How to become a product and garment designer

Official title: Product and garment designers

Also called: Costume designer, Fashion designer, Industrial designer, Jewellery designer

Product and garment designers design and develop products for manufacture and prepare designs and specifications of products for mass, batch and one-off production.

Main tasks

• Determining the objectives and constraints of the design brief by consulting with clients and stakeholders
• Formulating design concepts for clothing, textiles, industrial, commercial and consumer products, and jewellery
• Harmonizing aesthetic considerations with technical, functional, ecological and production requirements
• Preparing sketches, diagrams, illustrations, plans, samples and models to communicate design concepts
• Negotiating design solutions with clients, management, and sales and manufacturing staff
• Selecting, specifying and recommending functional and aesthetic materials, production methods and finishes for manufacture
• Detailing and documenting the selected design for production
• Preparing and commissioning prototypes and samples
• Supervising the preparation of patterns, programmes and tooling, and of the manufacturing process

Ways in

• University: Creative Arts & Design degrees, Offered by 21 universities in Hong Kong

Pay · Outlook · AI and this job

• Median pay: HK$48,000 a month
• About 1,542,900 people in 2025, and about 1,639,100 projected by 2028. (+6.2%)
• Generative AI can do relatively little of this work, by the ILO's global estimate.

Related jobs

• Landscape architects
• Graphic and multimedia designers
• Town and traffic planners
• Building architects
• Cartographers and surveyors

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Questions people ask

How do I become a product and garment designer?

Ways in include: Creative Arts & Design degrees.

Do you need a degree to become a product and garment designer?

Usually. 88% of people in this job hold a bachelor's degree or higher.

Will AI change the work of a product and garment designer?

Generative AI can do relatively little of this work, by the ILO's global estimate.

Sources

• Census and Statistics Department (2021 Population Census): 2021 Population Census, Interactive Data Dissemination Service: working population by occupation (38 groups) and sex, age, education, income; median income and field of education (9 groups) (2021 Population Census), retrieved 4 October 2026
• Census and Statistics Department (General Household Survey): Median monthly employment earnings by occupation (9 groups), excluding foreign domestic helpers (Table 210-06317A); employed persons by occupation, age and sex (210-06307A) and by industry (210-06308A) (2025 annual (series to 2026-07)), retrieved 4 October 2026
• Labour and Welfare Bureau; tables published by C&SD: Mid-term Update of Manpower Projection to 2028: supplementary statistical tables (5 occupation groups, 17 selected industries) (2025 to 2028 (published 2026-09)), retrieved 4 October 2026
• International Labour Organization, Generative AI and Jobs: A Refined Global Index of Occupational Exposure (ILO Working Paper 140, Gmyrek et al.) (ILO Working Paper 140, May 2025, Annex Table A1), CC BY 4.0, retrieved 4 October 2026

Updated 4 October 2026