Planning to take up a course part-time.

this is a really good one… found it the other day when i was looking for the same thing, very helpful

try going to sewing or fashion design as a summer camp activity or something then you’ll have some experience.

Hi, I want to be a fashion designer but I also want to have my own clothing company and I know its a good idea to actually know about business when starting one.

Actually at the Fashion Institute of Technology the School of Business and Technology is larger than the school of Art and Design and they have many classes aimed at entrepreneurs. Also through their Continuing and Professional Studies department they have classes aimed at designers that want to start their own business.

http://fitnyc.edu/

I know absolutly nothing about sewing or fashion design… I want to learn to sew first (of course) and then learn to design or replicate my favorite designer and celebrity red carpet dresses/ outfits. I know this is ambitious, but I am REALLY interested… I want to have these skills in a year from now… I know the learning process will be lifelong, but would love to soon have the basic skills… MOST IMPORTANTLY- where can I go to learn this, I am in high school- would love to learn as much as possible this summer… I am in Texas (Houston) if that helps… would love some information… THANKS!!

First of all, you’ll want to learn some basic sewing. I’m sure there are some basic sewing classes around you. After you can sew well enough to make a credible dress or shirt from a commercial pattern, you can then start designing variations on the patterns, and learning to analyze and what’s going in the garments you’re trying to knock off.

Some reading for you:
Art of Manipulating Fabric: Colette Wolff
(you’ll need to understand how to cut shapes and develop textures from fabric. You can start with this now, no sewing lessons needed for some of it, such as cutting circular flounces. You can substitute a stapler for a lot of the sewing in this book, and kitchen paper towels for fabric)
Patternmaking Made Easy: Connie Crawford
Art of Fashion Draping: Connie Crawford
(two college level textbooks on basic skills needed for design, very step by step.*)
Simplicity’s Simply The Best Sewing Book, by Anne Marie DeSoto (for beginning beginners)
Reader’s Digest Complete Book of Sewing (a general reference book you can "grow on")

Magazines to start reading: Sew News (US beginners to intermediate magazine); Threads (a little beginners, mostly intermediate to early advanced); Sew Stylish (Threads’ sister magazine for beginners), Australian Stitches (harder to find in the US, but a nice "advanced beginner to early advanced" level). Threads has the most useful website of the bunch, imo.

Things on the internet to read:
http://www.fashion-incubator.com (much of it will be over your head at the moment, but spend time especially with anything marked as a "tutorial")
http://vintagesewing.info/19th.html (Hand sewing doesn’t change really — you might as well start developing your hand skills today — all you need is needle, thread, scissors and some fabric — kitchen paper towels will do at first)

http://vintagesewing.info/1940s/42-mpd/mpd-toc-long.html

(a 1942 pattern book that has at least some of the basics of patternmaking, and shows you how to design, say, a collar or sleeve)

Most of these books and magazines can be borrowed from the local public library so you can see how they suit you.

*Connie Crawford also has a beginning sewing book, Guide to Fashion Sewing, that she wrote for her beginning sewing students at FIDM. She has a new DVD out in June on beginning sewing that I have seen a few bits of, and I think it might be helpful to you. The young lady in the DVD is a high school student who’s never sewn before, and she made a very credible garment. Crawford teaches the sewing methods used for ready to wear garment making, adapted for home sewing, which means you can make a garment a lot faster (and usually much better) than with the usual home sewing methods. Wish I’d learned to sew that way many years ago!

And a PS: two of the tools you’re going to need are a sewing machine and a good pair of scissors. For sewing machine advice, the best I can give you is: http://www.cet.com/~pennys/faq/smfaq.htm
For scissors, if you’re on a budget, I’d suggest Fiskars. If you can afford a little more, I’d suggest Kai 5240, 5250, or 5275 — good quality, they should last you a lifetime, and nicely balanced in the hand. Buy the largest you can afford — longer blades mean smoother cuts. Smoother cuts and accuracy make for much, much easier sewing. (http://www.kaiscissors.com)