Fashion design portfolios are used as commercial business samples by designers looking for manufacturers and buyers, establishing a line of products and marketing them directly. A strong portfolio is a key step to employment as a Fashion Designer. There are no gray areas in the requirements for a successful fashion portfolio. Fashion is a trillion dollar a year industry. To succeed, professional designers need to be experts, and to know the industry's needs and preferences very well.It is important to make your portfolio professional and concise but also of a high enough standard to give you the advantage in interviews.These are all primary requirements:
What to include in your Portfolio:
Creative research work – remember your references should not just come from fashion, these should be broad, displaying your knowledge of other areas of society and culture.
Development – it is important to show detailed development of a concept into a collection or piece of clothing. Your design work should be coherent and you must be able to explain and justify the concept.
Drawing – Figures should be well drawn and neatly presented. It is better to use a template figure and repeat it than to include really bad illustrations.
Informative Flat Drawings – it is an important skill for production in the fashion industry to develop a clear and concise flat drawing technique. A successful flat drawing is in correct proportion and displays the appropriate details for manufacture i.e. seams and fastenings.
Appropriate work for the company interviewing – you should compile a portfolio of the work most appropriate to the company you are seeing. E.g. if you are interviewing with a tailoring company, make sure most of your folio is tailoring.
How to Display your Portfolio
1. Work should be in reverse chronological order, i.e. the most recent work at the front.
2. Volume of work – your portfolio should be edited and concise. This keeps the interest of the interviewer and shows respect for their time.
3. Keep it Neat! – Your actual folio should be in good condition.
4. Size – A3 or A4 size is always best! Any larger is unnecessary and proves awkward to look at, manage or carry
5. Fill every page – by this we mean do not have any blank pages in your portfolio.
6. Keep it up to date – When looking for a job bear in mind that your portfolio is not only a record of what you have done but more importantly an indication of where you want to go.
A. Issues in creation of fashion design portfolios
1. The aesthetic component: Fashion is always a current, ongoing, thing, and design considerations are highly mobile in terms of style. Contemporary styles and aesthetic values change rapidly, and you need to be very much up to date with your portfolio content.
2. The commercial element: In this sector, every garment, shoe, and fashion look is costed, literally two cents per unit. Commercial costs and values are the drivers of the mainstream fashion industry. You must have your costs clearly defined, and understand clearly the importance of these factors in a buyer or manufacturer's choice of commercial products. If you're marketing your own designs, and paying for the manufacturing, you must cost your products very accurately.
3. The technical aspect: Technical requirements relate to production issues. Production costs and sales margins are extremely important in all areas of fashion. Your designs, textiles, materials and piece work require exact information for production purposes. A garment manufacturer will need to see clear specifications and material identification.
B. Types of portfolio
There are several types of fashion design portfolio. You may find your portfolio becomes several sub-portfolios like these:
Seasonal: These are the Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter collections types of portfolios.
Mainstream: This includes all forms of casual wear, the basic street clothes demographic.
Business: Men's and women's suits, shirts, the "executive fashion" ranges.
Teens: The youth culture streetwear, often including many extra design elements and cultural values.
Children's fashions: The most profitable of all fashion ranges, and the most demanding.
C. Marketing tips
Each type of portfolio requires marketing to buyers and manufacturers. To market your portfolio effectively, you need:
1. Strong design content: High impact designs have the "dazzle" effect. They're technically and visually impressive.
2. Current year's fashion standards: The current market is the focus of all commercial considerations by clients. Be conscious of the current market, and be clearly up to the standards of the day.
3. Specifications: Good information for clients regarding all aspects of each design, clearly laid out, including types of material.
4. A market pitch: This is "market identification", meaning explaining to which market the fashions are directed. (This is particularly important with new products by new designers.) Successful portfolios are good matches with client markets.
D. Presentation
Critically important is how you present your portfolio. There are several ways of doing this very effectively:
1. Online presentations: You can literally have your own fashion show online. It's a cheap, high visibility method, easy to access for your market.
2. Hard copy portfolios and samples: These can be extremely effective. This is the old style of fashion presentation, but actually seeing the products is often an excellent selling point.
3. A mini-fashion show for the client: This is a simple, effective method which shows off the fashions in the preferred environment.
There are no hard and fast rules when it comes to putting together a portfolio but this advice is based on what we look for and it seems to be the winning formula of those portfolios which are successful in interviews.
It is important for you to understand that your portfolio is a communication tool. It should be easy to read and you must be able to explain it - it should only include work that you are happy with and can defend.
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