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Fashion Designer Resume Examples to Help You Build Yours

Use these fashion designer resume examples and tips to create a resume that shows off your best creative skills and accomplishments.

Ho Lin Profile
By Ho Lin 5 minute read

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Fashion Designer Resume Example

Fashion Designer Resume Example

What to highlight in a fashion designer resume

Becoming a fashion designer isn’t easy and takes a lot of skill and creativity to be considered for a designer role. If you’re looking for a fashion designer role, you can rise above the competition by creating the perfect resume. To do this, your resume should show off your fashion skills, clothing line knowledge, creativity and qualifications.

How to write a fashion designer resume

The structure of your fashion designer resume largely depends on how much experience you have, your qualifications and whether you’re applying for a senior or entry-level role. Usually, your resume will contain sections dedicated to these subjects:

  • Personal summary 
  • Skills 
  • Work experience 
  • Education

Depending on whether the job description and posting state that you need specialist experience, qualifications or skills, you may have sections that differ in length and importance. 

 

Header

 

Your resume header section is the first part of your resume and contains your key contact information. In this section, you should include:

  • Your name 
  • Location 
  • Phone number 
  • Email address

You should also include links to professional networking sites like LinkedIn. This is a great way to show off how many industry contacts you have. Fashion designers may also have vast portfolios of original designs. You can include a link to any websites you have that showcase this to illustrate your creative and unique designs.

 

Resume summary

 
Your resume summary is a brief section that summarizes the rest of your resume content. You can use this section to introduce your skills and experience to the employer, explaining why you’re the ideal candidate for the role. You should include information that is eye-catching as this can encourage a hiring manager to keep reading and invite you to an interview. You should consider your most impressive qualities such as specialist certifications and sustainability certifications such as Global Organic Textile Standard. You can also include brief explanations of any experience in fashion shows, product lines, technical design and more!
 

Skills

 
The skills section of your resume is a chance to show the hiring manager or recruiter that you have the necessary capability to be a successful fashion designer and fulfill the job description. Depending on your resume format, your skills section may be the most important section of your resume. 
 
Functional resumes are an example of skills-based resumes, whereas chronological resumes focus on the experience. Combination resumes are great for candidates with lots of work experience and relevant skills.
 
Your skills section should contain a good mix of both hard skills and soft skills. Hard skills are learnable skills specific to a fashion designer role, and soft skills are personality traits that are transferable to many different industries.  If you’re struggling to think of the right terms to sum up your skills, you can use these bullet points to inspire your fashion designer skills section: 

  • Skilled in both men’s and women’s fashion 
  • Adobe illustrator 
  • Adobe photoshop 
  • Knowledge of contemporary fashion trends 
  • Collaborating with a design team 
  • Pattern making 
  • Product development 
  • Technical skills 
  • Fashion merchandising 
  • Experience in New York Fashion Week 
  • Communication skills 
  • Sourcing 
  • Graphic design 
  • Creativity 

Work history

 
Fashion design is extremely competitive, and candidates will usually need lots of industry experience before they’re noticed for their designs. Therefore, the work experience section of your resume is very important for showing the hiring manager or recruiter that you know the fashion industry inside and out. 
 
You can list your previous experience in reverse chronological order, starting from the most recent example. If you have many years of experience, try and stick to the last 10-15 years of examples. This ensures you only provide the hiring manager with the relevant information. 
 
You can list your role in the design process in brief bullet points below each job title. In this section, you should also include the employer’s details like company name, location and the dates you started and finished each job.
 

Education

 
The education section is an important part of a professional resume as you might need a bachelor’s degree in fashion design. Candidates can also have degrees in art, graphic design and other creative subjects.
 
You should list your degree title, university and the year you graduated. You can also include your college GPA in this section if you graduated with a 3.3 or higher within the past year. 
 
Consider including a link to any items you designed as part of your coursework if they’re displayed online. This can show hiring managers how your education has contributed to your knowledge of fashion design.

Create your resume

Do's and don'ts for a fashion designer resume

check sign Do's
  • Use fashion designer resume templates to help structure your resume.
  • Create a portfolio site you can link to from your resume. Include accomplishments such as your experience working at fashion shows to build confidence in the hiring manager.
  • Include information about any internships at fashion houses you have completed.
close sign Don'ts
  • Include your high school GPA or other nonessential info. Focus on the skills and experiences that best qualify you for the job.
  • Forget to feature job description keywordsin your professional summary so applicant tracking systems (ATS) scans your resume as a qualified job candidate.
  • Forget to use a resume builder to simplify and expedite your resume process.

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FAQ: Fashion designer resumes

Have questions? We’re here to help.

A fashion designer is a professional who takes responsibility for designing and creating unique clothes. A stylist is someone who puts together separate pieces of clothing to make a whole outfit.

Cover letters are a great way to explain your enthusiasm for the role. You can use a cover letter to go into more detail about your skills and experience, explaining why you’re the ideal candidate for the role. You can use a cover letter example to help you create a cover letter in just minutes.

Here are the best resume writing tips for creating your fashion designer resume:

  1. Proofread. There should be no spelling, punctuation, or grammatical errors on your resume.
  2. Use short sentences so you don’t clutter your resume with irrelevant information.
  3. Don’t use overly complex language. Your language should be accessible to both hiring managers, recruiters and applicant tracking systems (ATS).

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Ho Lin Profile
WRITTEN BY Ho Lin

Ho Lin is a Certified Professional Resume Writer (CPRW) and editor with two decades of experience in content strategy, creation, and development. He holds a Master’s degree in Creative Writing from Johns Hopkins University and his background includes experience aiding military veterans as they transition to civilian careers.

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