By Kelvin 
Amongst the many new age career options of today’s youth, fashion designing leads the list. The age old art of tailoring has taken a new meaning with people preferring to wear something different than the usual. With globalisation, our country has also got exposed to the different designs and cuts in clothing. With a booming economy in the last three decades and a growing awareness towards fashion, fashion designing has become a great career option.
The thriving fashion industry of Bangalore:
With a robust IT based economy and presence of multinationals and a cosmopolitan culture, Bangalore has had a great demand for good fashion designers. With a booming IT sector generating immense employment opportunities and presence of multinationals ensuring high salaries to the employees, the spending power of the population has increased and this has led to more expenditure on clothes. Designing clothes for this highly fashion aware population has provided great career opportunities to fashion designers. Also with a great cotton and readymade garments export industry in the nearby areas, fashion designers are being lapped up by the industry, leading to further interest of the young generation towards this career option. The glamour quotient being very high has also resulted in attracting students towards choosing a career in fashion designing.
This huge demand for fashion designers has led to a host of fashion designing colleges in Bangalorewhich provide various fashion designing courses to the aspiring students.Some of the colleges are government funded but mostly these colleges are privately owned and have chains across the country. This is a very vast industry and has a lot more to it than just designing clothes. The students are trained in production; designing, merchandising etc and all aspects of clothes are covered.
Forstudentspursuing a degree or a diploma in fashion designing in Bangalore, they have many options to choose from as far as the institutes are concerned. The basicqualification for an undergraduate course is 10+2 or its equivalent and for a post graduation courses a graduation or 15 years of study. One can either opt for a one year diploma or a three year degree course which involves intensive study in a particular field of choice.Some of the reputed institutes offer admissions only on the basis of national level entrance tests while others intake students merely on the basis of interviews.
Some of the top fashions designing institutes in Bangalore are:
- NIFT ( National Institute of fashion technology)
- J D Institute of Fashion Designing
- Indian institute of fashion technology
- Vogue Institute of fashion technology
- Diva Fashion Academy
- Osteen College
- National school of fashion arts and design
- Vidya fashion Academy
- International Institute of fashion design
- Fashion Institute of Technology
Besides these institutes, there are many institutes which offer various fashion designing courses in Bangalore. The students have option to choose from a degree or a diploma course. Institutes offer B.Sc. and post graduate diploma courses in Fashion Design, fashion Design Communication, Textile Design, Fashion marketing and retail management, Fashion Business Management, Branding and Advertising, Luxury Brand management, Fashion Women’s wear, Fashion makeup to name a few.
Fashion designing from Delhi:
If we talk about some of the premier fashion designing institutes of India a name that tops the list is NIFT Delhi. Amongst the most premier Institutes for Design, Management and Technology in the country, it has churned out some the best professionals in the fashion and business world. It has 12 domestic centers all across the country and has further made its global presence by establishing its centre in Mauritius as well. The head office of National Institute of Fashion Technology Delhi is in Hauz Khaz, New Delhi.
The vibrant campus of NIFT:
The campus of the institute is quite pretty with cool corridors, a vibrant and colorful canteen and an amphitheatre which students call ‘kund’. The foyer of the campus is forever buzzing with activity. One can find students putting the final touches to their projects which are then submitted for the assessment by the jury. The evenings are the time when students get together in the amphitheatre and organize cricket matches and ‘kavi sammelans’. The campus is quite energetic and is full of amenities that are modern and equals the best in the world. An infrastructure that is spacious and creative defines the building of the institute. There are fully operational rooms for lectures, studios for designing and centers for activity on the campus as well.
The students of NIFT have a creative streak in them and known to be free thinkers! In order to satisfy their creative hunger they are always organizing cultural weeks and events on the campus. One such event in the campus was Spectrum 2012 which had the theme of Udan Khatola. Every department actively participated in the event and played a major role in it. The preparations for the event started in full swing two weeks prior to the event. All the themes were in tune with the main theme of” Udan Khatola”. A Fashion show was organised in which the students auditioned and took part from different departments. It was team work all the way. The juniors helped the seniors in completing the garments. They then put up their unique stalls outside their departments. The flow of creativity was visible everywhere. Each department had their unique way of expressing their creativity which was pretty evident in all their designs. Decorating the college was also a major part of the festival. It was again the responsibility of the students to make sure that the job was done well and finished on time.
The market for fashion professionals is huge in cosmopolitan cities like Delhi, Bangalore Mumbai etc which have a strong earning class and high fashion consciousness. A qualified fashion designer can either go for an own venture by opening up a boutique or a fashion house or opt for working in a fashion or export house. Retail chains are also appointing fashion consultants for their high end stores where customers are given free advice on their clothing. The market is huge and a career in fashion designing goes a long way in cementing a good future.
Author Bio
Manoj is a professional blogger and content writer for Shiksha.com. He regularly contributes her thoughts about different educational information like IT courses, about fashion designing courses, medical courses and many more.
RS