What can you go to college for with sewing?

Question

I love to sew, I have won 2nd place in State for sewing and I've been doing it for 3 almsot 4 years now. I've been sewing since I was about 7 but it was very on again off again. Its now time for me to go to college and do something with life. I would like to do something with my sewing but I have no idea if there is some kind of degree out there to get, if there is what is it, and what I can do with it? Being a fashion desiner is very hard to get into and I want to be able to enjoy my job, I guess I'm not big on the idea to be the next Vera Wang or something. So any ideas of what I can go into?

Answer 1

There are other careers in the design or fashion industry besides being a head designer like Vera Wang. You could get into textiles or interior design or even fine art. At lot of these fields are about the craft and technique as much as they are about the creative design aspect.

Answer 2

If you love and have a talent for sewing but fashion design field is not your option, then there's not really much out there. Fashion design degree is the route, but most likely you'll be working for a head designer for a company either sewing, pattern making or assistant design. After getting your feet in the doors, maybe pursue couture fashion which is the highest level in garment making and possibly making a name for yourself as being one of the best in fashion "construction."

Answer 3

Some of the things you can do with sewing:

Textile conservation (several associations -- usual entry is through a museum studies major)

Production sewing or teaching production sewing (you might like being a samplemaker) (try LA Trade Tech)

Design, marketing, patternmaking, draping -- schools like FIDM, FIT, Parsons, El Paso Community... try reading http://www.fashion-incubator.com

Home ec type sewing (which is what you probably know, and is different from production work) -- teaching, working for sewing machine or fabric companies as staff or freelance; magazine writing  (check the various college guides for what's offered)

Textile science/development (usually a joint science/textiles program at a university)

Costumer (check http://www.costumes.org)

Niche markets, such as adapted clothing for special needs -- you'll generally need skills such as patternmaking, draping, construction and good analytical skills.

A couple of suggestions from an old college science prof:

If you want to go to college, don't just spend the first two years taking general studies -- dig to find programs and people you're interested in emulating, and then talk to them about how they got to where they are.  Try to get some experience with them to see whether you really want to spend your career building costumes or restoring Peruvian mummy wrappings or  cutting patterns or whatever.

If you're really unsure of what you want to do and if you want to go to a trade school or to a university, take a year off and work whatever jobs you can find that are closest to what you think you want to do.

If you decide to go the college route, and textiles are truly your passion, look to see how your gen ed and other "boring classes" bear on your interest in textiles.  For instance, why were members of the Lewis and Clark expedition outfitted with Revolutionary war uniforms?  What were they made of? How would they compare to current clothing for such an expedition?  Are the currently touted "green textiles" like bamboo rayons or organic cottons truly "green"?  etc...