The fashion industry is in dire need of professionals with technical skills, as universities stopped providing students with skills related to functions which are usually outsourced. Now, technologies such as 3D design, big data and artificial intelligence are widening the gap even more, because it is hard for academia to keep up with such a fast-paced market. 62 percent of fashion managers struggle to fill certain positions, according to a survey by fashion innovations company Alvanon, shared in exclusivity with FashionUnited. Alvanon interviewed a total of 642 fashion professionals from all over the world, 64 percent of them working at management level or above.
“We’re in a war for talent”, said Sarah McConnell-Haynes, Sourcing Manager at childrenswear retailer Carter’s, who took part in the survey. “Every buying office or trading company I talk to, I ask ‘what is your biggest challenge’ and the answer is mostly around people and skills”, added Edwin Keh, Chief Executive Officer of the Hong Kong Research Institute of Textiles and Apparel (HKRITA).
“Academic institutions are still focusing on the glamour side of it. Students graduate thinking ‘I’m going to be a fashion designer’, without understanding the business, commercial and technical side of things”, noted Catherine Cole, Alvanon’s Executive Director, in an interview with FashionUnited during Centrestage, the fashion trade fair held in Hong Kong in September.
The problem is particularly evident in the lingerie industry, which requires more expertise due to its complicated construction. Clover Group’s CEO Angie Lau, another respondent in the survey, said:
“there is a huge gap between what our employees learn at school and what real life is like in the factory. There are frequent miscommunications between the design and production arenas, because students have not been introduced to or worked with fashion factories at school. When you have no access to factories, you just assume that things can be made. But then those working in the factory say: ‘I can’t sew that’. Or the pattern maker will say: ‘If I do this, it will require this much more fabric yardage, which will cost a lot more. So it’s all kind of linked together“, explained Janice Wang, Alvanon’s Chief Executive Officer, who also spoke to FashionUnited in Hong Kong.
Outsourcing is one of the main factors contributing to the problem. “When you outsource everything, people inside the country simply stop doing those things”, said Wang. Cole mentioned North Carolina, in the United States, as the perfect example of how outsourcing is causing a shortage of skills in the fashion industry. “North Carolina used to be a big textile producer. But, if you go there now, you’ll see many people in the industry talking about a 15-year skill gap in knowledge. That’s exactly when they started outsourcing to China. Suddenly, with ‘onshoring’ and people increasingly opting to shop locally, they just don’t have the skills”.