How To Succeed In Fashion? Study The Masters, From Rick Owens To Stella Mccartney

You have style, you have grace but you arent sure that you have what it takes to make it as a fashion designer

. Take heart! Designers like Rick Owens and Stella McCartney demonstrate that there is more than one pathway to success.

Drop out of fashion school

This popular path to success as a fashion designer has been embraced by many big names, including Michael Kors, Alexander Wang, Ralph Lauren and Donna Karan.

California-raised, Paris-based designer Rick Owens dropped out of what is now known as the Otis College of Art and Design after just two years of study. The reason? He had learned enough in his pattern-making classes to find work in the trade.

Stay in fashion school

Stella McCartney went to Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. AnnDemeulemeester went to the same Antwerp fashion design school as Dries Van Noten and Walter Van Beirendonck.

Change your name

Rick Owens wasnt always Rick Owens. He was born Gene Schenker. Michael Kors was born Karl Anderson Jr., but was invited but his mother to change his own name, at age 5, when his mother remarried. (Perhaps most interestingly, he was allowed to design his mothers wedding dress!)

Keep your name, but align yourself with a group

Ann Demeulemeester told W Magazine that she and the other Antwerp-trained designers of her generation had incredibly difficult names for the world It was far more easy to say the Belgians, rather than Ann Demeulemeester or Dries Van Noten.

Cut your teeth by working for someone else

Rick Owens worked for others before launching his own label. But Karl Lagerfeld is perhaps the most famous example of this approach. He apprenticed for Pierre Balmain and has worked as head designer for Chanel.

Refuse to work for anyone else, no matter how many times they ask you

Intrepid Belgian designer Ann Demeulemeester is famous for having refused all offers of work from other fashion labels. Her independence is said to be very important to her.

Play with gender expectations

Rick Owens is known for his high heel boots for men. Ann Demeulemeester has unisex outfits. And a long list of designers (Jean-Paul Gaultier, Dries Van Noten, Walter Van Beirendonck, Philippe Dubuc) have designed skirts for men. Marc Jacobs is renowned for having embraced the male skirt himself.

Unabashedly feminine or masculine

Think Valentinos glamourous frocks or Dries Van Notens military-inspired designs for men.

Be born into it

Dries Van Noten was born into a fashion family. Rick Owenss mother is a seamstress.

Make your own way

Ann Demeulemeester credits her parents with being very supportive of her, but they were not in the fashion world themselves. Her father worked in academia as a specialist on the chicory root.

by: Percy Evans

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