Hello and welcome new, and prospective students to the new academic year 2023/2024. My name is Pantelis Panteli and I am the Pathway Leader of the BDes Fashion department at Alexander College.

After a couple of challenging years during the pandemic, last academic year 2022/2023 saw the return to normality. The return of the Catwalk project was anticipated and it was an amazing show after the 3-year gap due to Covid-19. The room filled with press, influencers, and fellow peer designers from the industry. Collaborations have been formed in various areas of fashion, and the graduates are now getting ready to take their collections to Athens Fashion Week.

Why Study Fashion Design?

Studying Fashion Design has the benefit of giving you several options to follow as a career. Fashion is a huge mechanism that employs a vast amount of the world’s population, it ranks third in category. Whether you are fashion conscious or not, we are all involved in fashion one way or the other. We all wake up every morning and get dressed, and at that moment we make a conscious decision and ask the question “What do I wear?”. Our decision is normally based on our availability, the mood we are feeling and how we want the outside world to perceive us. Clothes are our outer skin we choose to wear, so unless a law is passed to walk naked, we all need clothes to wear.

Fashion Design Careers

So, let’s look at some of the major jobs you can follow after you graduate:

  • Fashion Designer: Fashion designers help create the billions of dresses, suits, shoes, and other clothing and accessories purchased every year by consumers. Designers study fashion trends, sketch designs of clothing and accessories, select colors and fabrics, and oversee the final production of their designs.
  • Fashion Technician: Fashion technicians are the people that help create the clothes and accessories that the fashion designer designs. They are the backbone and the most important link of bringing alive a design. This involves good knowledge of patterns and sewing.
  • Textile Designer: Textile design is a highly creative field that involves the process of creating the designs that are printed on these woven, knitted, or other types of fabrics. The field of textile design includes pattern-making, while also managing the production process.
  • Costume Designer: Costume designers design, create and hire the costumes for the cast. They start by working with directors, producers, writers, the production designer and hair and makeup designer to contribute to the look and storytelling of the production.
  • Fashion Merchandising: Fashion merchandisers oversee the style design of garments and accessories in retail clothing stores, costume suppliers, or fashion houses. It is the fashion merchandiser’s responsibility to predict fashion trends, plan and implement store layouts, purchase apparel, and collaborate with designers.
  • Fashion Communication: Fashion communication includes creating and facilitating communication for the fashion industry; verbal, written, visual or audiovisual. It includes a consolidated study associated with different areas such as advertising, public relations, fashion journalism, visual merchandising, styling, photography, display, and creative writing.
  • Stylist: A stylist is responsible for providing fashion advice, choosing the appropriate clothing for models, maintaining the fashion style, and supervising photoshoots. Stylists must always be updated with the latest fashion trends for recommendations.
  • Fashion Journalist: Fashion journalism involves researching and writing about the latest fashion trends and styles. Journalists get this information by working with stylists, interviewing fashion designers, and attending fashion shows, photoshoots, and events.
  • Blogger/Influencer: Fashion bloggers are the loyal follower and explorer of the fashion world. They scrutinize, recommend and share experiences and ideas related through multimedia or social media. A fashion blogger regularly writes blogs with eye-catching graphics and appealing content on the trending and popular topics. A fashion blogger gets to research, generate, design and present fashion ideas and opinions through emails, advertisements and social media platforms. An Influencer is a social media influencer that creates content across various social media platforms to either entertain or influence the audience.

These are just some of the major paths you can follow after studying fashion. Each of the above paths can lead to even more specific career paths. Fashion is about finding your true calling and what fulfills yours and others’ dreams. It is a constantly evolving profession. So, which path will you be choosing?

I hope to see you in our program soon!

Pantelis Panteli