Online Education: Fashion Merchandising Can Give You a Career with Style

The world of fashion holds a great fascination for many people, but how can you get started in this career and making a living? An online degree in fashion merchandising could be the key.
Fashion merchandising is the business side of haute couture. Understanding how this works can be your ticket into a fashion career, and an online degree program can be your fastest path.
All merchandising depends on moving material through the supply chain and into the marketplace. At every stage of this process, there are people who make it work. In fashion, this means finding sources of textiles and other raw materials, overseeing production and shipping, arranging for stores to carry the finished products, and promoting those products to the general public. Every stage of this process represents a different fashion-related career.
Online education makes it possible to learn about this process without being held back by location or timing constraints. Depending on the specific job you plan to pursue, an associate's or bachelor's degree might be appropriate. Bachelor's degrees generally provide more career potential.

Designing Your Own Fashion Degree

Perhaps best of all, a degree in fashion merchandising can be very versatile, leading to a variety of careers in fashion merchandising--buyer, supply and production manager, or marketer. You could use it as a foot in the door of the industry, where you can then find opportunities to promote your own designs and concepts. Or, because the fundamentals of merchandising apply across all different retail product groups, you can emphasize the business side of your background to compete for jobs in any type of merchandising.
In short, a degree in fashion merchandising is like a quality piece of material; what you choose to make out of it is up to your particular style and talent.

Richard Barrington is a freelance writer and novelist who previously spent over twenty years as an investment industry executive.