What Are the Types of Fashion Designing?

If fashion has always interested you, a career as a designer could be a great path to pursue. When you follow this role, you must decide if you’d prefer to create clothes, shoes or accessories. As you work in a specialty, you’re typically responsible  Hire Freelance Fashion Designers  for identifying current trends and creating fashionable designs that appeal to your target audience. This article reviews what fashion designers are and the different types of designers in the fashion industry.

What Are Designers in Fashion?

Designers in fashion are professionals who create concepts of new and trending styles, build real-life prototypes of these designs and prepare the final products to sell to customers.

Fashion designers typically specialize in one type of field and stay updated on the trends within that area. After graduating from their program of choice, a fashion designer can choose to create clothing, shoes or accessories. There are several subsections within these categories that a designer can pursue depending on their skills and interests.

Fashion design is the art of creating clothing and accessories. It can range from creating pieces valued more like art than for function to minimalist and practical elements. Fashion design can be thought of as an art form, with careful consideration to aesthetics and beauty when designing clothing and accessories. Fashion design varies over time and adapts to reflect social and cultural influences.

It can require a lot of creative flexibility and a finger on society’s pulse, ready to shift and evolve with changing tastes. Every piece of clothing or accessory initially starts with an idea. These ideas are brought to life by using fashion design to determine everything from the creative vision to the market research guiding the production, to the fabric used, to the overall aesthetic message and beyond, to bring about the final product.

What Are the Types of Fashion Designing? 

If you spend any time studying fashion, you will probably come across the various types of fashion design. The names of these types of design may vary slightly based on the source, but in general, the idea of fashion design hierarchy remains the same.

Fashion design can generally be divided into tiers, and while there exists some overlap and subcategorization, there are five main types of fashion design. The five types of fashion design are:

Haute Couture Fashion
Luxury Fashion
Ready-To-Wear Fashion
Fast Fashion
Economy Fashion

These types of fashion design will be explained in detail below. Still, in general, these tiers of design start with haute couture being the most skilled, most exclusive fashion creation, progressing down to economy fashion, which is the cheapest, lowest-quality fashion items.

Some of these fashion types have interchangeable names, such as ready-to-wear fashion, sometimes being called high street fashion or prêt-à-porter, so being familiar with the variety of terms used can be helpful to avoid confusion. If you are interested in entering the world of fashion design, it can be beneficial to familiarize yourself with fashion terminology. Being aware of the different types of fashion design can help you determine career goals and better understand how the world of fashion functions. 

Haute Couture
These designers typically work for more high-profile and wealthier consumers. They often create customized and one-of-a-kind apparel according to each customers’ needs and preferences. Haute couture designers usually have a smaller clientele. They regularly work with the same customers to take their measurements and design clothing pieces for upcoming events according to their specific styles and preferences.

At the top of fashion, the design hierarchy is haute couture. Haute couture involves the creation of limited, custom-fitted clothing and accessories that are individual works of art. Haute couture is French for “high dressmaking” and originated with made-to-order garments designed and sewed for private clients.

Haute couture pieces are often constructed by hand, taking countless person-hours. The details are often worked on by an entire team of skilled designers in an atelier or workshop.

The parties can require several fittings to perfect and are usually made of the finest materials and expensive notions. These pieces are generally one of a kind, with extreme attention to detail.

To qualify as haute couture, fashion designers must be designated by the French government.

Designers must own an atelier in Paris, employ at least 15 full-time employees, and release 35 new, original looks to the public twice a year. These guidelines were established in 1945 and must be adhered to strictly, even by the most prominent fashion houses.

Luxury Fashion
Luxury fashion constitutes the fashion design that bridges the gap between exclusive, bespoke, custom made garments and mass-produced, readily available clothing. Luxury fashion includes high-quality articles of clothing that are not hand-made but are also not produced in large quantities.

Because of luxury fashion’s slightly more exclusive collection, it can be more desirable to some since it has limited availability. Luxury fashion can vary in quality but, usually, it consists of more expensive materials and nuanced designs. With this attention to detail usually comes a higher price tag. While luxury fashion items are still not as expensive as haute couture items, the prices are high enough to still give consumers a sense of being part of an elite market, with some of the steep prices placing the items outside the buying range of many average consumers. The luxury fashion market continues to grow, and it is expected to continue growing for the foreseeable future. As such, there will be a continued need for skilled fashion designers in this market area.