Fashion design courses in turkey and their reflektion on ready to wear sector

The textiles and ready wear sector is the leading sector of the economy in Turkey and other developing countries, with its contributions to production and employment and its ability to bring foreign currency to the country via exports. In its design, production and all other operations, the textiles and ready wear sector adopts state-of-the-art technologies, but, at the same time, maintains its labor-intensive characteristics. Turkey needs to raise skillful designers who are quick, familiar with technological developments, and able to follow up worldwide fashion/brand creation trends, and make use of their creativity, in order to active its targets regarding this sector. To this end, vocation education should be promoted as the number of quality institutions providing education in this field should be increased and education plans should be drafted taking into consideration the sector's needs. In the Ottoman Empire, training courses raised people who would pave the way for modernization in clothing starting from the Tanzimat era, reshape clothing styles of the Turkish republic and serve as leading actors of the clothing industry. The training centers which were originally opened to provide employment for women and raise tailors were transformed into technical schools over time as fashion design came to be recognized as a separate profession. Training courses recently sought to raise well-equipped staff members in a short time for the ready wear sector, which hardly tolerated vocational education that would be acquired through the master-apprentice relationship over years at establishments. In this study, the need for fashion designers and design education in the Turkish ready wear sector was emphasized and the repercussions of this need in fashion design courses and ready wear sector in Turkey were discussed. In the light of the assessments, it was observed that the courses responded to the urgent need for staff members in the sector --which is partly attributable to the insufficient number of university graduates that can be employed in the sector-- by recruiting skilled individual who have been unable to participate in formal fashion design training. Short-term courses contribute to vocational development of professionals while long-term courses provide quality training that is close to the one provided at universities in content. Courses would be more efficient if they had curricula and trainers who are experienced in the sector. Unlike the cumbersome structure of formal educational institutions, the courses are updated more quickly to provide novel content based on emerging needs, which is quite important for the sector.