It pays to design lifestyle accessories

CAREERS

Ever entered an office where a neat hand-crafted accessory drew your attention? Or envied a neighbour for that unique candle stand in her drawing room? In all likelihood both were the handiwork of a "lifestyle accessory designer".

Yes, there's such a life form as a lifestyle accessory designer.

And it's a fast-growing breed thanks to the middle class' increasing focus on lifestyle and exposure to varied cultures.

What this means, in short, is becoming a lifestyle accessory designer could be a lucrative career option.

Says Venkat Rao, centre coordinator, (fashion and lifestyle accessories design), National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT), Hyderabad, "The demand for lifestyle accessory products is improving by the day. The fact that all the students of our previous batches (doing the lifestyle accessories design course) have been absorbed by the industry proves the point."

NIFT offers a four-year under-graduate programme in fashion and lifestyle accessories design.

"Companies such as Magppie Ltd, Purple Orange Products Pvt Ltd, Hitachi K K and Curio Crafts are some of the names that I can recall in this regard who have recruited our students," he said.

"Most of these are export houses and they pay a starting salary of Rs 15,000 per month," he said.

Fashion design graduates get a starting salary of around Rs 6,000-10,000 per month and demand for them is rising. The demand for lifestyle accessory designers, however, is not as good as for fashion designers.

Nupur Dhananjay, a student at NIFT, says there's another problem "" most of the recruiting companies are in New Delhi, Moradabad and Bangalore.

"So if we wish to recover our investments at NIFT, we need to shift base to these cities," she adds.

A student at NIFT spends around Rs 60,000 annually, meaning Rs 2,40,000 for the entire four-year course.

Also, there is no institute in India that offers a post graduate programme in this field, apart from the National Institute of Design (NID) at Ahmedabad.

"So for further studies in this area we need to go abroad," Nupur said. "The industry is, however, receptive to us as we understand the needs of the market and therefore design contemporary accessories using traditional methods," she said.

NIFT students in Hyderabad have done collaborative work with artisans expert in traditional arts such as Kondapalli toys, stone carving, silver filigree and so on.

According to a professor at NIFT, since the students usually join export houses after doing their course, the products designed by them start with a price-tag of $1 and even go up to or beyond $20.

Govind Shrikhande, chief operating officer, Shoppers' Stop, the chain that also houses lifestyle accessories, said: "To our delight, the demand for fashion and lifestyle accessories is definitely growing in the country. While candles, candleholders and photoframes are usually bought for gifting, there is an increased demand for lamp-shades and vases for accentuating one's home as well."

He adds, "Therefore, any lifestyle accessory designer qualifying from institutes such as the NID with 3-4 years of experience is able to earn an annual income of between Rs 3.5 lakh and Rs 4.5 lakh today."

"Cities such as Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore have shown a massive response to this category of products," Shrikhande said, adding, "Maybe it is the boom in the housing sector that is spurring this demand."