Depending on the number of classes you teach, you can create a flexible schedule that allows you time to research fabrics and keep up-to-date on materials and techniques while instructing a class, as well as continue creating and marketing your own fashions.
Other areas that fall under the fashion education category are style and makeup consultants, who advise, for instance, corporate clients on how to dress for success, or conduct workshops at department store cosmetic counters. Another similar profession is that of clothing and makeup stylists, who set up fashion shoots for print media and television.
Textile and Design Instructors
The majority of textile and design instructors are based in colleges and universities. Overall, these faculty members teach and advise over 14 million full-time and part-time students in the United States. In specialized fashion institutes, a large number of teachers work part-time and divide their days between two schools. Their work combines lecturing with much active demonstration. Therefore, your classroom is more like a workshop, where students sketch garments, cut out patterns, and sew. It's up to you to critique their creations, grade them, and give them constructive advice on improving their work and preparing for a productive career in fashion design.
If your specialization is draping fabrics or hat making (millinery), for example, it would be logical to teach those types of courses. As a designer, and possibly an owner of your own boutique, you can lecture on the business and marketing skills fashion entrepreneurs need for becoming self-employed. Supplement your classes by organizing field trips to your city's apparel center or textile museums.
As a fashion instructor, you will spend much time preparing your lectures and class assignments. Due to your independent design schedule, you will need to budget your workload so that you can devote complete attention to your various specialized tasks.
Because design schools offer intensive, hands-on courses, be prepared to teach two long classes per day-one in the morning and one in the afternoon or evening. One class typically lasts three hours and involves a lecture accompanied by visual aids, with the remaining two hours devoted to sketching, cutting out patterns and material, and draping fabric on a dress form.
If your school day finishes around 4 P.M., you still have time to work on your own design projects into the evening. Another option is teaching a course in the morning, then freeing up your afternoon to create. Outside classroom activities include advising students, grading, and assisting with the school's fashion shows.
Fashion and Makeup Consultants
The area of fashion and makeup consultation is vast and far-reaching, with many roads leading to a variety of industries. In a nutshell, a lot of clothing consultants, sometimes called personal shoppers, come from the design and/or retailing sector, where they have made, bought, and sold garments, which has taught them all they need to know about quality products and customer preferences. Consultants may have their own business with individual clients, ranging from society women planning their formal or travel wardrobes, to corporate executives and political figures whose image is all too often revealed by their attire.
Other exciting arenas for fashion consultants include being on the staff of a department or specialty store, where they advise consumers on the custom attire they are purchasing; or the theater and film worlds, in the area of historic costume advice, where their special sense of color and texture blends are put to productive use.
Makeup consultants also work in the show business realm. More frequently, you will find them doing demonstrations at cosmetics counters or fashion events. They spend years blending products and inventing new "looks"-the result of education at a cosmetology institute, paired with on-the-job experience and a lot of personal trial and error.
Clothing and Makeup Stylists
Like food stylists in advertising, clothing and makeup stylists work closely with a fashion photographer or camera operator in setting up fashion shoots for print media and television. They dress models and touch up their makeup so that the lighting shows a client's products at their most appealing. With hefty experience working backstage at fashion shows and/or in the theater, these artistic personalities are responsible for helping determine attractive camera angles and performing a variety of duties that help make clothes and accessories look perfectly smashing.
Most of the qualifications for stylists are rooted in experience in fashion design, retail, wholesale, or even the modeling profession. This is a field that offers a plethora of opportunities based on an individual's talent, persistence, and willingness to work behind-the-scenes in an interesting mix of interrelated jobs.
Getting Started: Textile and Design Instructors
A wise combination of courses for future textile and design instructors to take in high school are textiles, art, public speaking, and business. With this preparation, you prepare yourself for a well rounded career in design and learn to feel comfortable speaking about various topics in front of a group. Volunteer as a tutor to determine if you have a special ability to instill confidence in your students. You can even talk to your current teachers about conducting after-school workshops in whatever subject might be beneficial to you and your peers. Research the colleges that emphasize on design and education. If your heart is set on fashion design, help organize a local fashion show or work part-time in retail. Sketch design ideas and make outfits that attract praise from your friends, family, and mentors. Familiarize yourself with the latest advancements in apparel technology, such as digital sewing machines and adjustable dress forms, to develop a facility with equipment you will be using in the classroom.
Getting Started: Fashion and Makeup Consultants
Because fashion and makeup consultants enter their field from so many different angles, just about any job or hobby that involves these subjects could pave the way for you. Besides getting involved with your school's fashion shows or theatrical productions, you should seriously consider working part-time at a boutique, department store, or cosmetics counter.
Keep a scrapbook of clips you have saved from fashion magazines to observe what types of clothing ensembles work together effectively. Spend a lot of time in stores, where you can feel fabrics and experiment with different color and texture combinations.
When it comes to makeup, get your friends involved. Ask them if you could try certain eye contouring or lip painting cosmetic techniques on them. Experiment with makeup and hairstyle ideas on yourself, too. Then determine which field suits you best.
Getting Started: Clothing and Makeup Stylists
Observation is probably your best way to start. Try to teach yourself compositionally what makes a photograph or movie scene stand out in your mind. Stylists are hired for their instinctive expertise at setting up a scene that is visually appealing. You don't need formal education for this. Experience and self-training are prudent routes to take.
You can also get experience by working in the fashion or photography arena as a sales representative or photography assistant. Knowing fabrics and how light plays with color are also crucial, as is sharp vision, both inner and outer.
Read as many fashion magazines and books as possible. Start a photo collection of ads and catalog shots that show styling at its most provocative and eye-catching. Working as an extra in a movie, or with a local theatrical company, will give you firsthand experience at observing behind-the-scene stylists in action.
Educational Requirements for Textile and Design Instructors
Teaching students about clothing and accessory design techniques, marketing skills, and the history of the business puts you in a more hands-on, participatory realm than your colleagues who teach English, math, and political science.
Depending on where you're working - a high school, college, university, or design school - never underestimate your abilities as a significant faculty member. You may not have to publish treatises or pass periodic oral examinations to be given tenure, which protects professors from being fired without just cause and due process. Your expertise is expressed by the quality of fashion associations to which you belong, the latest collection you've just unveiled, or the number of fashion shows you organize.
In the fashion field, most faculty members are hired as instructors or part-time assistant professors. They typically hold a masters degree in fine arts or textiles for employment at four-year institutions, and a bachelor's degree plus teaching certification for a two-year design college.
Because fashion education centers offer courses from fabric design to drawing and merchandising, you want to find an area where you excel. Then get experience in that particular sector, supplement your education with community activities or fashion seminars, and start a portfolio of your best work.
Hone your oral and written communication skills, and get accustomed to establishing rapport with your students. Finally, be prepared to work in an environment where you receive little direct supervision.
Educational Requirements: Fashion and Makeup Consultants
The exciting part about becoming a fashion consultant is that you're not restricted to any particular segment of the industry. You could hold a bachelor's degree in public relations, work on major designer accounts, then branch out into your own consulting business. Or you may be a designer or boutique owner, with a fashion design and marketing background. These are just a sampling of the doors through which you can enter the fashion consulting business.
For makeup consultants, the road is more structured. They traditionally attend a two-year cosmetology program at an institute that specializes in hairstyling, makeup application, and manicures. These learning centers, which are more akin to trade schools than academic institutions, promote hands-on learning with apprenticeships. They are also excellent sources for employment, and usually place graduates in a variety of beauty-related jobs. Ultimately, if you are an exceptional makeup artist, you can serve as a consultant for big-time movie studios and lavish theatrical productions.
Educational Requirements: Clothing and Makeup Stylists
A fine arts background in fashion design, photography, or graphic art would be an excellent supplement to your career as a clothing or makeup stylist. But, timing and a good eye for detail-teamed with an assertive disposition and willingness to work long, unpredictable hours-may be enough to land you a financially rewarding and personally fulfilling job.
As in most areas within the competitive fashion industry, experience is your best teacher. Since you will work primarily with photographers and camera operators, set your sights on finding a job in these types of studios. Study and teach yourself what styles blend well together, and visit clothing and accessory stores regularly.
Getting Hired as a Textile and Design Instructor
Once you have completed the necessary academic requirements and have some substantial experience under your belt, you are ready to land that first job in fashion education. One effective way is through substitute teaching. If you are a designer or fashion educator in-the-making, you could quite sensibly decide whether you are cut out for teaching at a fine arts or design school by filling in for an instructor who is on vacation.
You may even want to begin as a lecturer, gaining practice speaking at fashion association functions. Teach your own fashion workshop or seminar. Or get your name out as a designer first and then bring your expertise to the classroom.
The beautiful part about textile and design instruction is that you don't have to do it full-time. It can be a supplement to fostering your design career and most importantly it can fill your need to pass on your fashion education to aspiring designers.
Because more and more schools are dependent upon computerized sewing machines and pattern cutters, as well as electronic grading systems, become adept at using the latest technology.
Getting Hired as a Fashion or Makeup Consultant
Networking is the key to breaking into the consulting business, because it is typically an independent form of employment, one in which your paycheck is only as dependable as your recently acquired account. If you start out in any aspect of the industry, whether it is fashion design, sales, or public relations, get to know the key movers and shakers who might be interested in hiring you as a consultant. Attend all the important trade events and fashion shows, and be a master of sophisticated self-promotion.
As a makeup consultant, look for job openings at department store cosmetic counters and fill out a variety of applications. If show business intrigues you, get your name out to talent agencies, which could refer models and photographers to you, as well as let you know when someone is filming a movie in town. Networking in this realm should be a top priority.
Getting Hired as a Clothing or Makeup Stylist
Photography studios, advertising and public relations firms, and talent agencies are excellent places to seek employment as a clothing or makeup stylist. This is the type of profession in which you could work your way up from apprentice or assistant positions to high-level style directors, who have the final say on how a fashion ad or commercial is going to be seen by the public. But that depends on your dynamic motivation and consistent talent for creating successful visual ad campaigns.
A tight knit business, clothing and makeup styling allows its professionals to move around in fashion circles based on networking, word-of-mouth, and a solid, respected reputation.
Salary and Success Outlook: Textile and Design Instructors
Earnings for fashion instructors vary according to the type of school that employs them and their level of experience. Faculty in four-year institutions earns higher salaries, on the average, than those in two-year schools. According to a recent survey by the American Association of University Professors, salaries for full-time faculty on nine-month contracts averaged $43,300, with part-time instructors earning $27,700 for the same period.
Those figures drop slightly when applied to high schools and the fine arts profession, as opposed to higher education programs in law or business. A top perk is having summers off and long holiday breaks to attend to other fashion projects, especially if you are a designer. You also have access to top fashion companies and professionals through your affiliation with a design school.
Employment of college and university faculty is expected to increase about as fast as the average for all occupations through the year 2005 as enrollments in higher education increase.
Salary and Success Outlook: Fashion and Makeup Consultants
As in other aspects of the fashion field, salaries for fashion and makeup consultants are wide open, with higher earnings contingent upon how many prosperous accounts you land if you choose to work independently. You can begin earning as little as $18,000 a year, then escalate to salaries in the fifties and sixties.
Due to company downsizing, your chances of working for a corporation or a design house as a freelance fashion consultant are even more appealing as we approach the 21st century.
Department store makeup consultation is lower paying, especially at the entry level. This is attributable to the fact that many makeup consultants are also sales clerks, who earn a salary in the mid to high teens that is supplemented by a commission. There is also room for growth, with supervisory positions available. You can also team up with a fashion consultant and start a partnership.
Salary and Success Outlook: Clothing and Makeup Stylists
Once again, there is no set salary for clothing and makeup stylists. Most stylists start at the bottom of the totem pole, earning an hourly minimum wage salary, while proving their mettle.
If you get an early start, and work with a mentor who really likes your work and introduces you to photographers and advertising executives, your success could skyrocket. Moreover, you can expect annual earnings in the sixties. The option for doing freelance styling is also available. In this segment of the industry you can negotiate hourly and annual wages and benefits.
With companies constantly searching for bigger and better ways to advertise, stylists are expected to remain in demand. Catalogs and ads are being transferred to the Internet, where literally billions of people can view them. Industry bigwigs, therefore, want to employ the best and brightest for their fashion ad campaigns and stylists are crucial to conveying their company's attention-grabbing look.
