CAREER OPPORTUNITIES IN FASHION AND APPAREL INDUSTRY

Today's fastest growing industry is none other than "Fashion and Apparel" offering the population with varieties of opportunities in variety of fields. The apparel industry is the second largest employment provider in India and has been a great foreign exchange revenue earner. The government of India has announced its ambitious plan targeting $ 50 billion by 2010 from the present earnings of $ 4 billion. This is focused to apparel export market. Besides it is estimated that the domestic market will grow to the tune of Rs. 23,000 crores, during the same time span from the present Rs. 2000 crores. But there is an acute shortage of highly trained professional with skill sets required by the apparel industry today.
The Government of India and various state governments have recognized the importance of this employment intensive and employment generating sector of the economy and have initiated various steps to encourage investment in this industry, including setting up of APPAREL PARKS in various cities across the country. One such apparel park is coming up in Bangalore , which will house 108 export garment factories each having a capacity of approximately 400 machines, this one single apparel park due to be started by this year end will generate approximately 50,000 new jobs in various departments and in different capacities. These jobs will be available only to those who have prepared themselves for this opportunity by getting trained in the field of Fashion and Apparel Technology.
Fashion as a cycle never completes and always stands for creativity and talent. Being one of the necessities of life, it depicts one's personality and status. The competition factor has added a lot to this industry and helps one to be a path breaker plus set his/her own fashion trends. The competition between the customers to present themselves in a better way has added spice to this. Fashion industry provides opportunities for illiterates to the highly qualified personals. It provides chance to work for government, non-government and self-employment sector.

One can jump into this ocean of opportunities as a : -
. Fashion Designer : - both for apparel and textile industry. These people can come up with their own boutique, participate in exhibition & fashion shows (like Ritu beri, Ritu kumar, Rohit Bal, who set their own fashion trends) or else work for leading garment manufacturers. They can work as designer for theatre, movies, window display, journals & magazine, commercial art, advertisement, fashion trend setters, fashion forecast. One can earn highly lucrative salaries depending upon talent and opportunities.
. Merchandisers, Line Development Managers, Production Managers, Quality controller, Finishing Managers etc.:-
A Merchandiser in a garment industry will co-ordinate all activities right from procuring the orders, negotiating with foreign buyers, costing, pricing, ensuring quality standards, documentation and shipment. This job involves more of technicalities and gets opportunities to travel around, attend fashion shows and international events. They can earn high salaries depending upon the factory and their experience and performance.
. Production Managers : A Production Manager in garment factory has the responsibility to execute the orders procured by merchandisers. He has to ensure the procurement of appropriate machinery, the plant layout, the machine layout, the appropriate process of work flow, batch setting, management of the labor force as well as co-ordinate the sourcing of fabrics and accessories and execute the production with in the specified time periods.
. Quality and Finishing Managers: Work for checking of quality right from material to finished garments including checking of accessories and trims. They even take care of packing, packaging and final appearance of the product.
. Retailer, Brand Managers (Fashion Marketing): There are a great number of opportunities opening up in the fashion retail sector, big names like life style, shopper stop etc are constantly expanding their operations. It is projected that in the next two years there will be an increase of more than 100 such massive retail stores, this presents itself into a enormous employment opportunity for those who are trained in the areas of fashion retail management. Salary levels are exceedingly high with no upper limits. You can get a chance to work for sales, promotion, distribution and advertisement. They will be getting incentives based on their performance or fulfillment of targets.
. Apparel industry also provides employment as tailors, supervisors (line supervision, batch supervision, production master, batch master and also as helpers in cutting section, finishing and assembling).
Not only this it offers opportunities for other fields like Fashion Photography, Modeling, Hair styling etc.
To get you advanced in Fashion field, Indian Institute Of Fashion Technology is providing a helping hand by offering you with various courses with assistance through Industrial visits, Seminars and Implant training. The courses cover both the designing and technical aspects of industry.

Please contact
Indian Institute of Fashion Technology,
#3, 1/6, MC Road, 1st Cross, VIJAYANAGAR, BANGALORE-560079
Phone: 080-23107668/23407668/9980097300/9980097400.
Email: info@iiftbangalore.com
Website: www.iiftbangalore.com