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Are you always smartly turned out? Do you look for the latest in fashion trends? Do your friends appreciate your sense of dressing? Then, you could probably seriously consider a fabulous career option in the Retail Sector as it is all set to take off in a great way.

You could explore the thousands of job opportunities, which the sector offers. Here is a brief about what the retail sector is all about. Retail is not about designing alone. It is all about the business of Clothes---How to create, manufacture, buy, sell, present, project and even manage large retail stores. There are opportunities in retail sales, retail store management, merchandising, visual merchandising, fashion direction or consultancy. These new career options are bound to make a splash in the near future.

Here are some pointers on how the retail sector boom can generate success, prosperity and job satisfaction.

Become a Fashion Director

Do you yearn to be in the driver's seat and motivate your team to give their best. You could think of becoming a Fashion Director. One of the most important positions in any fashion design house -apart from the CEO or the designer is the Fashion Director. He is the person who tracks the trend, gives direction and works out a forecast. The Fashion Director is not a designer but is the one who says what, when, where and how. She communicates the entire style statement to the R&D and design department, Promotions cell, and Visual merchandising section. It is her job to come up with a new look every three months, to pull customers into the stores and compel them to buy.

The Requirements of a Fashion Director:

• An eye for fashion

A sense of style is a must; it can be either innate or cultivated.

• Extensive experience in the fashion industry

(In areas like Sales, Choreography, Show production, Styling, Manufacture) It helps you to understand the medium better.

• Fashion education

A design course or a merchandisingcourse that will help you understand the technical aspects (fabrics, colours, styles, cuts etc) of the business along with the creative ones.

• Well rounded personality

Widen your Horizon. Look out for information, travel whenever possible, visit fashion fairs and exhibitions, experiment with music, art and design.

Listed below are some courses, which could be useful to you:

Fashion Courses

Post Graduate Diploma Programme in Enterprise Management For Fashion Business
National Institute Of Design, New Delhi.
Eligibility : Bachelor's Degree or equivalent from recognized university/institute
Duration :18 Months

Post Graduate Programme In Fashion Management
National Institute of Fashion Design, New Delhi, Bangalore, Gandhinagar, Hyderabad and Kolkata
Eligibility: Graduation from a recognized university or diploma in accessory/fashion Design /FIT from NIFT only
Duration: Two years

BA (Honours) Fashion Retail and Merchandising
Pearl Academy, Delhi
Eligibility: 10+2 pass in any discipline, with a minimum 50 percent marks
Duration Four years

Post Graduate Diploma In Fashion Retail
Pearl Academy, Delhi and Chennai
Eligibility: Graduation in any discipline
Duration: Two Years

In India, the concept of a fashion director has not yet caught on. In most places, the designers are the ones giving direction to trends. However things are changing.