If you’re like me, you take fashion very seriously. You’ve got a strong personal style, and you’ve developed a set of enviable skills. Your battle station is the stuff of legend among your coterie. You know what’s hot, what’s not, and how to achieve the former. But for you, fashion is still just a hobby, one that you’re passionate about, but a hobby nonetheless. If this sounds like you, and you want to take things to the next level, there are a few ways to go about it. If I were you, I would look carefully at how you make your money. Do you love your work as much as you love fashion? If not, why not quit what you’re doing and start working in fashion? I know that sounds easier said than done, but with more than 10 million people employed in the fashion industry, you can definitely find employment in this field. Harder things have been done. You just have to have some natural talent and commitment. I’d say that commitment is the more important characteristic of those two options. After all, hard work beats talent if talent doesn’t work hard. If you haven’t realized that before, write that down and put in on your mirror. Tattoo it on your forehead. If you are passionate about fashion, but don’t consider yourself especially talented, let that saying be your mantra, something that drives you to the career in fashion you so desperately desire.
If you’re going to break into the world of fashion, you can do it within the industry and without. It takes a lot of work to get within, and most people aren’t born there, so most people start in fashion well outside its inner circles. This is where I’m going to focus my energy today. People working their way through the cracks of the fashion industry are going to do it as models, thinkers, or doers. I’ll talk a little about each one.
1) Models are what you think they are, but they’re also a little more. Models aren’t just the beautiful people that walk down the runway. They’re also people who become fashion icons, if only in a small way in their little communities. If you have a great personal style, you are in effect a model, exemplifying what fashion is at any given moment as you walk around and go about your business. If you are really good at this, it’s easy for you to morph into a paid model, into a designer, a curator, and editor, or anyone else who wears or shows other people how to wear fashion.
2) Doers are people who make other people look good. These people go to cosmetology school and learn a million techniques off of Youtube to give them the skills to make people beautiful. You’ll see people like this graduating in the hundreds from Marinello schools of beauty every year. Marinello schools are a really good example of how this educational model can build up an entire industry. By making their education affordable and accessible (60+ locations around the country), Marinello schools of beauty creates opportunities, and doesn’t leave their students broke on the other side of graduation. If you are interested in know the ropes of how beauty is done in the real world, go to Marinello schools of beauty and find out.
3) Thinkers are your bloggers and journalists. They have an intellectual relationship to fashion, one that may or may not have anything to do with the way they dress. They are able to articulate what fashion is doing at any given moment, and they drive its development through their words.