The fashion industry is very vocal about some key players—everyone knows what designers, editors and stylists do, but what about everyone else within the $12 billion dollar industry? If you’ve always wanted to work in fashion but haven’t quite found the exact avenue that suits you, you might be in luck. We sat down with Carmel Dunne, the careers coordinator at FBI Fashion College in Sydney and she talked us through some of the more unexpected fashion roles, to give you a little more info about some jobs you may not even know exist.
Keep scrolling to find out what they are (and potentially your next career move).
The role of a fashion forecaster is one of the most fun. You get to travel the world and report back on trends—colours, fabrics, prints, accessories—everything! Typically only really large fashion companies, like Sportsgirl, have the budget for a fashion forecaster in their teams.
E-commerce platforms (like Net-a-Porter or Shopbop) are no longer just shopping websites. There’s content too, and a lot of it. Writing, editing and content strategy play a huge role in maintaining site standards and help act as a voice for the brand.
Another creative role—a merchandiser can sit IRL and digitally. Their role is to ensure that products appear on e-commerce platforms in a visually appealing way (it’s no coincidence that ‘new arrivals’ are often ordered into little outfits or by trend), and to visually tell a story in store.
You’ll be hard pressed to find many full-time fashion illustrator positions, but if you have a knack for drawing and love fashion, you can certainly forge a freelance career. Just look at illustrator and blogger, Garance Doré. Create a portfolio to get your talent out there and your work can be picked up by designers, magazines, retailers and advertisers.
Pulling together a fashion show is no easy feat—imagine being the person behind the Victoria’s Secret fashion show? The choreographer coordinates the models, music and timing, so if you practiced dance when you were little, or production in high school, maybe this one’s for you?
The PR world is so important for fashion brands—the role of a publicity agency is to promote the labels it looks after. The job of a fashion showroom manager is to pitch stories to editors and organise showroom appointments for media and bloggers to view new collections and loan samples.
After a writer completes an article (for print or digital), typically the story then gets passed onto the photo editor. They then search for the best images to accompany the article.
So where to look for fashion jobs? We love Pedestrian.TV, Fashion First and LinkedIn.
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