JD Institute of Fashion Technology
Can A Fashion Designer Work From Home?

Fashion designing always demands creative and imaginative passion. The designers cannot work correctly without the right work environment. Fashion designer jobs require a lot of group work, discussion, and monitoring. From selecting fabric to designing patterns, you need to work in a team. 

It is thus difficult for them to work from home. Once the product gets ready, they need to market them or present them to the client. However, the Covid 19 pandemic made everybody work from home. With such difficulties, the fashion designers also had to adopt the “work from home” approach. 

Factors for which work from home is difficult for a fashion designer

There are many reasons for which a fashion designer cannot work from home. The job is such that they need to meet the client, arrange for fashion shows, display items to clients, market them, and select the fabric. 

All this is not possible from home. At times you need to travel up to a particular destination for meetings. You might also have to make tours as the company demands. 

Being a freelancer also requires you to display and sell your items to clients, which is not possible using technology. You cannot show your client the type of fabric you used over a video conference. 

There are many more reasons to the list. Some of the primary reasons are discussed below:

Location 

Fashion designer jobs in India and abroad need a proper location to work at because:

• Space is required: Ample space is needed for drawing patterns, cutting fabric, sewing, and monitoring the work. Thus fashion designing firms need big houses to do work. 

• Separate lighting arrangement is necessary: These houses also need much light arrangements and cloth racks to store products. In work from home, you do not get such arrangements.

Even as a freelancer, you need a workshop or some space for working. That surely cannot be your home. You can avail of a cost-effective place, but you have to shift your business to another site in order to grow it. All these are not possible at home. 

Team

As an individual designer, you may work on your own and design patterns. However, big companies and personal brands have a more extensive set of employees who work for them. The work of the teams are: 

• These teams lead the work of the companies by gathering together. 
• They decide over patterns, choose materials, and do much other work consulting each other. Fashion designing is wholly based on good teamwork. 
• The team members include seamstress, designers, pattern makers, marketers. 
• There is a manager to every project who monitors and supervises everything going on. They also check whether the designs and patterns are trendy or not. 

These are not possible to work out from home. 

Time 

The fashion designers do not get any free time. They need to sacrifice many things.

• They might have to work for extra time.
• They sometimes need to skip proper lunch, sleep, and many more things, depending on the work pressure. 

Working from home might ease returning, as they do not have to stay in the office. But it will slow down the pace of work because:

• At the office, you have a work atmosphere, but at your house, you may turn lethargic. 
• You also need to fix meetings and meet deadlines if you choose a fashion designer career. 
• Meetings over video conferencing are not always possible. 

At times you need to select models for fashion shows, but that is impossible from home. You need to find out what suits the model as styling the model is an essential part of these shows. 

You also need to check and recheck that standard of production does not fall. Monitoring over all these things is not possible from home. At home, you will face many more distractions, which will slow down your work speed. 

Travelling 

A fashion designer is always expected to be flexible in travelling. It is so because:

• They have to travel often to meet many people and clients. 
• They also need to travel to attend fashion shows. 
• Purchasing fabrics and other supplies also need to be done by them for which they need to travel.

These works are not possible if you work from home. As a fashion designer, your job is not only to design. You also have to do much fieldwork for the brand you are working for. 

Keeping An Eye Over The Trends

Being trendy is an essential part of a fashion designer. Fashion designer vacancies always search for a candidate who is aware of the current trend. This helps the company grow faster, keeping in mind the market demands. To follow up with the current trend, you need to:

• Browse through different fashion magazines. 
• It would be best if you also visited various fashion shows to see what’s going on. 

Though you can follow up a magazine or browse the internet from home, you cannot visit a fashion show by sitting at home. 

Besides that, you need to design, keeping in mind the trends. You have to discuss it with your team, show them how a new design works, and much more. All these cannot be done correctly from your home. 

Did “Work from Home” Work in Lockdown?

As a result of the pandemic, work from home became a necessary thing. Though remote working had been a part of corporate life for some time, the fashion industry could not adopt it wholly. 

Maybe a day or two could be work from home, but fieldwork is essential in this industry. At the same time, some used their previous folding tables to work on some preferred floor. 

Selecting a fabric was hectic. Over video calls, you cannot do those works. This proved again that work from home is difficult for the fashion world. 

Conclusion 

The Job of a fashion designer may be glamorous, but it is hectic too. It would be best if you visited your firm daily for work. It would help if you also had tight schedules without breaks. Work from home is not that easy for fashion workers.