Design Makes A Comeback in Fashion Careers

by Alex Russel
alex.russel@actschoolreview.com
Art School Review Columnist

Types of fashion jobs change with fashion and according to industry observers, the world of fashion is going through a shift right now. After a solid decade of putting more emphasis on marketing and the designer-as-personality, the actual craftsmanship of making clothes is making a comeback.

According to magazine editors and department store buyers, fashion houses are putting their energy back into designing, instead of image making.

Before this change, the guiding light for big fashion brands has been personality (call it the Ralph Lauren effect). In this world, customers were attracted less to the clothes than to the brand they represented. The magazine advertisements, with men like Ralph Lauren or Tommy Hilfiger featured prominently, mattered as much as the textile clothes themselves. Though he was never featured in advertising, Tom Ford, the former head of Chanel, Yves St. Laurent, and Gucci, captured this era of personality over substance.

What Makes a Fashion Career?

Ralph Lauren is still around of course, but Tom Ford left to make movies. In his place young and relatively anonymous designers have taken over. Based in Paris, but from all over the world, these designers are happy working backstage and putting all their energy and authority into the designing of clothes and little else.

"They're the most daring group of designers we've seen in a long while," said Julie Gilhart, the fashion director of Barneys New York, the high end department store. According to the New York Times, these designers include Marc Jacobs of Louis Vuitton, Nicolas Ghesquiere of Balenciaga, Phoebe Philo of Chloé, Stefano Pilati of Yves Saint Laurent, Olivier Theyskens of Rochas and Alber Elbaz of Lanvin. With the possible exception of the American Jacobs, none of these are household names.

Finding the Right Fashion Jobs

Many of these designers worked as assistants for flashier names like Tom Ford. So in fact, cynics argue, they've been leading design for longer than their resumes suggest. Now they're just getting the credit for it.

While only the extremely talented and lucky end up designing for the big houses that these men and women work for, their success means that there is still a place for craftsmanship and the nitty gritty of fashion design in fashion itself. Even stores like Walmart and Target take their cues from the fashion studios in Paris, Milan and New York. Apparently it's time for the marketers to take a smaller role.

About the Author

Alex Russel is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn, NY. Since graduating from Syracuse University he has worked at many different media companies in fields as diverse as film, TV, advertising, and journalism. He holds a dual bachelor's degree in English and History.

Sources

• http://www.nytimes.com

Posted on June 22, 2005 at 11:01 PM