For anyone who is set on a career in fashion, it is not enough to have succeeded in colleg

e. The real test is whether they can survive and become established during their early 20s making a name for themselves in the real world where business skills can count for as much as flair(眼光) and creativity.

Fashion is a hard business. There is a continuous amount of stress because work is at a constant breakneck (高速而危险的) speed to prepare for the next season's collections. It is extremely competitive and there is the constant need to cultivate good coverage in newspapers and magazines. It al so requires continual freshness because the appetite for new ideas is hard to satisfy. "We try to warn people before they come to us about how tough it is," says Lydia Kemeny, the Head of Fashion at St. Martin's School of Art in London. "And we point out that drive and determination are essential."

This may seem far removed from the popular image of fashionable young people spending their time designing pretty dresses, That may well be what they do in their first year of study but a good college won't be slow in introducing students to commercial realities. "We don't stamp on the blossoming flower of creativity but in the second year we start introducing the constraints of price, manufacturability, marketing and so on."

Almost all fashion design is done to a brief. It is not a form. of self-expression as such, although there is certainly room for imagination and innovation. Most young designers are going to end up as employees of a manufacturer or fashion house and they still need to be able to work within the characteristic style. of their employer. Even those students who are most avant-garde (标新立异的) in their own taste of clothes and image may need to adapt to produce designs which are right for the main stream of market. They also have to be able to work at both tire exclusively expensive and the cheap end of the market and the challenge to produce good design inexpensively may well be demanding.

To be successful as a fashion designer you must ______.

A．have excellent academic qualifications

B．be able to handle business problems

C．be well established before you are 20

D．have taken an intensive commercial course