Shoe designing - a full-fledged profession

Hey! Have you ever thought whose designed shoes are you wearing, we prefer wearing designer clothes by people like Rohit Bal, Ritu Beri, Manish Bahl, J J Valaya, etc. but have we wondered who has designed our shoes, whose creativity is reflecting in form of our footwear. And do you know there are courses provided for footwear designing and the degree holders or professionals in this field are called Fashion Footwear Designers.

Yes even I was completely shocked, when I heard that one of my friends is pursuing a course in footwear designing. And moreover, there are institutes fully dedicated for the same. Footwear Design and Development Institute (FDDI), Central Leather Research Institute, Chennai, Central Footwear Training Institute, Agra, AVI School of Fashion and Shoe Technology, Chandigarh, are few of the colleges providing education in Footwear Designing.

Shoe Designing colleges provides all type of courses such as short term, under graduation and post graduation programmes. The eligibility of the under- graduation courses is a 12^th pass out, whereas, for post graduation courses a graduation degree from a valid university is required. Few names of the courses under which these degrees are provided are: Diploma in Leather Goods and Accessory Design, Diploma in Footwear Manufacturing Technology, Diploma in Fashion Merchandising and Retail Management, PG Diploma in Visual Merchandising and Communications Design, etc.

It is said, the overall dress up and personality of a person needs to be complemented with the shoes, he is wearing, and a smart person is recognized by the standard of his shoes. Also, I am very startled and really excited, it must be so amazing to design the shoes and just imagine how much creativity must be required to design a new piece every time. Keeping in mind the comfortable level and the target audience, making new designs every time, yet maintaining the originality of the shoe shape, must be so difficult. Now I understand, how come, we get to see different variety and design of shoes, sandals, ‘jootis’, every time we visit shoe shops.

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Fashion Designing – Work Profile

Fashion industry is one of the fastest growing and high ranked sectors in our economy.

It’s very essential for our economy in terms of revenue through trade and promotion. It has a very bright and promising career and future aspect. Not only women but men apparel industry has seen a tremendous growth in the recent past.

For one who is or wishes to pursue fashion designing courses has to study and learn various skills and techniques like – garments design, cutting of fabric, research, sewing, merchandising etc. they also have to minutely assess various fabric properties like – texture, design, color, make, material, etc.

Fashion industry being a popular one at global level is also interesting because of its foreign collaborations, imports and exports. Fashion designers craft designs for more or less anything which is a part of the men, women and children’s garments.

There are many venues in the fashion industry that one can go for like –

Design department – the fashion designers need to cut fabric, design patterns, sketching, draping of the garment and finally the construction of the garment. They basically form the basic deign as to how the final garment product should look like.

Merchandise and marketing - their job is to release a garment into the market. As fashion industry is ever changing in nature, hence one needs to be up-to-date with the change in technology, trends etc. The company objectives, price of the garment, targeted customers; fashion selection and display etc are planned based upon their market analysis.

Fashion manufacturers – this department is lead by the production manager who has to take care of all the workers under him and manage the work force, its his responsibility to train the workers, schedule their goals, manage their activities and tasks etc.

Fashion coordinator – the job of a fashion coordinator is to coordinate with the buyers and the production manager. Fashion coordinator makes sure that the dead lines are meet and the schedule is followed. They meet the buyers, follow their fabric specifications and take care of those being met. When a buyer specifies his design, its their job to coordinate its sample to the fashion designer in order to get the final garment made, the sample is hence worked upon on a dummy for any changes required and once its finalized, the coordinator if require, can make few changes keeping in mind resource allocation and quality, and hence the final product once presented to the buyer.

It should also be clear that the job of a fashion designer is no cake walk; it’s ever changing, competitive and challenging in nature. Ever changing trends, regular excitement, shows and lime lights, long working hours etc.

Hence if one wishes to pursue a course in fashion designing, as it is a very promising field to enter, there are many fashion designing schools all over the country and abroad. Many of these fashion designing institutes provide proper degree courses with good placement opportunities. One can also go to study abroad to pursue a course in fashion designing.

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