learn via non-traditional means. By ‘non-traditional’ we mean learning online of course, where the lesson is no longer conducted within the confines of the traditional classroom.

Although the risk is that such fashion courses may not necessarily be credible. In fact, one should not simply sign up for any online course unless one has done sufficient research regarding the academy or institution. Hence, the first step is clear, finding the right fashion institution is essential.

Online fashion courses that will help you advance your career:

To make it easy for people who are seeking fashion designing courses online, we have compiled some courses for you to check out and start your career or journey into this wondrous and fascinating industry.

So, without making you wait further, let’s get started!

1. Creating a Fashion Collection

Having your very own vogue collection is every aspiring designer’s dream. Eventually, when someone learns much about fashion designing, they launch their brand and sell their amazing and creative products.

Creating your very own fashion collection via an online course is all about the same thing, creating your collection (or line, another name called for Collection) as the name suggests. In fact, you’ll be able to learn from the industry veterans at your own pace.

In this course, you’ll learn the necessary steps you need to learn to have your own collection/line.

And after learning the knowledge you need to have, the course teaches you how to excel in your social media campaign so that you can sell better in the real and the virtual world.

2. Introduction to Fashion Illustration

Next in line would be the Fashion Illustration design course. In the old days, apparel or footwear designers would use pen/pencil and paper to draw their creativity and then turn it into a product.

But those days have gone, the pen/pencil and the paper have now been replaced by technology and software taking their place.

So, it’s essential for everyone who wants to pursue fashion designing to learn the software that is used for drawing.

3. Sustainable Fashion

Although this course relates to maybe the final stages when you have learned much and want to start your own business/brand/collection nevertheless it still is considered among some courses that need to be studied.

As the name suggests this course means how can you run your business sustainably. This course focuses on already existing brands or businesses and analyses their strategy of getting their brand to the top. The course then lets you make your judgments and analyze how you would want your fashion design business to be and how you prosper.

You would already know by now that this indeed is an important course.

4. Fashion Designing with Adobe Illustrator CC

You wouldn’t have imagined a Fashion world without technology or applications that all of the world and businesses use.

When you’re into the design world, you need to take advantage of the technology prevailing today and so, in this case, it’s the Adobe Illustrator CC. You must be aware of Adobe, there’s no need for us to tell you about what Adobe is. Adobe Illustrator has been the app that has been the go-to app for almost every fashion designer, so it’s imperative to know this application thoroughly.

5. Sewing Online Fashion Design Course

This might be an obvious fashion design course as there’s no attire without sewing but the important point to note is sewing isn’t just about threads and sewing machines. There are technicalities in every place in every area of the cloth, so for those technicalities, you need to take the sewing course(s).

This course would entail almost every kind and type of sewing such as zig zag or the button stitch. Also, you’ll get to learn about the different types of machines available for sewing such as the mechanical or the electronic sewing machine.

6. Pattern Cutting and Making

Just like sewing, this course too is essential in the fashion design niche. The skills acquired here allows you to learn the fundamentals of pattern cutting and making which is used in garment production as well as apparel designing.

It’s a complete package making you first get to know the basics and the types of equipment that are first used and then head on to the next areas where the cutting and making gets to an advanced stage. Of course!

7. Understanding Fashion, from business to culture

There are many courses on the web that only focus on the essentials of fashion designing and making your own brand, there are, however, very few courses that focus on keeping your business alive and healthy and merging business ideas with culture. This is something that has a lot of significance and many fashion design students pay no heed to it. It is one of the courses that are also very essential for the students to learn as they need to know how you can make your business survive in the commercial world.

You might be a skilled fashion designer but if you don’t have skills and the knowledge of keeping your collection afloat, all that knowledge goes in vain, after all, you’re taking this path because of your interest and you want to capitalize on that interest into something monetary. This course is then essential for interest and monetary relations.

Conclusion

We picked some of the top-notch and some of the best courses that you can find on the web and start your fashion design career. These are picked carefully because they cover almost all of the important aspects of an online fashion course.

We made it easier for you to surf and learn what exactly you need to know and the last course being the most prominent one as every student who aspires to be a fashion designer focuses on creating their own line but do not focus on how to keep that line surviving and how to build your brand long-lasting enough which would reap you the rewards of your hard work.

Advancing your career is certainly not easy, especially in a competitive niche where learning the right skills is unequivocally necessary. This applies no matter which specialization you go into, regardless of whether you are in apparel merchandising, garment manufacturing or footwear designing.

The years of experience accumulated in terms of skill, knowledge and expertise is unfathomable as compared to learning from a standard textbook where you won’t learn much in the first place. This is especially true since a hands-on approach is always a better option than simply staring at a bottomless pit of words which could be dry, boring and a waste of time. Also, how else can you learn something like sewing without getting your elbows in the mud? Would you be able to properly grasp the techniques of creating your very own footwear if you don’t do it yourself? Probably not!

We hope that you find the above-mentioned courses essential and important enough to learn them. More importantly they should teach you the much needed in-demand skills that top companies look for when hiring fashion designers and merchandisers.

Learning from the best is definitely something worth pursuing if your goal is to reach the pinnacle of the fashion industry.

Just as Marc Jacobs says “Clothes mean nothing until someone lives in them”. What’s truly important is finding meaning, without which there is no purpose to continue moving forward in which direction you choose. This is why knowing what you want is unbelievably important.