What Can You Do With a Fashion Degree?

Fashion merchandising and fashion buying are careers dependent on being aware of upcoming fashion trends before they hit the high street. While this may sound as simple as flicking through a copy of Vogue’s September issue, there’s plenty more to these roles!

If you pursue a fashion buying career, your job will be to source and purchase on-trend products that will appeal to your company’s clients and consumers. Fashion merchandising, on the other hand, is slightly more business-orientated, with your main tasks being to calculate how much a customer will spend and to ensure all the right products are found in the right stores at the right time.

Fashion buying and fashion merchandising are key job roles within the retail industry, with hiring organizations including department stores, retail chain stores, online retailers and smaller independent shops and boutiques. So, if you’re keen to forecast the latest trends and have an eye for what will sell, careers in fashion merchandising or fashion buying may well be for you.

How to boost your graduate employability: A fashion blog; sound knowledge of current high street/designer markets and trends; retail experience; numeracy skills; fashion internships (in buying, merchandising, design or marketing).

Fashion trends come and go quicker than you can say ‘double denim’, meaning fashion marketing and public relations (PR) departments are constantly challenged to spread the word about the latest styles and style-setters. Taught as a separate specialization at many fashion schools and universities, fashion marketing involves creating advertising campaigns and strategies in order to sell your company’s products to a clients (including shops) and individual consumers.

You will be heavily involved in analyzing new trends and even determining whether a product is marketable. Fashion marketing and public relations officers should have strong communication skills, an eye for detail, solid knowledge of consumer habits and a sixth sense for upcoming trends.

How to boost your graduate employability: Retail experience; copywriting skills; consumer knowledge; great communication skills; experience working within a team; fashion internships (in marketing or design).

Fashion production is often thought of as the “front line” of the fashion industry, and much attention and expertise is needed to ensure quality and consistency in the overall product. After gaining experience in the area, management career possibilities will open up to you, allowing you to work your way up the production ladder until you have your own team. Alternatively, you could gain a postgraduate degree in management, specializing in a relevant area.

In recent years the innovational side of fashion production has grown considerably, with growing emphasis on sustainability and zero-wastage, making it one of the more challenging and rewarding fashion jobs due to its wide reach and relevance. Fashion-conscious eco-warriors with strong leadership skills are prime candidates for fashion jobs in production.

How to boost your graduate employability: Interest intextiles and production processes; leadership skills; experience in production/manufacturing; fashion internships (in production or design).

Fashion journalism is an incredibly popular career area for those who study fashion, spurred on by the boom in fashion blogging from the early days of the internet through to the current day. Whether you wish to be a blogger, news reporter or a magazine journalist, there are many routes to success.

Fashion journalists come in many shapes and settings; writing for trade publications, PR companies, e-commerce sites, news sites, fashion magazines and other print and online media. If this sounds of interest to you, your fashion degree must also be paired with strong writing skills and a solid portfolio of fashion writing. If you lack the writing experience but still wish to pursue fashion careers in publishing and journalism, you may consider undertaking a graduate degree in journalism, where you can often also specialize in fashion journalism, magazine journalism or celebrity journalism.

How to boost your graduate employability: A fashion blog; journalism/fashion internships; experience writing for a university publication; a postgraduate degree in fashion and/or journalism.

Linked to the field of fashion marketing, the advertising industry can also provide a range of careers for fashion graduates. Whether you’re advertising high street fashion, luxury fashion or related products, graduates can use the skills acquired during their fashion degree to better ‘sell’ the latest fashions to clients and consumers.

Fashion careers in advertising can be within print, film or digital media and can include roles in fashion copywriting, editorial, styling (for photo shoots etc.), multimedia marketing and managing public relations.

How to boost your graduate employability: Experience working within a team; copywriting skills; advertising/marketing internships.

A growing career sector escalated by the digital revolution, fashion technology is the perfect area of fashion for anyone interested in the wide range of transformative technologies involved – from virtual design-testing interfaces and algorithms that predict patterns in consumer choice, to new materials development and breakthroughs in the way clothes respond to our bodies and environment.

As a fast-growing area, fashion technology promises much scope for career development, with exciting and unlimited prospects. In response to existing and projected demand, an increasing number of fashion schools and universities now offer dedicated degrees in fashion technology, including the UK’s Heriot-Watt University, which offers a BSc in Fashion Technology.

So, if you’re interested in textile technology, innovative software design, new production technologies (such as laser cutting and 3D printing etc.) or even making wearable technology fashionable, careers in fashion technology could be for you.

How to boost your graduate employability: Technical proficiency; fashion internships (in production or design); demonstrable interest in new technologies.

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Other common careers in fashion include: visual merchandising (clothing and beyond), retail management, event organization, sales, tailoring, pattern making, costume design, wardrobe management, personal shopping, fashion styling, photography, modelling and jewelry design.

For informal advice on how to pursue fashion jobs, careers and internships, see this guest blog post by Judy Hofeyr.

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‘What Can You Do With a Fashion Degree?’ is part of our ‘What Can You Do With…’ series. We have also covered art, biology, business, communications, computer science, English, engineering, history, geography, law, marketing, mathematics, performing arts, philosophy, politics, psychology, sociology, chemistry, economics and physics.

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