Career opportunities in Leather Designing

Confused about your career? Want to choose  something different? Leather Designing is one of the rapidly growing fields in the  prospect of Designing.  Leather products such as  Footwear, bags, belts, accessories, apparel etc are in high demand in international market.These products are manufactured in India and extensively exported  to the luxury brands. Leather Designing focuses on an integrated design perspective and emphasises on the integration of design concepts with material knowledge  to meet up with the human resource requirement of the industry. " Design is a growing field and it is finding new corners and platforms  outside the already established ones in the area. Leather Designing is one such field  that is coming up in a big way", says Sanjay Shrivastava, Director Nift Patna.

What you need to know about the course?

You basically learn about Leather as a Product and tanning processes,  Surface techniques, Design and Fashion study, pattern making and  Grading , Production planning and control , Computer application and CAD ,  design methods and prototyping,  Practical knowledge of the industry through industry internships and graduation projects, etc  . Thus,  the career opportunities after persuing Leather Designing  are  Product Development/designing, Apparel manufacturing, Apparel wholesale/export/import, Leather Accessory designing,  Merchandising, Trend forecasting/Analyst, etc . These occupations expect the person to  be able to  Design leather products, Manufacturing of the final product as designed through various steps like cutting , stitching, polishing, examining leather samples, staying abreast of the latest trends,  consulting dealers, coordinating with employees, working within budget, sourcing material, Costing, Branding etc. Leather designers earn up to  4.5 lakhs  per annum  on average.

How to become a Leather Designer?

One can persue B.Sc  in Fashion Designing/ B.Des. in Leather Design/ B.Tech in Leather Technology for 3-4 years / Diploma in Leather goods and accessories for 1 year after completion 10+2 . Colleges like NIFT, FDDI, GCELT etc offer courses in Leather. Admission in these colleges can be done through their common entrance examination.

Designing  makes you understand human problems and generate their solutions. Designers are doctors of man as well as machine, they bring about change. Being a designer you are capable of manipulating and analysing human minds. It simplifies  complications. Gives you the power to add meaning to everything.

So, keep Designing, keep Exploring, Be different!