As mentioned earlier, in American fashion companies, “designers” are generally divided into two parts, one is the “creative designers”, which is what we usually call “designers” – in the past, the name of the company was also generalized. Business cards are also referred to in this way in general, and only later more “creative” two words. The other part is “technical designer”, that is, for the creative designers to carry out technical support, such as layout artist, etc.. Over the years, thanks to advances in computer software, there has been a new category of designer, the “art designer,” which in integrated fashion houses also provides support for creative designers, but in the form of graphic arts.
When I interned at an outside company before I graduated, I met a lot of people who whispered to me that if I wanted to be safe, I should choose to be a technical designer, and that being a creative designer was too insecure. The company’s main goal is to provide a more secure environment for the company’s customers, so that they can be able to make a good living. I seem to understand the technical designers of one or two companies applied for the position, the results for a variety of reasons did not end, and finally took the road of creative designers. After so many years of doing this, I look back and think about what those people said at the time, and realize what they meant.
There are a lot of things that are common in fashion companies, and one of the most common is the high turnover of designers. The longest-tenured designers in the company, if you ask them, are not in the design department, but in the technical department, or even the back office. The reason is that industrial competition is too brutal, in the product into the store before this last step often appear a variety of problems, and once the problem, no matter which link, no matter how big the matter, the general rule is always: the management of sales must blame the management of operations, the management of operations must blame the management of production, the management of production must blame the operation of technology. These layers are still considered real, the problem is traceable. If the last really out of trouble, such as sales like unsatisfactory conditions, then each layer in front of the brain will be a brain to do the responsibility of the design, because the design of the most mute, the designer is also the most tongue-tied. And the responsibility to the designer, for any layer above, it seems the safest and most logical. Therefore, in the few companies I have done, which one is the designer to go the most, there is the initiative to go, more passive to go. Not to go, can do twenty or thirty years, have to be like my old boss Dangna, not married, do not give birth to children, but also lean, can not eat, not sleep, not to live a life of painstakingly with all the people and phenomena unrelated to the creation of the fight. Talking to the old people in the company, they would always shake their heads and say that the fashion industry is not what it used to be. Even a designer as big as Tom Ford could be fired by Gucci at the drop of a hat, which was once unthinkable, let alone an ordinary designer.
I saw a documentary called “Yves Saint Laurent, 5 Avenue Marceau, Paris” about the complete process of creating the last annual collection by the master. He directed his team, still using classical sewing methods, all by hand, to produce one beautiful garment after another. Everyone around him is quietly and painstakingly busy, but he is the only one who is at ease and working in a charming manner.
There may be other designers like this, but there is probably no such state of mind anymore.
Great German designer Jill Sander, for example, joined PPR Capital with a brand she had created and named after her; a year later, they parted ways over different ideas. Her people left that company, but her brand could not be taken away by her, because according to the contract, it no longer belonged to her personally. Now the brand continues to appear in Paris fashion shows every year, but it is the company’s newly hired designer, Ralph Simmons, who comes out to take a bow at the end. The fact that this kind of thing used to happen only after the death or retirement of a designer is now happening to a living, working designer shows that it is indeed not the designer’s time anymore.