Fashion Design Salaries & Salary Outlook

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Do you want to make a living by creating beautiful clothing designs? Earn a fashion design degree, and make your dream job a reality! In this diverse and cretive field, you can find jobs that emphasize your strengths, while letting you bring home a nice salary.

Fashion Design Salaries

Few occupations are as artistic, and yet practical, as fashion design. Successful design blends cultural awareness, aesthetic talent, and practical know-how to create apparel that consumers want to buy. If this sounds like just the gig for you, consider enrolling in a fashion design degree program. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports intense competition for jobs within this field, as many gifted individuals are drawn to its glamour. A formal education can give you the advantage you need to impress future employers and/or clients.

Fashion Design: Cut from a Different Cloth

The designs you see in high fashion magazines represent only one part of the industry. Fashion designers are needed to create all kinds of apparel, from suits to shoes to accessories, and across all price points. They may sell to trendy boutiques as well as department stores, while a small number of haute couture designers create clothing for individual clients. Some even work within the television and motion picture industries as costume designers, fashioning apparel for actors. Fashion designers research trends, procure fabrics, and create prototypes–and nothing prepares you for these technical sides of the trade like a fashion design degree program.

A designer’s responsibilities vary based on their experience and the size of their design firm. Designers employed in large firms often direct the entire design process, while those working for smaller companies may handle both the conceptual and practical ends of business. Almost 25 percent of fashion designers are self-employed.

Degree Information: Designing Your Fashionable Future

Students enrolled in fashion design degree programs receive training color and textile selection, sewing and tailoring, pattern making, fashion history, and computer-aided design (CAD). Courses in anatomy, psychology, and business may also round out a student’s curriculum. Aspiring designers often elect to find internships or apprenticeships in order to gain experience; because this field of work promotes ladder-climbing advancement, real-world experience is paramount. Students also maintain strong design portfolios to show prospective employers, an asset the BLS describes as often being a major deciding factor in landing a career.

Fashionable Salaries

The 2008 BLS salary information reports show a mean annual wage of $71,400 for fashion designers. Designers in the 90th percentile of earnings make $124,780, while those in the 10th percentile earn $32,150. Motion Picture companies made up the highest-paying industry for fashion design work. Designers working in the private sector create highly specialized designs for individual clients and are able to charge large sums for their work.

Perhaps predictably, New York and California employ the highest concentrations of fashion designers in America. With the exception of California, the northeastern United States boasts the highest mean annual wages for their designers. Over all, New York took first place at $80,490, followed by Maine, New Hampshire, California, and Connecticut. The top-paying metropolitan areas for individuals working in the fashion design industry are likewise East Coast-based. Designers in Nassau-Suffolk, NY earn about $87,420 per year. Other metropolitan areas to make the BLS top five were Newark, NJ; Portland/Biddeford, ME; and West Palm Beach/Boca Raton/Boynton Beach, FL. The New York/White Plains/Wayne, NY/NJ metropolitan division rounded out the top five list with an annual mean wage of $80,270 for its fashion designers.

Karin Hansen
Karin Hansen holds a BA in English from San Francisco State University and currently works two part-time jobs. In her spare time, Karin enjoys traveling, trail running, and reading.

Find Fashion Design Schools Near You

Find the right school today.