How Creativity Powers Every Career in Fashion

As many aspiring fashion professionals tend to perceive only the creative side in the fashion industry, we like to reinforce that not everything in fashion is about creativity, as many aspects and roles are tied to business, analytics, and strategies. However, it is undeniable that creativity is still an important part of the fashion industry. 

And yet, creativity is not only expressed in the ways you might think; it doesn’t exist only in the purely creative professions like designer, stylist, or visual merchandiser. 

Indeed, creativity in fashion is not confined to designing clothes; it is woven into every role within the fashion industry. Each role – from fashion marketers to buyers and digital experts – offers unique opportunities to innovate and contribute to the creative process. 

When we explain the different careers in fashion here on Glam Observer, we usually make a distinction between creative and business-oriented roles. While this distinction on the macro level indeed exists, it doesn’t mean that one goes without the other. They work hand-in-hand because even in the roles where strategies and numbers are at the core, there is lots of room for creative expression.

If so far you’ve been struggling to choose between creativity and business, or are afraid of not being creative enough because you cannot sketch and sew, today, I want to show you how you can use the best of both worlds. In this article, I will share how creativity is expressed across various roles.

How creativity is expressed across various fashion roles

Fashion Marketing

If you consider yourself an analytical person and a digital savvy with an artistic eye, then you have probably thought about fashion marketing. Though this career is part of the business side of the industry, it leaves room for a lot of creativity. 

Indeed, behind a strong orientation on analysis, fashion marketing is a very creative profession. Ideating innovative marketing strategies and creating engaging content are among the main responsibilities that create perceived value for a brand and drive sales. 

Here are a few tasks where you can express your creativity in fashion marketing:

• Campaign Development: Crafting innovative campaigns that resonate with the brand’s audience, such as Gucci’s whimsical storytelling or Balenciaga’s unconventional social experiments.
• Storytelling: Ideate and create catchy campaigns that tell a story and convey the brand’s identity.
• Content Creation: Produce engaging images, videos, and behind-the-scenes features.
• Creative E-mail marketing: As it’s becoming harder and harder to catch the readers’ attention, writing effective e-mails for marketing purposes is an art. From coming up with broadcast ideas to how you write them, creativity is the way to  drive traffic and sales.

Fashion PR

• Storytelling: Pitching fresh angles to fashion editors and influencers to secure press coverage. For example, promoting sustainability initiatives through compelling stories.
• Creative Writing – Hello Press Releases: Every form of writing – even an informative document like a press release needs some creativity to remain captivating and earn a place in the newspaper headlines. 
• Event Conceptualization: Prior to the organization of fashion events, such as product launches, press presentations, and fashion shows, fashion PRs take part in refining their concept. 
• Digital/Social Media Communication: Fashion PRs often wear the hat of social media managers for the day of the event, so they need to take photos and videos, create posts, and write captions, which requires creativity.
• Creative Networking: Building relationships with key figures of the industry (editors, influencers, celebrities…) cannot be done only by simply sending an e-mail or approaching people during events. Fashion PRs need to find creative ways to reach out to fashion professionals and cultivate relationships with them to keep them connected to the brand. In today’s world where people are over-solicited and in a busy industry like fashion, creative communication, and networking are a must. 

Fashion Buying and Merchandising

Despite its primary orientation to the business side of the industry, fashion buying and merchandising is also a creative career You will need to express your vision and creativity in this role to transform the brand’s creative vision into a sellable product and find a balance between the two.

• Creative Collaboration: Buyers and merchandisers don’t work alone but collaborate with designers to decide on the collections, ensuring creativity and business go hand-in-hand.
• Trend-Spotting: Buyers and merchandisers need to have a keen, creative eye to spot trends and predict what types of products, styles, and colors will sell best.
• Crafting Product Assortments: Viewing the collections and selecting product assortments for specific stores so that they sell.

Fashion Event Production 

The reason why some fashion shows became iconic and remembered even decades after is not only because of their impressive collections but also their amazing production. Therefore, the fashion event producer has to use imagination and creativity to conceive a memorable show and make the brand the star of the Fashion Week. They also work on other events such as VIP parties and product launches.

Here is how fashion event producers use creativity in their job:

• Runway Concepts: Create the mood board of the event and design creative show themes and layouts.
• Creative Logistics: Fashion event producers manage all sorts of creative logistics, such as finding the venue, setting the venue, putting the decor, and setting up lighting and sound.
• Choreography: They also coordinate how models showcase garments on the runway.
• Marketing: Fashion event producers also develop marketing strategies to promote fashion events and increase brand awareness.

Trend Forecasting

If you have always felt torn between creativity and analytics and thus undecided about which career in fashion to pursue, trend forecasting is actually one that combines both, so this might be the perfect role for you. In trend forecasting, you need creativity to work alongside your analytical brain, so you can think outside the box when anticipating the next big trends.

Creative Mindset: Trend forecasters use their creativity to envision new fashion. You must be able to find interest in researching trends and news and trying to spot any socio-economic shifts with a creative mindset of what could come of them in the fashion world. 

Predict next fashion trends: Drawing inspiration from art, music, and social movements to predict fashion’s next big ideas.

Mood board and trends reports: Presenting forecasts through mood boards or trend reports that inspire design and marketing teams.

Fashion Brand Management

Despite fashion brand management has a strong business core, the creative component must remain present across the whole business strategy. This career requires creativity when it comes to proposing new and unique strategies to make the brand stand out on the market.

Strategic Branding: Developing unique brand voices, like Jacquemus’s playful yet chic identity, and ensuring consistency across all touchpoints.

Fashion E-Commerce

While working in e-commerce, much of my time was spent at my laptop, but the creativity in my role was undeniable. From updating the website with exciting new arrivals and ensuring the homepage looked fresh and engaging, to visiting showrooms to explore new collections firsthand, my work combined the digital and the artistic.

Uploading videos of fashion shows added a dynamic, visual appeal, while updating the blog section with compelling stories about the brand gave me a platform to express the brand’s voice in a way that resonated with its audience. Even in this tech-focused role, creativity was essential to bring the brand’s vision to life online and keep customers inspired.

Website Updates: Regularly refreshing the homepage with new arrivals, promotional banners, and engaging visuals to captivate online visitors.

Showroom Visits: Exploring new collections firsthand to understand the pieces and how best to present them online.

Product Descriptions: Writing compelling, detailed descriptions that highlight the unique features and craftsmanship of each item.

Content Creation: Updating the blog section of the website with brand stories, styling tips, and behind-the-scenes insights.

Fashion Show Integration: Uploading fashion show videos to the website, adding a dynamic, immersive element for customers.

Styling E-Commerce Looks: Collaborating with the team to create cohesive, brand-aligned outfits for product pages.

Photoshoots: Planning and executing e-commerce photoshoots to ensure products look their best and align with the brand’s identity.

Visual Merchandising Online: Strategically organizing collections and products to guide customers through a seamless shopping experience.

Trend Monitoring: Staying updated on trends to ensure the online store reflects what’s current and desirable.

Collaborations: Working closely with designers, marketers, and other departments to maintain brand consistency across all touchpoints.

 As you can see, in most fashion roles, even the business-oriented ones, there is plenty of room to express your creativity.

Let’s also see how creative roles use creativity in their day-to-day jobs.

Fashion Design

Finding the Concept: Fashion designers develop creative concepts and themes for each collection. 

Creative Research Process: They conduct research and gather inspiration from everywhere: the archives, the streets, books, etc.

Mood Boards: As a starting point of their creative vision, designers use mood boards as a roadmap for translating ideas into tangible garments, guiding everything from fabric selection to silhouette creation.

Garment Design: Create detailed sketches and technical drawings of garments, accessories, and other fashion items, and then select the appropriate fabrics, materials, and trims for each design, and create the pieces on a sewing machine or by hand.

Fashion Styling

Curating looks: For fashion campaigns, editorials, runways, and personal/celebrity clients.

Inspiration and Research: Fashion stylists spend lots of time before the actual styling process by looking for inspiration and researching information from different sources: books, fashion websites, runways, past shootings but also movies and art. 

Mood Boards: Mood boards serve as a blueprint for stylists, helping them conceptualize and communicate their vision to clients and team members. By curating images that reflect the desired mood, theme, and aesthetic, stylists ensure cohesive and impactful fashion storytelling.

Telling a story through clothes: Stylists don’t just mix and match garments so that they look good together; they convey a concept/theme through the look/collection while staying true to the brand’s aesthetic/vision, and the client’s signature style/identity. 

Fashion Journalism

Writing Posts and Articles: Fashion editors and writers write and edit compelling content that drives readers in.

Cross-Platform Creativity: Adapting the magazine’s content for print, digital, and social media while maintaining its unique voice.

Focus on Narratives: Finding creative ways to express how fashion intersects with other mediums, like art, music, culture, andpolitics.

The Art of Pitching: Pitching article ideas to editors during editorial meetings or by e-mail to get your work published in a magazine.

Styling Looks: Many fashion editors also wear the hat of a stylist, so they curate the theme and looks for editorial styling and work along other creatives on set bringing their ideas to life.

Visual Merchandising

Designing Displays: Visual merchandisers use their artistic flair to create nice window displays, in-store arrangements, and themed presentations that align with the brand’s style and current trends. They can incorporate seasonal or thematic changes to keep displays fresh and exciting as trends and consumer behavior evolve.

Maintain Creative Consistency: Creativity isn’t just about building a project like a window display from scratch; trying to follow the creative outburst while maintaining consistency in aesthetics across all locations (if being in charge of the visual merchandising across several brands’ stores) is the hard part of the visual merchandiser’s creative job.

Graphic Design

Visual Stories: The graphic designer in a fashion house is responsible for creating visual assets and materials that communicate the brand’s identity, marketing messages, and promotional materials.

Art Direction

Coordination of all Visual Aspects of a Brand or Magazine: Art directors are responsible for overseeing, planning, and directing all imagery and visual aspects of campaigns, product shots, magazine covers, page layouts, and more. They collaborate with and coordinate with the creative teams, including photographers, stylists, and graphic designers, to develop visual concepts and creative strategies for campaigns, editorials, and other brand visuals. 

Consistent creative vision: The art director in a fashion house is responsible for overseeing the creative direction and visual aesthetics of the brand. They play a crucial role in ensuring that the brand’s creative vision is consistent across all visual aspects.

Creativity powers almost every career in fashion – from the most creative ones to more analytical ones. Next time, we will share how to showcase creativity to fashion recruiters.

Want to land any of those roles? We teach how to in our Break into the fashion industry course.