A child's interest in fashion may include dressing and accessorizing, modeling, designing fashions for others, drawing, sewing, or watching fashion shows.
Fashion Designer Education and Career
Fashion designers typically design clothing and accessories. Some designers work for clothing stores or clothing manufacturers. A designer typically begins with an idea. Then he or she makes a simple drawing to share with someone who is interested in making the product. If the person likes the drawing, the designer makes a more detailed drawing, perhaps using a CAD (computer-aided design) program. The designer uses the computer model to explore choices and make changes to the design until he or she and the buyer are satisfied with it.
- Idea
- Sketch
- Detailed drawing or computer model
The first professional fashion designer, a man named Charles Frederick Worth, gained his education first as an apprentice to two London textile merchants who supplied fabrics to dressmakers, and further by studying historical portraits, which provided inspiration for his own designs.
Nowadays, most fashion designers attend an art school to learn their craft and business. They learn how to draw, sew, make patterns, and design clothing, as well as how to operate in the business world of fashion. Fashion design jobs include artists and sketchers, cutters, pattern makers, sewers, photographers, and set and exhibit designers.
Drawing, photography, use of a CAD program, and sewing are all skills that children can begin to learn in preparation for a future career in fashion design. These skills can be gained through knowledgeable family members, art school summer camps and community classes, and toys and art kits such as the extensive Project Runway line based on the popular reality television series.
A child's interest in fashion may offer family and community elders a bridge for passing on traditional skills such as sewing and pattern making to the next generation. Charles Frederick Worth did, after all, gain his inspiration by studying historical styles.
Online Fashion Resources for Kids
At Squidoo~Online Fashion Games, visitors will find a little bit of everything fashion related, including fashion history, online fashion resources, fashion games, and fashion art kits and toys.
At the Dragon's Fire Fashion Wiki, visitors will find links to a variety of fashion-related resources, games, and activities.
Online Fashion Games
A child's interest in fashion may signal the beginning of a lifelong creative passion. It can bring together the generations by showing children the value of traditional skills. The development of artistic and sewing skills, playing dress up games, and surfing the wealth of online fashion resources may mark the early stages of a child's professional fashion design education.
Sara McGrath - Sara is a veteran homeschool mom of three, Usborne consultant, and the author of Unschooling: A Lifestyle of Learning.
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