What is "Working Level Proficiency" as a Streetwear/Fashion Designer?

So I had a long discussion yesterday with a group of other fashion industry professionals, creatives, designers, and brand owners. The topic was how good at design do you really need to be to run a label and work in streetwear? And what else is just left up to business acumen, and business managers? I am discussing this in the context of larger streetwear/pseudo high fashion brands such as Uniform Experiment, Cav Empt, or Stone Island etc. I'm not referring to Big Cartel brands etc that any 12 year old can work on so don't bring those up as examples.There are certain brands that have never designed their own stuff, maybe the logo at best. They contract new designers and graphic designers once every 6-8 months, squeeze designs out of them, then move onto the next. This is quite common. It's nice to be able to contract various artists, get some solid work out of them, give them some shine, then move onto the next on a per season basis. The issue I've always had with rotating graphic designers that the brand quickly starts to lack a strong visual identity because there's no consistent theme.Amongst fashion designers, we are all aware that major fashion houses rotate their lead designers once every couple of years. They do this on a basis of needing to balance designers that are good for selling, and designers that are good for bringing conceptual prestige to the fashion house. Amongst streetwear labels, there's typically 1-2 lead designers that sit on board for the entire lifetime of the brand. They might have a few juniour designers come in and add ideas, but for most major labels that have a real core aesthetic, they have one solid lead designer.So back to the original question, how good of a designer do you really need to be to make your brand last and make it pop? For most proper labels that last 5+ years, you need to have a super unique visual identity and be able to either do illustration or graphics with a highly developed style that is recognizable without the logo. You need to be able to techpack and design large scale lines up to 60 pieces per season, sometimes even women's clothing. You need to be able to do all of this fast enough to give your manufacturing team as much breathing room as possible to make the clothing. You need to be original enough to attend a trade or fashion show twice a year and not hint at copying other labels. You need to be able to have your clothing presented in a showroom alongside other brands and have your own unique voice heard, and not get lost in the sauce amongst everybody else.If you can accomplish all of that and really bring forth solid work as a designer, you've done all you can do. The rest is pretty much up to the business side of your brand and how well you can market and build your company. Keep in mind though, the business guys will not help you until you've at least reached a working level of proficiency. More about this below.A lot of the designers I speak with always argue they are already at working level proficiency and it's the fault of their business team to not properly scale them. I beg the differ. What I see most often is they have a very bland, underdeveloped style that is heavily copycatted from a series of other labels. Usually weak graphics, if any at all. And a poor sense of identity and branding, being no different from any other garment on the rack if the tags were cut off. I'd say for a proper designer to really develop their own style, it's minimum 10 collections deep. How can you become a seasoned vet if you haven't truly been to war?I'm aware some designers graduate FIT and nail it on their first few, but I'll add that schooling can help. A 4 year program of studying your own style is probably equivalent to doing that many. Without school, a good few years of experimentation and failure can make one's own style extremely distinct. But most designers don't luck out on their first shot. I meet a tonne of fashion school grads that have an amazing graduation thesis, graduate, do two collections then realize it isn't for them and totally quit.So for all the aspiring designers out there, please keep that in mind. Are you operating at a working level proficiency yet? Are you capable of producing sellable, marketable, distinct products consistently year round? This theory I've discussed can also be applied to other areas of art and music.The business level guys won't even touch you until you're at a working level proficiency. They won't put their name on the line and risk their jobs to cosign you if you're not able to consistently deliver. So I call working level profciency stage 1, getting scaled and or signed is stage 2, then stage 3 is bringing it all together and just keeping the flight path steady with consistent sales and two big collections a year.Relevant comments only please, some kids on here are trying to learn so they can start their own brands. via /r/streetwear http://ift.tt/1RxDIwC