Career Studio - Dream Jobs
Footwear Design
Could you be a…Footwear Designer?
Do you think the shoes are the most important part of any outfit? Could you be described as a shoe-a-holic? Well, someone's gotta design those babies, and someday it could be you: a Footwear Designer!
A Footwear Designer creates original footwear for a company or for their own label. You'll work with different materials, trims, styling details, and heel heights and shapes to determine the looks of shoes. What's needed? A keen eye for trends and forecasting, a great sense of artistic proportion, and a passion for shoes!
Look at some of the great careers you can have with a degree in Footwear Design from FIDM:
An Assistant Footwear Designer is the shoe designer's right-hand person. You'll translate the designer's ideas into sketches, then create the actual patterns used to mass-produce the shoes.
A Line Builder oversees the process of developing a line of shoes from concept to the final marketing. You'll work closely with the design and production teams to get shoes made!
An Agent lives in a foreign country and represents a shoe manufacturer there. You'll be responsible for everything from production to quality control to locating new factories and reporting on foreign trends to the manufacturer.
A Footwear Buyer decides what the rest of us will be buying for our feet each season. You'll stay on top of trends and travel to see and buy the new footwear lines. You'll decide what shoes will be sold in retail stores, catalogs, and websites.
There's nowhere on earth like FIDM to study Footwear Design because at FIDM you use your creative skills while learning how to design, produce, merchandise, and market footwear; FIDM has a great fashion resource library at your fingertips, and the West Coast's largest collection of costumes and accessories dating back to 1780; and FIDM's L.A. campus is steps away from downtown L.A.'s Garment Center, making it like a living lab! Click here to find out more about why FIDM is the place to be!
Not sure of your dream job? Let FIDM's Career Aptitude Test point you in the right direction.
