What are the math skills needed to be a fashion designer?

Answer 1

While math skills are definitely the most important skills to have as a fashion designer, you will use math quite a bit, particularly around measurements. Designers don't just draw pretty pictures of clothing, they have to understand how the clothing is constructed. Educated fashion designers know how to draft patterns, which involves a lot of math. Additionally, many fabrics, like denim, are sold in weight, so understanding weights and measures is also important. Also remember, fashion is a worldwide industry and America is the only country that doesn't use the metric system. That said, understanding how to convert kilograms into pounds and meters into feet is also important.

Designers don't involve themselves in the business side of fashion as much as merchandisers do, but a good designer should also understand pricing when choosing fabrics, trims and construction, and be able to calculate the final retail cost of a garment, post production.

Basically, a fashion designer will probably never use advanced match skills, like Algebra or Calculus, however, basic math skills are very important to being a successful designer.