For many people, the decision to pursue a career as a fashion designer isn’t made based on the earnings potential, but on a sheer love for fashion and design work. Fortunately, the field can be both personally satisfying and financially lucrative, depending on a number of factors, including your level of experience and your success in the field. Before you embark on your new career as a fashion designer, consider the following average salary projections.
Salaries based on experience
According to Payscale.com, fashion designers with less than one year of experience earn a median salary of $31,862/year. While this may seem like enough to scrape out a decent living, consider that most fashion designers are living and working in New York City, where living expenses are substantially higher than other parts of the country.
However, within 1-4 years of working in the industry, the median salaries of fashion designers increase to $45,350/year. These dramatic increases continue as fashion designers continue to work in the field.
A designer with 5-9 years of experience can expect to earn a median salary of $62,246/year, while designers with ten or more years of experience earn median salaries of $78,441/year. However, it’s important to note that the fashion industry is a results-oriented field. Unlike working as a secretary or hairdresser – where you’ll perform similar tasks day-in and day-out – you’ll need to prove your worth as a designer by turning out successful designs in order to earn these upper-level salaries.
Salaries based on employer type
Fashion designers are employed by a wide variety of employer types – from fashion houses, to universities, to self-employed professionals – and median salaries vary widely based on the specific job situation. Self-employed designers tend to earn the lowest salaries - $38,400/year on average – while those employed by companies and other organizations earn the most - $56,162/year and $73,180/year respectively. Those employed by private firms, franchises and colleges tend to fall in the middle of these ranges, earning $45,000/year to $50,495/year on average.
Salaries based on geographic location
Although New York City is widely considered to be the design capital of the United States, it’s interesting to note that the median salaries of designers there are lower than those of designers in other cities. Designers in San Francisco, CA earn the highest median salaries of $69,001/year on average, followed closely by designers in Dallas, TX, who earn median salaries of $67,407/year. Designers in NYC come in third, earning median salaries of $62,947/year, followed by designers in Los Angeles, CA ($56,528/year) and Seattle, WA ($55,676/year). Rounding out the bottom of the barrel are designers in Miami, FL, earning median salaries of $45,000/year and designers in Chicago, IL, who earn median salaries of $42,700/year.
Of course, it’s important to keep in mind that these numbers represent median salaries only. Highly successful designers around the country may earn several hundreds of thousands of dollars – if not millions – depending on the success and popularity of their designs. These outliers are balanced by the many entry-level designers who earn far below these median salaries. If you’re planning to enter the design field, you may have to put in several years of hard work until your design work is successful enough to justify these higher salaries.
