Career - Fashion Management and Backstage Management

What do you think when we talk of Fashion as a profession? Fashion designing, Fashion illustrating or maybe makeup and hairstyling. But the world of fashion is much more than designing trendy clothes and working with makeup and hairstyling. Fashion business management and backstage management opens up a plethora of multi-faceted options for a career in fashion.

The fashion industry has an enormous impact on the economies of various countries. It is emerging as drivers of climacteric and impactful economic value in the contemporary world's economy. A report published by the Statista Market Forecast put forward the expected revenue estimates in this industry to present an annual growth rate (CAGR 2020-2024) of 14.1%, thus making the fashion industry's market volume reach the value of 22,291 million by 2024. Modern times have come up with complicated and complex global and local issues; hence, we need novel and innovative approaches in the fashion business and fashion management to deal with these demanding and challenging issues.

A lot more effort is made and put into sustaining the fashion industry other than that made through fashion designing. This makes the fast-growing and mushrooming fashion industry put forward a gazillion of opportunities for the young fashion enthusiast to make a career out of it. Fashion management is one such career option that concentrates on the business and management of this industry.

Fashion business management orates a person's personality with multitasking (widening skill sets), agility and quick decision-making. Because of the challenges and current developments in this industry, informed decision-making, that is economical, socially acceptable, and ethical, is necessary, which requires a great deal of agile managerial skills. This helps one to work on real-life challenges, pose solutions and set resource priorities based on an analytical and cost-effective approach. Communication skills (diplomatic responses to conflicts and putting forward out of the box ideas to the involved parties is something that these jobs make you learn over time) is another essential trait that is improved.

With fashion business management, a person can work in different roles ranging from fashion merchandiser (a fashion merchandiser strategizes production planning based on market trends analytics) to fashion brand manager (a fashion brand manager plays with strategies to add to the brand value).

There are other facets, such as Fashion product management, Fashion Byer, Sourcing agent, Sales and Distribution Manager, Retail merchandiser, Visual merchandiser, Fashion market manager, PR, and event manager.

There are myriads of fashion institutes in India that offer fashion management as a course to be pursued for making a career out of it. National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT), Indian Institute of Fashion Technology (IIFT, Bangalore), Amity School of Fashion Technology etc., are some of the notable institutes.

Consumers are the drivers of the fashion industry. What is the value of fashion as an industry if there is no appetite to buy? Fashion shows are the inciters for the consumers to invest in the couture and even general clothing, making fashion shows a quintessential part of the fashion industry. Perfect fashion shows would remain a distant dream had there been no backstage managers, and this has been brought out well through a statement of Christine Margossian when she says, "A fashion show can't take place without a backstage manager. A real conductor of the model's preparation. They help to embody the soul of a collection. Think about clothing and then about a woman, that's what does a backstage manager". Backstage management is an important field of profession that has been there since the ages of theatres but has started to pose itself as a potential profession in the recent past.

The backstage manager brings all other professionals working for a fashion show to co-ordinate, co-operate, and work in a more orchestrated manner to bring out the desired outcome of the fashion shows. They must possess a sense of team spirit, cooperation and communication to deliver the vision with which the couture has been designed. They seem to be the designer's spokesperson and of the message tendency of the season. The institutes providing professional degrees in Event (backstage) management are Amity School of Communication, National Institute of Event Management, National Academy Of Event Management and Development (NAEMD).

With growing consumer demands, the fashion industry will thrive and flourish at a greater rate of growth. With this growth will come a great deal of professional opportunities in this industry. Fashion business management and backstage management are the two most recent professions. Fashion enthusiasts should look beyond fashion designing and styling to get better and new career options in the Fashion industry.