Fashion Merchandising: The Business of Fashion

by Joe Cooper
Fashion School Review Columnist

February 5, 2007

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Fashion design is about more than sketching and garment choices. It's also about accounting, reporting, and market analysis - business concepts that help drive a design's sales. A fashion merchandising degree program will help you learn these skills and how to apply them in your fashion career.

Fashion Merchandising, Here I Come!
A degree in fashion merchandising is more than a good way to learn the basics of the fashion design industry. It can often be your ticket to a career.

Johnathan Lohr is a great example of a future fashion design professional. As he told the Baker County Press this year, he has been artistic since he could walk. Now, he is entering a fashion merchandising program at a southern fashion school, where he will learn the "business and marketing side of the industry" as well as the design side.

Learning the business and marketing of fashion is what becoming a fashion merchandising professional is all about. To design is fabulous, but to market those designs and sell them successfully in the industry is what merchandising careers are made of.

A Day in the Life of a Fashion Merchandiser
Take a look at some of the common tasks for which fashion merchandising professionals are responsible:

Reporting on fashion design market trends and analyzing fashion sales
Making recommendations on fashion marketing strategy and implementation
Managing the accounting of a fashion or retail company
Providing feedback to fashion designers on how certain designs will sell in the market

Fashion Merchandising Internships: An Added Bonus
A great benefit of the fashion merchandising program the young Mr. Lohr can look forward to is an internship. His fashion school is known for partnering with fashion design industry staples like Vogue to provide valuable experience behind the lines. Remember, an internship can often lead to a job - and that's how careers are started.

Source:

Baker County Press

About the Author
Joe Cooper is a freelance education and technology writer and edits medical literature. He holds a bachelor's in American Literature from UCLA.

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