Fashion, fashion, fashion. It fascinates, intrigues and is often fantasized when it comes to making a career. But what are the trades that make it up? Is the market buoyant? What profiles are you looking for? Here is a decryption of a singular medium.
Different employers
"The official list of crafts includes 281 professions classified in 16 areas," says Fanny Danthez, responsible for monitoring at the National Institute of Crafts (INMA). In the fields of fashion, accessories and textiles, there are then more than twenty trades, among which: hatter, corset, pattern maker, floral parlor, plumassier, tailor, embroiderer, lace maker or weaver, for none to mention a few ... But the luxury sector is also know-how in the fields of leather or jewelery for example (leather goods, saddler, boot maker, glove ...).
Beyond crafts, clothing and its galaxy of jobs
All these trades can be performed in large luxury homes, but also in smaller structures or as an independent. "The actors of luxury make live a whole network of subcontractors," says Fanny Danthez, citing a study conducted by the firm Mazars in 2014: "The leather goods represents 441 companies, the manufacturers 200, the shoe 83 (including twenty shoemakers), glove making 20 when jewelery and watchmaking align respectively 12,200 and 3,700 jobs ". Around the crafts, which are the hallmark of luxury companies and Haute Couture houses, it is a whole professional world and its galaxy of professions that has developed to form the vast sector of clothing that are ready to wear. The French Union of Fashion & Apparel Industries counts 2,500 companies, employing 40,000 employees in France and more than 300,000 abroad.
Creative professions: between tradition and modernity
Whether working for luxury or ready-to-wear, creative professions are at the heart of the fashion industry and revolve around three fundamentals: clothing, accessories and the overall image of brands. "The professions within the creative studios are very varied, like the students who follow the courses. Coming from schools of fashion, applied arts, graphic design, video, photography, industrial design, they must now meet new challenges, "adds Karine Piotraut, director recruitment and career management at within the French Institute of Fashion (IFM). Ecological issues, intelligent and connected clothing, and atypical materials, modeling techniques: haute couture and ready-to-wear have become areas of experimentation. These include improving manufacturing processes and developing product customization. For Fanny Danthez, "tools and machines, such as digital printing and laser cutting and engraving, are being developed to assist the hand in specific operations. These new technologies are not intended to replace creativity but to support it and stimulate know-how.