MBA in Fashion Management - Careers, Salary, Jobs, Scope

MBA in Fashion Management: Brief Summary

Why MBA in Fashion Management?

Who wouldn’t have dreamt to work in a fashion industry at least once in their life?

Estimated at $2.4 trillion worth worldwide in the year 2016 according to the McKinsey Global Fashion Index, the sales of the industry are forecasted to triple between 2016 and 2018. If you’re still not sure to opt for this course, this article is tailored for you to figure out if Fashion Management would be a right fit for you.

MBA in Fashion Management is a PG level degree course for students in the Fashion Industry. A person with a fashion degree could only design clothes but a person with MBA in Fashion Management can design the clothes and sell them effectively.

The course curriculum of fashion management involves creative marketing, innovative fashion management practices, forecasting trends, and other business practices in industry internship as well as Industrial visits.

Below is a list of top colleges offering MBA in Fashion Management:

• National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT)
• Vogue Institute of Fashion Technology
• MIT Art, Design and Technology University
• Jaipur National University
• Amity University
• Amity School of Fashion Technology
• Pacific University
• NIMS University
• Subharti Institute of Management and Commerce
• Sai Nath University
• Kalinga University

Some of these tasks are performed MBA in Fashion Management graduates are developing advertisements and campaigns, directing manufacturing and marketing, creating sales strategies, etc.

Apart from the normal eligibility criteria for MBA, candidates should have the following traits while opting for Fashion Management:

• They should be really creative with innovative ideas.
• They should often be willing to think outside the box.
• Should have good communication skills to deal with future customers.
• They should have an interest in business management.

Graduates of this degree get to work in all kind of design based industries from cloth industries to furniture industries like Godrej Interio, Tommy Hilfiger, Adidas, Ikea etc. Depending on the role one may work in an office setting or may have to travel frequently.

MBA in Fashion Management: Job Roles and Career Opportunities

The most popular job roles that are offered to students with MBA in Fashion Management are:

• Fashion Product Manager
• Fashion Brand Manager
• Marketing manager
• Fashion Consultant
• Personal Stylist
• Customer Relation Manager
• Fashion Promotion Professional
• Fashion Coordinator
• Marketing Consultant
• Digital Marketer

The detailed description of the top five job roles are:

Fashion Product Manager

Nature of Work: A product manager is a person who strives to develop the product considering the consumer requirements and feedback and so “Market Research” is one of his pivotal tasks. He is also the one responsible for the pricing of the product.

Types of Companies: Companies that work on fashion based products like Adidas, Pantaloons, Titan, etc have these positions.

Eligibility: At least a Bachelor’s degree in one of the courses like fashion management, advertising, marketing, and sales is needed and one or two years experience in the relevant field.

Fashion Brand Manager

Nature of Work: Brand manager is responsible for the promotion of brand and improving the brand value. He should analyze the market well and devise strategies to take the brand value to next level. Brand plays a prominent role in the sales of a product and so the brand manager.

Types of Companies: Companies that manufacture and sell branded fashion products from accessories to cosmetics like Lotus, Pantene etc.

Eligibility: At least a Bachelor’s degree in one of the courses like fashion management, advertising, marketing, and sales is needed and one or two years experience in the relevant field.

Fashion Market Manager

Nature of Work: The success of any company can be measured by its marketing strategies. The market manager must understand the mentality of his product’s customers and come up with marketing strategies that increase the sales of the product.

Types of Companies: Every company that markets fashion and beauty products have positions for market managers. Examples are Gucci, Reliance Trends, Garnier etc.

Eligibility: At least a Bachelor’s degree (any field) is needed and one or two years experience in the relevant field.  Academic or professional background in statistics, finance, marketing, economics, business law, and accounting would add a great value.

Fashion Consultant

Nature of Work: Subtle details in the design like color can make a major difference in the look of the product. A Fashion marketing consultant is the one who has a great sense of fashion and gives fashion suggestions like which pattern suits well with which color and so on. He plays a great role in increasing sales by helping customers to find a product that suits them well.

Types of Companies: Companies that design products like Forever 21, Reliance Brands etc.

Eligibility: Experience in retail or consumer service or a bachelor’s degree in fashion or related fields.

Personal Stylist

Nature of Work: People are more conscious about their looks these days and it raised the need of personal stylists. Not all people are good at choosing things that look good on them, personal stylists are those people who help their clients attaining the looks they needed by selecting clothes, shoes and other accessories for their clients.

Types of Companies: Usually personal stylists work for people than companies. Celebrities hire a personal stylist to maintain their image in the society.

Eligibility: No formal education is needed. Voluntary certification and prior work experience may be needed.

Brand Manager

A Brand Manager monitors trends in the market and supervises advertisement and marketing activities. His/her goal is to ensure that the right message is delivered about his/her product. A brand manager works with many teams such as developers, marketing researchers, etc.

They work on normal office hours (9 am to 5 pm), with usual deadlines to meet by every weekend. She/he can work for consultancies as well as the in-house marketing department. If you’re working with an International brand, you’ll be needed to travel overseas as part of your job. In India, a Brand Manager earns an average salary of Rs. 914,699 per year.

Retail Manager

Retail Manager is in charge of running of stores or departments, including management of staffs, stock, and resources. They also have to check if the customers are getting good services at all times, as well as to maximize profit. As a result, they have to manage the budget, promote business, planning, pricing, managing stock, etc.

Working hours of a retail manager depend on the working hours of the store, but most of them work from 9 am to 6 pm. A Retail Store Manager earns an average salary of Rs. 3,60,505 per year, according to payscale.com.

Technical Designer

Essentially the engineers of the fashion industry, their goal is to ensure the design as well as the quality of the product. You will also create a Technical Package, which are pages containing sewing details, points of measurement, wash description, label/hangtag placement, bill of materials, and packaging instructions. The average pay scale of an experienced technical designer is around Rs.14,00,000 per year.

Costume Designer

A costume designer works alongside the director, lighting engineer, sound engineer, etc and designs costumes for the characters, and to make sure the scene is balanced in terms of texture and color. Such a job requires a lot of travelling to different sets or places, fashion centers, etc.

The salary of a costume designer can vary between Rs.1,20,000 and Rs.6,94,000 per annum. Additional perks may include health benefits, paid vacations and free international travel and accommodation depending on where you work.

MBA in Fashion Management: Salary

The average salary offered to MBA in Fashion Management fresher with 1 to 4 years of experience in Fashion Management is 6,25,000 INR annually. The salary increases to 8,50,000 INR annually for a person with 5 to 9 years of work experience. Payment varies with the designation, skill, experience and, location in which the persons works.

Usually, there is segregation in pay scale based metropolitan and tier-2 cities. The demand for Fashion related jobs increases day by day as people’s interest in Fashion related items is on an exponential rise.

Recruiters

Specializations offered

There are 2 common specializations in MBA Fashion Management.

• MBA in Fashion Merchandising and Retail Management: This program helps students to understand the changing trends and devise strategic plans to stand out from the competitors. Careers like  Fashion buyer, Fashion Merchandiser, Product Designer and developer, Design Consultant & Entrepreneur, Exporter, Retailing outlets can opt.
• MBA in Fashion Design and Business Management: This program helps students to understand all the management related concepts in the Fashion Industry. Careers like Fashion Entrepreneur, Fashion Merchandiser, Merchandise Planner, Product Developer can opt.

Syllabus

Major subjects that would be taught in the management course of Fashion are:

• Principles of Fashion Management and Fashion Marketing
• Global Fashion Industry
• Entrepreneurship and Project management
• Customer Relationship Management
• Fabric Knowledge and Global Sourcing
• Visual Merchandising
• Fashion Forecasting and Product Development

The common topics covered in this specialization are as follows:

Popular Colleges offering MBA in Fashion Management

• NIFT: NIFT-National Institute of Fashion Technology, New Delhi is a government institute. The admissions are based on an entrance test. Students with an undergraduate degree and students with minimum three years of Diploma from any recognized college are eligible. The average salary of a NIFT graduate is 5.5 lakh. The fee of the course is 2 lakhs approximately.

• Vogue Institute of Fashion Technology: It is a private fashion design college. The admissions are not based upon any entrance tests. The eligibility is graduation in any field. There are on-campus placements. The average salary of a graduate from this college is 5.6 lakhs. The fee of the course is 5.6 lakhs.

• Amity School of Fashion Technology: It is a private college. The admissions are based upon management entrance tests like CAT, CMAT etc. The eligibility is graduation in any field with a minimum of 50%. There are on-campus placements. The average salary of a graduate from this college is 6 lakhs. The fee of the course is 2.55 lakhs.

MBA in Fashion Management: Requirements

Since it is a management degree, candidates need to clear national/state level entrance tests for getting admission into top colleges. There are entrance tests for admissions in MBA such as CAT (Creative Aptitude Test), GMAT (Graduate Management Admission Test), NIFT (National Institute of Fashion Technology) entrance exams. All the above exams are objective and eligibility for all exams are the same:

• Candidate should have an Undergraduate Degree from any Institute / University recognized by law in India or an Undergraduate Diploma of minimum three years duration from NIFT.
• Candidate should at least be 18 years old with no upper age limit.

A minimum aggregate score of 50% (45% for SC/ST candidates) at the level of graduation.

Why should you choose to do an MBA in Fashion Management?

As said in The State of Fashion 2018 by The Business of Fashion and Mckinsie& Company, “In 2018, an important tipping point will be reached when, for the first time, more than half of apparel and footwear sales will originate outside of Europe and North America, as the main sources of growth are emerging market countries across Asia-Pacific, Latin America, and other regions.” This clearly explains the global growth of the Fashion Industry.

Fashion Industry will keep on growing with the need for more and more people, who love Fashion. Another best part of this field is that there is a wide range of jobs you can apply for. Thus, there are practically a limitless number of possibilities from working for a small store to big brands, to even making your own brand.

In India, with the boom in the e-commerce industry, the emergence of new platforms like Myntra, Jabong, KOOVS, Flipkart, Amazon have given a push to the Indian fashion industry. In return, creating a lot of job opportunities for fashion management graduates. With the increasing branch reach, more managerial positions are required.

To conclude, the scope of MBA in Fashion Management is massive and for those interested in pursuing a management course in this field, this course might be a perfect choice.