E-learning courses ease prevailing complexities for fashion students and freshers

There is a huge gap between what fashion students learn in the colleges and what they face in the industry. In the ever-evolving fashion industry – where no prediction stays true in long run – it is quite difficult for the freshers to pace up with changing fashion retail, manufacturing or even entrepreneurship landscape and a time comes when they need to upskill themselves to stay relevant and contribute to the betterment of the business.

However, unlike before when one found it complex to upskill themselves and impart technical knowledge in the early phase of their professional life, today they have ample of options available online in the form of E-learning courses offered by different fashion tech and consulting companies which can help freshers/students in their endeavour of learning what their future demands. This feature discusses two e-learning courses – (1) Shima Seiki’s SHIMANAVI for creating a virtual knit garment; and (2) Fashion E-Coach which offers a 3-level program for enhancing skills of students.

Shima Seiki’s SHIMANAVI

Knitting technology giant Shima Seiki launched ‘Shima Online’, a new portal site for its web-based services back in 2019. Through these services, Shima Seiki aims to provide support to its customers in each stage of product supply chain, ranging from fashion trends’ information, archive of knit samples to production management and training. One of the many services launched was Shima Seiki E-learning platform – SHIMANAVI, which enables the users to take training classes whenever and wherever necessary as per their convenience. These consist of basic knitting and design system courses on SDS-ONE APEX, available in different languages for both PC and smart devices.

With virtual samples gradually becoming the industry standard, Shima Seiki shared some tips in a recently conducted webinar on how to utilise its software specifically for 3D garment design on SHIMANAVI.

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Create a 3D virtual knitted garment…

The designers first need to create a base item and this they can do by inputting garment measurements or selecting a template from the Apex library. After creating a base item by inputting garment measurements or selecting a template from the Apex library, designers can see their flat pattern pieces. Here measurements and pattern shapes can be edited in real-time. Since the visualisation of the calculations and edits can be seen on the screen, this is touted as a useful tool for designers – especially for the less experienced ones in pattern development.

Block patterns can be loaded and saved into the Apex system too – helpful for repeat and carry over seasonal styles. Once the flat pattern pieces are generated, 3D sewing lines must then be automatically generated onto each pattern piece, referring to exactly where the garment would be seamed in production.

It is at this point that an appropriate avatar can be selected. Apex has a library of varied avatars, but Shima has also collaborated with global fashion innovation company Alvanon to facilitate importation of Alvanon avatars into Apex though Alvanon Body Platform system.

The flat pattern pieces are then transformed speedily into a 3D garment surrounding the avatar. Once the garment is draped on the avatar, characteristics such as gauge can be selected and edited, revealing the impact on fit and fabric sheerness based on gauge settings. This can aid decision-making processes. Stitch density can be selected with accuracy based on physical samples the designer may have already, or numerical wale and course values can be inputted.

When viewing the garment on the avatar from every 3D angle, measurements can be further altered with results amended in real time. This essentially creates a virtual ‘fit session’ where garment drape and fit in relation to the measurements of the avatar can be accurately fitted. Of course, this cannot replace a real fit with a garment prototype on a human model. What this offers though is the opportunity to refine and gain confidence in the measurements of a prototype before sending through to a factory for production. Any blatant errors can be identified, and for designers with less pattern cutting experience, or for designers developing complex garment shapes, this is a very useful tool.

The Apex stitch library can then be utilised in the same way as if simulating a flat fabric, with placement of stitches shown in real scale on the garment. Stitches and colours can be applied to each pattern piece individually, allowing specific and engineered placement of stitch structures, stripes and design details.

If developing striped garments, stripe data can be saved and reused across styles. Stripe depths can be inputted numerically or adapted in a more ‘playful’ way by dragging the lines on the fabrics. 3D view makes analysing seams for stripe alignment easy, so accuracy can be achieved without having to use ‘best guesses’. Access to the Pantone library through the software means any fabrics involving colour-work can be accurately developed from initial design phases and realised with colour accuracy in production.

Once these elements are developed, accurate yarn data can be added to enhance the loop simulations with real scanned yarn from industry spinners. Shima’s yarnbank can be utilised here. All elements of the Apex toolkit are designed to aid development of a knitted product from start to finish in this way.

Technical specification creation…

All of the information developed within Apex Fiz can be automatically generated into sheet layouts summarising colour names, yarn information, garment measurements and knit data. Colour options can be auto generated, with colour chips assigned too. This saves time and facilitates smoother communication between designers and manufacturers. These documents can be sent directly to the supplier, and if the supplier has Apex software themselves, the data can be directly and digitally transferred.

This is where Shima Seiki’s new SHIMANAVI e-learning system comes in so that the designers can learn the true capabilities of the software, and master the potential.

Fashion E-Coach – Digital Fashion Training

More often than not the fashion students come across observations made by the industry representatives that they are yet to be industry-ready even after completing their education. Majority of jobs posted on LinkedIn for the fashion students today demand that the candidate should be qualified from NIFT, while there are only a few recognisable companies in India which are open to employ students passed out from colleges/institutes other than NIFT.

Resonating the same, Sudhir, Founder, Fashion E-Coach, says, “The majority of the students are not industry-ready because they are taught more of theories, NIFT may be an exception. So, when they join the industry as professionals, they take a lot of time to understand processes.”

Sudhir further informs that Fashion-E-Coach provides industry like exposure digitally through projects and submissions and he and his team work on the finishing school concept and provide hands-on experience and exposure to industry working requirements and standards.

The programs – curated by Fashion E-Coach – are meant to take the students through the apparel industry work flows, roles and responsibilities, thus enabling them to stay updated with the industry technologies and new innovations in the product design and development through step by step approach.

What can fashion students expect?

In the words of Sudhir, it is much more than the students imagine! They will undergo a subtle transformation to ‘Industry ready’, where they will win the industry expectation and the need for project ready resources to reduce the time and effort.

The program offered by Fashion E-Coach is a 3-level program – 1) Advanced Product Design & Development Process; 2) Order Process Management; and 3) Entrepreneur Enabling.

• Level 1: Advanced Product Design & Development Process

Level 1 aims at imparting technical know-how of product design and development process in upcoming fashion professionals. Product design and development remains one of the arduous, complex and time-taking process and advancement of the same needs to be realised by the students. The program is split into bite size modules, comprising of video tutorials and work sheets where each topic offers a comprehensive introduction to the apparel industry and product design and development process. “Walk away with information on different apparel/fashion entities, departments and their relationships in the industry work frame. This level also takes you through the processes involved in the product design and development in detail and how you can successfully execute a buyer requirement in the best possible way,” says Sudhir.

• Level 2: Order Process Management

The level 2 is focused on the in-depth process involved in the order process management and Fashion E-Coach has created detailed step by step lessons to make the students understand the industry terms, processes and activities involved. This level opens up to the actual norms and standards starting from steps involved in raising a purchase order to acceptance, how production management is done, testing and inspection requirements and approvals and the final shipping and documentation process involved in the closure of the order.

• Level 3: Entrepreneur Enabling

Apart from enabling resources to be industry-ready, Fashion E-coach also focuses on the aspect of entrepreneurship in the apparel and fashion Industry. One of the programs – ‘Entrepreneur Enabling’ let students explore the different types of opportunities and develop themselves as an entrepreneur. This level covers different areas and guidelines that the students need to know like boutique management, B2B business management, B2C business management and consulting businesses to develop a venture in the apparel industry.