Why Pursue a Career in Fashion Communication?

Do you want to get an extensive understanding of the fashion industry through visual design, styling, and journalistic approaches? A career in fashion communication can help make this a reality.

A formal course would broaden your understanding and provide all the necessary resources to grasp the subjects and their applications. 

As a professional who has specialized in fashion communication, you can understand cultural trends, craft compelling visual narratives, and help build a brand identity. With new technological innovations and dynamic changes in the industry, trained fashion communicators can act as a bridge between fashion businesses and their consumers. 

What is Fashion Communication?

Fashion Communication helps fashion businesses convey their visions through various media. It involves creating marketing materials, designing advertisements and packaging, developing unique typefaces and logos, and engaging displays for visual merchandising.

Read Also: Top 10 Essential Tech Skills for Fashion Designers

It helps analyse trends and forecasts and create compelling visual content that engages audiences and builds a strong and recognisable brand identity.

Why Should I Pursue a Career in Fashion Communication?

If you want to explore some of the emerging areas in fashion, this could be your pick. 

• A fashion communication career would allow you to use your design, marketing, and writing skills. You can shape a brand’s identity, tell its story, and help them stand out. 

• You can also educate people through using your fashion journalism and writing skills.

• Studying the subtleties of forecast analysis and trendspotting is essential for fashion businesses. Fashion communication courses provide all the skills you need to study trends and understand the zeitgeist.

• With a formal course, you get to study the psychosocial aspects of society through the lens of fashion. 

• You can also explore areas with rewarding career prospects like PR, image creation, and UI/UX Design.

1. An  Expanding Area in the Fashion Industry

Fashion communication provides all the tools and resources that help leverage the growing career opportunities in the industry. You can explore your passion in multiple niches and broaden your horizons, landing jobs across different industries.

• Fashion businesses now require distinct brand identities to stand out in a highly competitive realm. 

• With interactive experiences in stores, immersive window displays, and mixing AR/VR with traditional space designs, Visual Merchandising is evolving fast.

• There’s an increasing demand for creative UI/UX design. This is accompanied by rising demands for innovative graphic design in social media posts, digital ads, website content, etc. 

• Creative and sustainable packaging design has been trending for a while. Consumers are moving towards a more eco-conscious purchase pattern, looking for reusable packaging. Brands now focus on innovative packaging designs that reinforce brand values and reduce waste generation.

Read Also: 5 Reasons Why Our Fashion Design Course Will Set You Apart

2. Explore Diverse Speciality Fields

Once you complete a formal course, you can work in multiple fields based on your interests and skills. Let us explore some of these niches in a little more detail.

• Space Design

Space Design focuses on visual elements to highlight the key items on displays, play with lighting, and add to the overall vibe of a retail space/showroom. 

You can further specialize in designing retail spaces or showrooms, exhibitions, fashion show stagings, and pop-up stores.

Effective Visual Merchandising catches people’s eyes, makes shopping easier, and fits with the brand’s identity. It is designed to enhance the experience of shopping in-store.

• Fashion Media

If you are working in fashion media, you would approach the discipline with a journalistic approach. You will develop a deep understanding of zeitgeist, analyse forecast and their social context, and be an expert in trendspotting. 

In fashion media, you get to study and educate people about the future of fashion and analyse the psychosocial and cultural contexts associated with it. 

You can work as a blogger, or communications manager, or if you want to write about fashion, you can work with magazines or work as a copywriter as well.

• Fashion Styling

Styling involves putting together looks using different pieces of clothing and accessories in a way that is appealing and fits the context.

If you are a stylist working with a brand you will focus on putting together outfits in a way that represents the brand’s values, its aesthetic, and its identity. If you are a personal stylist, you will work with ensembles that reflect the wearer’s aesthetics, taste, and personality. 

You can explore curation styling – a field that is globally popular but only just developing in India. It includes various aspects of creative theme development, and garment selection, and emphasises building a narrative. As a fashion stylist, you also get to build capsule wardrobes, bringing each piece of clothing to life. 

• Visual Communication

As the name suggests, visual communication includes designing lookbooks and creating editorial layouts for magazines and online publications. You will create visuals representing a brand’s identity and values.

This niche includes graphic design, advertising design, promotional materials, and social media content. The goal is to get potential consumers’ attention through visual storytelling and deliver the message clearly.

• Photography

Photography is integral to visual storytelling and building a narrative. It portrays a brand’s story and its values and connects with people emotionally.

High-quality photos are also effective in highlighting intricate details in garments and accessories. Photography helps maintain consistency while brand building. It is integral to fashion communication for its marketing power.

3. A Variety of Job Opportunities

Fashion communication has a multi-disciplinary approach. It allows you to explore other related niches like digital marketing, content and copywriting, photography, and fashion management. 

With this kind of comprehensive study, you could have a diverse and unique portfolio of work. This can help you land well-paid jobs with some of the leading recruiters.

Job Titles	Entry-level salary in INR (₹) Per Annum
Retail Space Designer	3,00,000 – 4,30,000
Fashion Journalist	4,00,000 – 4,50,000
Copywriter/ Content Writer (Fashion)	2,00,000 – 3,00,000
Communication Manager (Fashion)	3,50,000 – 6,20,000
Fashion Stylist	3,00,000 – 4,00,000
Fashion Photographer	3,80,000 – 4,50,000
Graphic Designer	3,90,000 – 5,10,000
UI/UX Designer	3,00,000 – 6,50,000
Visual Merchandiser	3,00,000 – 3,50,000
Magazine Designer	2,70,000 – 4,60,000

Read Also: Fashion Designer Salary in India in 2024: A Brief Understanding

4. Understanding of the Global Fashion Industry 

Fashion Communication courses are designed to equip you with the knowledge and understanding of the global fashion industry. It helps get a better idea of trends, understand innovations in fashion, and get an insight into consumer behaviour in different parts of the world.

Knowledge of the industry at the global level helps place fashion in a cultural context and analyse psychological and social factors impacting fashion and vice versa. It helps acknowledge diversity and avoid appropriation. 

You can create a brand image that will resonate with people globally and keep up with global competitors.

5. Embrace The Latest Trends in The Industry

Staying updated with the latest trends is crucial to remaining relevant. You can incorporate trends into your campaign designs, styling, and visual merchandising to engage better with the audience. 

Acknowledging and adapting to new trends reinforces brand values and showcases its evolution over time. It also generates innovative designs and styles.

The basis of embracing trends is understanding forecasts. Brands can become trendsetters and influence the market by optimizing seasonal and macro forecasts.

Conclusion

Fashion communication has been at the forefront of fashion business in recent times. It has a significant role in educating people about trends, and sustainable choices and designing promotional campaigns and visual elements that make a brand stand out.

AAFT’s School of Fashion Design offers a range of Undergraduate and Postgraduate degree/diploma courses in fashion communication. These are designed to address the psychosocial impact of fashion, understand trend forecasts and apply it in Indian and Global contexts. Facilitated by expert faculty members, they provide insight into the ever-evolving industry. The curriculum provides opportunities for internships, classroom projects, and independent projects that would help you build a strong and impactful portfolio and land the job of your dreams.