The key aspects for fashion related roles are your objective, skills, qualifications and experience. Although the industry is a creative one, your CV must be easy to read, concise and very positive – this is all about ‘Can do!’
Portfolio
If you have a portfolio of work then include a link to the website where examples can be properly shown. This is often best positioned with your contact details – together with your name, address, contact number, email address and URL to your LinkedIn profile.
Objective
This should incorporate your qualities, elements of your experience and your objective. Which of your personal qualities match your targeted role in fashion? Typical characteristics include high energy levels, passion about the industry and the ability to work in a fast paced environment. Think about these and marry them to a working style that achieves results. You can then finish this section with a statement about what you are hoping to achieve in your next role. For example:
‘œDriven, creative designer who thrives on the challenges of creating provocative women’s clothes for everyday use. Working in a boutique retail outlet in the heart of London’s Soho for three years, provided an opportunity to sell personally designed accessories for winter and summer collections and contributed to an annual turnover of £750,000. Having completed a degree in fashion at Marsley Design College, now seeking to work with a dynamic market innovator.’
This objective is obviously written with a fashion designer in mind, applying for jobs in the field. Tailor your objective to make it relevant to your target job. If you are aiming for positions as a buyer then being able to identify trends and negotiate will be important. A retail manager usually requires great customer service skills and attention to detail. Think about the essential criteria for your role and then write accordingly.
Education, qualifications and training
Include your most recent fashion related information first and then work backwards, before writing about your other educational qualifications. If you achieved a good result then by all means include it and conversely, leave this out if the result was poor. For example:
‘œB.A. (Hons.) Fashion Design Marsley Design College 2009-2012
2 A Levels including Fashion & English St Swithins College 2006-2009′
This candidate achieved low grades in their A Levels but avoided mentioning the actual grade.
Career history
Include all previous roles and internships, starting with the most recent. A description of responsibilities should focus on those that are relevant to your target job. Use action words, such as ‘led’, ‘managed’, ‘created’ – these will help to make you seem dynamic and achievement oriented.
Speaking of which, try to describe your responsibilities in terms of achievements, rather than just writing a list of duties. For example:
‘œActively supported the senior design team in producing a winter and summer collection, cutting fabric, dressing models and solving supply problems that contributed to an award winning show in London’s West End.’
Your responsibilities can easily be described in terms of the contribution to an overall effort, which helps to provide context to your activities and can strengthen your experience by association.
Additional skills
This is a useful section to include other relevant information, such as IT skills and languages. Include the skill and the level with ideally some information on how you have used it. For example:
‘œIT
Grafix Intermediate – incl. producing 3D fashion modeling
MS PowerPoint Intermediate – incl. inserting animated slides
MS Word Intermediate – incl. using graphs, tables and charts
Languages
Spanish Intermediate – incl. conversing with college students in Seville for an inter-collegiate design project’
There is nothing to say that you must include all skills – concentrate on the ones that are relevant to the job you are targeting.
Good luck!