We are often asked by aspiring fashion designers and those who just start learning fashion design, if it is necesary to be able to draw if you want to become a fashion designer.
We asked the faculty of fashion design at the Italian e-learning fashion school to answer this question and tell you in detail what drawing skills are needed for a beginner fashion designer.
What does a fashion designer draw?
First, let’s figure out what fashion designers should be able to draw.
In their work, they draw clothes in two different ways:
- Artistic sketches
Artistic sketches are beautiful sketches of models wearing clothes. Artistic sketches can be color or black and white. They do not show the details of clothing and serve simply as an idea for the image, they show some kind of inspiration. - Technical sketches of clothes
This is just a schematic representation of what a clothing model looks like.
For example, at the Italian e-learning fashion school, we teach both artistic sketching and technical sketching in the fashion design course.
Artistic sketch
Technical sketch
Should a fashion designer be able to draw clothes?
In fact, a fashion designer should not be an artist. He must be able to convey the idea of the clothes he wants to create. The main thing is to understand what he wants to create.
However, everything is not so simple here.
In connection with the established tradition in many universities, the fashion design departments devote a huge amount of time to drawing and painting lessons. And there used to be an idea that a fashion designer should draw well.
Therefore, if you want to work as a fashion designer in some manufacturing company or in some brand, then you will be asked to show a portfolio. This portfolio should show drawings of clothes done in a professional manner. Moreover, some companies may ask you to show artistic or technical sketches of clothes, made not by hand, but with the help of computer programs.
If you want to work as a clothing designer in an atelier, then knowledge of computer programs is not required there, but most often they want a clothing designer to know how to draw a beautiful artistic sketch of a clothing design on a model.
If you want to design your own clothes, then you can display the sketches however you want. You can draw them schematically, you can use the collage technique, the style of drawing is absolutely not important. It is important here that the tailor and the designer understand you, who will create clothes according to your drawings and patterns.
Is it difficult to learn how to draw clothes for beginners?
Some people believe that being able to draw clothes or being able to draw in general is a talent given by nature since childhood. And if you didn’t go to art school as a child, then you won’t succeed, and you will never become a fashion designer in your life. It is not true!
In fact, absolutely anyone can learn to draw. It is enough to understand the scheme for creating a woman’s figure, and how to display clothes, folds, etc. on this scheme.
How long does it take for a person to learn how to draw clothes?
It does not take much time to learn how to draw clothes.
For example, in our lessons in the course of fashion design, after the first lesson, the student learns to draw a female figure. In the third and fourth lessons, he learns to draw simple basic clothing models for this figure. In fact, in one or two months you can learn how to draw a model with clothes.
