Foranyone who is determined to be a fashion designer，itis not enough to have succeeded in college.The real test is whether they cansurvive，and become establishedduring their early 20s，making a name forthemselves in the real world where business skills can be as important astalent and creativity.
Fashionis a hard business.There is a continuous amount of stress because work is at aconstant and extremely fast speed to prepare for the next season'scollections.It is extremely competitive and there is the constant need to makeattractive advertisements of the latest fashion in newspapers and magazines.Italso requires continual freshness because the appetite for new ideas is hard tosatisfy.“We try to warn people before they come to us about how tough it is.”says Lydia Kemeny，Head of Fashion atSt.Martin's School of Art in London.“And we point out that drive anddetermination are absolutely necessary.”
This may seem far removed from the popular opinions offashionable young people spending their time designing pretty dresses.That maywell be what they do in their first year of study but a good college won't beslow in introducing students to commercial realities，“We don't walk our foot on the blossoming flower ofcreativity but in the second year we start introducing the restrictions of price，producing ability，marketingand so on.”
Almostall fashion design is done to a brief.It is not a form of selfexpression assuch，although there is certainly room for imagination andcreativity.Most young designers are going to end up as employees of a produceror a fashion house and they still need to be able to work within thecharacteristic style of their employer.Even those students who are most modernin their own taste of clothes may need to adapt to produce designs which areright for the mainstream of the market.They also have to be able to work atboth the expensive and the cheap end of the market and the challenge to producegood design inexpensively may well be demanding.
