Fashion

What is fashion to you? Everyone thinks fashion is simply the process of putting an outfit together, or that the fashion is defined by the largest shows and designers throughout the world.

However, the industry is so much more than this, and is bigger than the shows and the designers.

Most of the jobs are behind the scenes, in roles that you might not even know exist. For example, a lot of people aren't aware that there's a lot of tech and digital based roles in fashion like social media managers, fashion trend forecasters and digital marketers. There’s a whole team of people behind the clothes that land in your wardrobe, and another whole team behind fashion shows, and yet another team behind an actors' outfits in the scenes of your favourite TV show.

From Fashion Designers to Pattern Cutters, to Garment Technologists and Data Analysts, there’s a role for everyone.

  • 👏🏻In research conducted for the British Council by Ipsos Mori in 2014, 22% of young people in countries that are strategically important to the UK, cited fashion as being something that made the UK attractive to them, and 15% cited design.

    🛍Most people are in the business of selling clothes, not making them: Fashion retail employs 75% of people in the fashion world (roughly 400,000 people in both online stores and physical stores).

    📲Data in fashion is BIG business: Because the majority of clothes are now sold online, data is an enormous part of the industry and many fashion businesses have bigger data teams than design teams now.

    🌳Sustainability if the future of fashion: People are angry at the extreme wastefulness of the industry, so the secondhand clothing market is expected to be twice the size of fast fashion by the year 2030.

    ⚡️Currently around 555,000 people are employed in fashion, textiles and fashion retail in the United Kingdom

    🛍 The fashion industry in the United Kingdom has grown rapidly over the last 10 years! In 2017 it was worth an incredible £45.2 billion, which was an increase of 38% from 2007.

    🎀 Global exports increased 49% to £6.4 billion in 2017, making up 17.4% of all UK exports. This was a new record for fashion's contribution to the UK economy and a sign that Britain remains a leader in fashion design and innovation.

  • ⬇️ Down with fast fashion, ⬆️ up with slow fashion & ⬆️ sustainable clothing.

    👀You’ll potentially be able to try things on without even ordering them!

    🛍 There's also some talk about being able to order bespoke clothing, so the machines only have to make it once (which means for you, it's one of a kind!)

Like the sound of Fashion?

Learn more on the ERIC app through our industry guides. When you’re ready to explore further, you can start browsing the Fashion section for opportunities, events, courses and more!