What is Fashion Design? is the latest title in the successful Essential Design Handbooks series. Fashion design is directional and commercial; it is at the cutting edge of design globally, while also being a talent-hungry, image-dominated, commercial industry that demands the very best of design professionals, and exposes their work to the world. Thousands try to break into this arena, but few make it to the top.

This is an industry roadmap, a creative reference book, and a showcase of stunning and innovative design, which together enables aspiring designers to navigate the fashion world with global insight and a renewed creative—and critical—perspective. Fashion designers need to have a strong sense of their own identity. They need to know what sells and how to manufacture forms that flatter or transform the human body. What is Fashion Design? is uniquely suited to exploring this complex, exciting, and economically vibrant world, from the point of view of the design skills, creative context, and ethical issues that all designers need to know in order to succeed.