Fashion Merchandising & Fabric Shops
I recently met a fashion merchandising student who had graduated from university; she’d had never been in a fabric store and had no basic sewing skills. I know that you don’t have to be an expert sewer or pattern maker to be a designer or a buyer and maybe it doesn’t matter if you don’t know anything about fabrics to be a fashion merchandiser, but wouldn’t you want to?
OK call me old school but fabric knowledge should be a basic of the course! And also why wouldn’t you not know about fabrics is a good question – it’s like being an accountant and not knowing about calculators – a bad analogy but you get my point.
I know a lot of young designers/graduates who don’t even know their basics about fabrics too… and no neither can I understand why they won’t want to. When they ask for my help to get certain fabrics, they ask for “Cotton”, and so I’m like “Cotton.. ok… cotton what? (jersey/woven?!)” and ask them what construction methods (it’s very important, no? I mean a Cotton Twill and a Cotton Herringbone or Poplin can be very different…)… and they just tell me they mean like t-shirts materials…! (and look at me like I’m an weirdo idiot…!)