Imtaz Khaliq describes herself as a tailor and a designer. The dual label is important because she believes that the practical craft skills needed to put together a garment are just as critical as the vision.
She says too many students are coming out of fashion design courses in universities and art colleges lacking these skills, and her view is shared by other leading figures in this sector.
She knows this because as well as being a name in the fashion world, Khaliq is equally in demand as a teacher. In particular, she finds herself being asked to plug the gaps that she, and those who come to her for help, feel should have been filled by the education system.
Fashion students who realise that universities are not teaching them the basic skills they need to work in the fashion industry, and graduates who have found this out the hard way when applying for jobs, are trooping to her studio in Dalston, east London, to learn basic techniques such as pattern-making and even sewing.




Serious consequences


The consequences of this are serious for the young people finding it difficult to get employed, and for the UK's fashion textile industry, which faces worsening problems in recruiting new blood with the right skills, according to Skillfast, the sector skills council for fashion and textiles.
Its chief executive, Linda Florance, points out that the UK's textile industry, which brings in £10bn a year, is holding up while other manufacturing output is falling because its businesses compete at the top end of the market through luxury brands, technical innovation and design.
"The UK model for competitiveness requires highly skilled people with a broad range of practical talents, but the education and training system just isn't delivering enough of them, and employers are increasingly concerned," she says.
Despite the fact that UK universities turn out 3,000 fashion and textiles design graduates each year, employers complain of a skills shortage because these graduates lack the ability to turn a drawing-board design into a 3D garment.
Khaliq shares this diagnosis. Many of the young students and recent graduates she sees have not been equipped with the minimum skills they need for careers in the industry, she says.
"I had one young person who'd recently won a competition at university," says Khaliq. "She spent the entire day with me drafting a bodice block, in other words making a pattern from scratch." This process is a sine qua non for anyone embarking on a career in fashion and textiles.
"It's pretty poor that these students are paying fees on courses that are not providing them with the skills they need to work in industry," she says. "And when they are getting into industry, it's sending them back out to get the training."





One student who graduated in fashion design this year from a Midlands university, and who has just spent a day at Khaliq's studio, endorses this view. "I wasn't able to do a basic block and yet it's the first thing you need to learn," she says. "With the tuition fees you're paying, the universities should teach you what you need to know."
Helen David, a co-founder of English Eccentrics, a small fashion house specialising in hand-printed and hand-embroidered clothing and scarves, shares Khaliq's view. David became concerned last year after she interviewed for an assistant. "They all had 2:1s in fashion and textiles but the disparity of the skills they showed was alarming," she says. "Even a very creative company like mine needs technical skills. Technical skills aren't boring - they are essential. "
Some courses are obviously very good, and take pains to place students in work opportunities, she concedes. "The best are sandwich courses where the students have to work for a minimum period of six months in industry.


"Fashion design is partly academic, partly vocational. I've no problem with that. But a lot of students don't know how to sew or pattern-cut. They can do wonderful research into undergarments of the 19th century, but it's not much use."
For Khaliq, the inadequacies of some graduates have been put into sharp relief by the high quality of trainees who have come to work with her from Denmark and Germany. "They have seemed much better prepared. In Denmark, for instance, they have been trained on the job."
British students are, by contrast, often told by staff at colleges and universities that other people will manufacture the designs they come up with, an inaccurate and damaging message, Khaliq says. "Everybody's being trained to be this glorified designer but only 1% make that. The rest have to scrabble around to get work, and they are not equipped to do that."



Damaging imbalance


There is a damaging imbalance in the amount of public funding that goes on educating fashion designers to the detriment of the skills that the industry needs, according to Florance. "£110m is spent on fashion and textiles courses, of which £80m is on fashion design."
This imbalance is not new, says Sara Layton, a freelance pattern cutter who graduated in 1998. "There's too much emphasis on being a designer," she says. "There are a lot of designers who would like to start their own businesses. In a small business you have to do everything - pattern-cutting, machining and making up garments."
Layton quickly realised after graduating that she would have to go to evening classes to pick up these skills. And although she is now established in her career, she still feels the need to come to Khaliq for extra training.
Research by Skillfast on more than 2,000 fashion and textiles employers has found that 5% of the workforce - 17,000 people - have stayed on beyond retirement age because their businesses cannot find suitably skilled younger replacements.
Pattern-cutting, sample-making and other key skills are being squeezed out of fashion degree courses because they are expensive to teach and require large amounts of space and specialist equipment, says Florance.
Skillfast's campaign, Behind the Seams, is trying to convince politicians that the problem is serious and that funding should be taken from courses that don't meet employers' needs. "Our industry's products feed at least 20 other industry sectors, and our ability to be competitive has a major impact on the wider economy," Florance says.