Fashion Designer Resume: Examples & Writing Guide [20+ Tips]
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Fashion designers like you can transform fabric into wearable art. But is your resume a masterpiece or just another off-the-rack number? That’s the tricky part.
But fear not! We'll help you weave a fashion designer resume highlighting your unique talents, ensuring you become the must-have addition to any design house's roster.
This guide will show you:
- A fashion designer resume example better than 9 out of 10 other resumes.
- How to write a fashion designer resume that will land you more interviews.
- Tips and examples of how to put skills and achievements on a fashion designer resume.
- How to describe your experience on a resume for a fashion designer to get any job you want.
Want to save time and have your resume ready in 5 minutes? Try our resume builder. It’s fast and easy to use. Plus, you’ll get ready-made content to add with one click. See 20+ resume templates and create your resume here.
Sample resume made with our builder—See more resume samples here.
Targeting a specific job in the fashion industry? Check out our guides:
- Fashion Resume
- Fashion Stylist Resume
- Model Resume
- Event Planner Resume
- Photographer Resume
- Video Producer Resume
- Retail Resume
- Visual Merchandising Resume
- Graphic Designer Resume
- Best Examples of Resumes for Any Job
Fashion Designer Resume Example
Alice Yi
ayi@gmail.com
323-401-1046
Objective
A talented and customer-oriented designer with an eye for commercial fashion and detail in product styling. 7+ years of experience in a luxury brand environment. Eager to join Givenchy to set a creative tone and inspire new ideas and concepts. In previous roles created a highly acclaimed men’s summer collection that boosted sales by 35% relative to the previous year.
Work Experience
Senior Designer
Escada, New York City, NY
2016–
- Designed exquisite fashion items in line with the brand’s aesthetic.
- Served as the design lead for the 2018 men’s summer collection team.
- Oversaw seasonal conceptualization and creation of men’s accessories, incl. bags and belts.
- Managed the entire product design process, from initial market research to mood board creation to sketching/designing to delivering the end product.
- Participated in the conceptual development of directional product lines, incl. pitching original ideas & concepts.
- Oversaw technical designs of products from concept to factory, incl. fabric and trim selection, meeting and selecting vendors, etc.
Key achievements:
- Designed a men’s summer collection distinguished by Marie Claire’s and Vogue’s editorial teams for its Art Nouveau style. The collection turned into commercial success by increasing sales numbers by 35% YOY.
Associate Designer
Dior Homme, New York, NY
2012–2014
- Created commercial designs that reflected the conceptual direction and business strategy of the company.
- Designed seasonal products focusing on style, fit, and fabric.
- Applied processes to anticipate the needs of the customer in order to exceed customer expectations and readily react to their needs.
- Built and maintained effective relations with 5+ key partners.
- Collaborated and followed-up on deliverables with vendors and key partners throughout the entire design process, incl. merchandising, preproduction, and product development.
Key achievement:
- Researched and created an experimental men’s collection based on a new fabric blend.
Education
B.A., Design
University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL
2012
Key Skills
- Design and conceptual skills
- Multitasking
- Excellent sense of style and color
- Construction techniques
- Organization
- Time management
- Communication
- Presentation
- Leadership
- InDesign
Languages
- French—Communicative
- German—Communicative
Interests
- Portrait photography
- Painting (esp. pointillism)
This is how to make a fashion designer resume worthy of the next Karl Lagerfeld:
1. Choose the Best Format for Your Fashion Designer Resume
To paraphrase a Karl Lagerfeld quote—
A respectable resume appearance is sufficient to make recruiters more interested in your skills.
Here’s how to make your fashion designer resume template look bold and beautiful:
- Start off with a resume header that stands out. Use it to present your personal information on your resume.
- See to it that the resume section titles are reader-friendly and well visible.
- Go for the most effective resume format. Most often, the chronological resume layout will serve you best.
- Select good resume fonts. What are these? Easy to read, not too fancy, and ATS-compliant.
- White space is your friend, so avoid cramming in too much into your fashion designer resume.
- Confused about the resume file format? Here’s the PDF vs Word resume rule. Stick to PDFs unless you’re asked to deliver an MS Word file.
2. Write a Fashion Designer Resume Objective or Summary
Want to be sure your fashion designer resume makes an unforgettable impression on the hiring manager?
Get your professional profile right. Write either:
A professional summary is the right option for candidates with over 2 years of experience. A resume summary contains about 2 or 3 sentences focused on your past duties and key accomplishments.
A career objective will usually top a fashion designer resume for freshers. In contrast to the summary, it’s all about the skills you’ve learned and how they turn you into a perfect candidate for the position.
Regardless of what type of intro you write, make sure you include specific examples and justify them with numbers and percentages.
Pro Tip: Don’t start writing your fashion designer resume with this section. First, write your entire document, and then write the short version.
3. Create the Perfect Job Description for a Fashion Designer Resume
Now—
Let’s describe your work experience on a resume.
The trick is to focus on what’s relevant to the position.
Follow these tips to make a bespoke fashion designer resume:
- Put your latest position up top and follow it up with the previous ones.
- Each entry should consist of your job title, company name, location, and dates.
- Describe your experience using bullet points. Stay below 8 bullet points for each job.
- Your fashion designer resume must be made to measure. How? A tailored resume focuses on your relevant experience.
- Start each bullet point with power verbs, such as designed, built, collaborated, managed, oversaw, etc.
- Back up your experience with numbers and percentages whenever you can.
Pro Tip: Having a hard time quantifying your experience? Select up to 3 things you can quantify and single them out in a separate key accomplishments subsection.
4. Make Your Fashion Designer Resume Education Section Shine
Let no detail escape the recruiter’s attention on your fashion designer resume.
Listing education on a resume is just as important as everything else and can be done in a flash.
Here’s how:
- If you happen to have >5 years of professional experience, list your degree, school name, and the graduation year. You’re done.
- Under 5 years of experience? Consider adding information on your GPA (if you scored more than 3.5), academic achievements, extracurricular activities, or relevant coursework.
Pro Tip: You can put your professional certifications on a resume in a separate section to increase their visibility.
5. Highlight Your Fashion Designer Skills
Use the list below as a source of inspiration to make sure you always put your best suit forward:
Fashion Designer Resume Skills
- Adobe Illustrator
- Adobe InDesign
- Budgeting
- Client support
- Colorways
- Commercial fashion
- Construction techniques
- Draping
- Excellent sense of style and color
- Fabrication
- Leather
- Luxury fashion merchandising
- MS Office
- Presentation
- Pressing
- Sewing
- Silhouettes
- Trim
- Adaptability
- Analytical skills
- Attention to detail
- Collaboration and teamwork
- Communication
- Conflict resolution
- Critical thinking
- Decision making
- Design and conceptual skills
- Leadership
- Multitasking
- Organization
- Problem solving
- Schedule flexibility
- Teamwork
- Time management
Make sure to focus on the relevant skills.
Here’s how to pick out the best skills for your fashion designer resume:
- Prepare a list of all your skills and abilities. Include your soft and hard skills, as well as technical strengths.
- Go back to the job posting to see what skills the employer is after specifically.
- Now consult your list to see if you have the skill set required for the position.
- Populate the key skills section of your resume with up to 10 of your best skills.
- Focus on your strengths. Don’t pick the skills you only have a basic understanding of. This way you’ll avoid the presenter’s paradox.
Remember to put your skills throughout your entire resume, not just the skills section. Your resume summary, objective, or job description are just as good!
Based on an analysis of 11 million resumes created using our builder, we discovered that:
- Fashion Designers usually list 14.8 skills on their resumes.
- The most common skills for Fashion Designers are creative vision, patterning skills, fashion design, quality assurance, and attention to detail.
- Resumes for Fashion Designers are, on average, 2.1 pages long.
Creating a resume with our builder is incredibly simple. Follow our step-by-step guide and use content from Certified Professional Resume Writers to have a resume ready in minutes.
When you’re done, our online resume builder will score your resume and our resume checker will tell you exactly how to make it better.
6. Add Other Sections to Your Fashion Designer Resume
Want to look better than the rest? Add extra sections to your fashion resume, to show what you have up your sleeve.
Add info on your:
7. Attach a Cover Letter to Your Fashion Designer Resume
Just think about it:
Half of the recruiters want to read your cover letter. And you can never be sure which half your fashion designer resume will end up with.
So, do write a resume cover letter. Follow our tips to do it in no time:
- Decide on the right covering letter format.
- Start with a killer cover letter opening sentence.
- Describe what you have to offer. Not what you want.
- Remember that the ending a cover letter should include a call to action.
Plus, learn how long a cover letter has to be.
Pro Tip: Don’t forget to write a follow up email for a job to boost your chances.
Plus, a great cover letter that matches your resume will give you an advantage over other candidates. You can write it in our cover letter builder here. Here's what it may look like:
See more cover letter templates and start writing.
Here we are!
That’s how you write a job-winning fashion designer resume.
Are you writing a fashion designer resume for the first time? Or perhaps you’re a seasoned pro eager to help the rookies out? We’d love to hear from you, leave your comment below!
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