Yesterday, Vogue announced that Sally Singer had been named creative director of digital, a position that didn’t exist until, well, right now. And while the newly created position is certainly a personal coup for Singer, it’s also indicative of a greater trend going on in the fashion industry: The creation of completely new jobs that even five years ago were non-existant.
The fashion industry, despite being based on change in terms of design and trends, has always been slow to adapt to other types of change, such as those related to technology, society and the environment. When we think about jobs in fashion, we still think of the same ones there have always been: buyers, PRs, editors, photographers, stylists and journalists. The only new one that seems firmly planted in our vernacular so far is “blogger.” And even that job comes with an ever-increasing variety of possible roles and opportunities that are only occasionally talked about.
But whether you’re aware of them or not, a lot of new fashion jobs are cropping up–and mostly, we have technology to thank for the influx.
There are upsides and downsides to this. An upside is: yay, jobs! A downside? There’s no way to know what to major in at school because by the time you graduate, the job landscape may have changed again.
