Giving the Fashion Industry the Business: Careers in Fashion Marketing

by Kate McIntyre

You convinced your skeptical friends a year and a half ago that tapered leg jeans were coming back. You can recognize a quality garment by examining its stitching and fabric. You have a keen business sense and enjoy working with numbers. You'd make a great fashion marketer.

What Fashion Marketing Is All About

Fashion marketers combine a strong sense of the fashion industry's trends with knowledge of the business side of the industry. Careers in fashion marketing compel you to develop both your creative and analytical abilities. For instance, you might find yourself attending a fashion show as a buyer. In addition to examining the aesthetic qualities of the clothes that come down the runway, you'd think about what pieces would sell in your store, how many you might be able to sell, and how much you would need to charge for each piece.

Career Options in Fashion Marketing

Fashion marketing is not limited to fashion buying. With a fashion marketing degree, you can also work as a fashion coordinator. In this job, you oversee the overall look of a store to make sure that all of the clothes in it present a cohesive vision. As a retail store manager, you work with fashion buyers to select clothing for your store, keep track of your store's finances, oversee your store's advertising, and manage your store's employees. If you have strong entrepreneurial instincts, you might decide to open your own boutique.

Getting Started in the Industry

In order to be successful in fashion marketing, you need to have your associate's degree, or, preferably, your bachelor's degree in the field. As you plan your course of study, make sure that you take plenty of business courses, especially in marketing and sales. After you graduate, an internship is a great way to learn about the fashion industry and make important contacts with people in the industry. If you are not yet ready for school, working in a department store or boutique can teach you about customers' buying patterns and the store's inventory system. This knowledge will come in handy one day when you are planning your own store's inventory.

Careers in fashion marketing are exciting and fast-paced. You are usually not confined to an office, and there are usually many opportunities to travel. If you have a passion for fashion and good business instincts, you should consider fashion marketing.

About the Author: Kate McIntyre is a writer in Portland, Oregon. She holds a B.A. from Harvard University and an M.F.A. in fiction writing from Oregon State University.