Money · 1 of 5
What fashion designers make
Median
$80,960
Assistant designer
$39,490
Design director
$146,870
The national median is $80,960 a year, and the bottom tenth start near $39,490. That median is high partly because most of these jobs sit in New York and Los Angeles, where both pay and rent are high. Designers running their own small label are not really in this survey at all, because their income is whatever the business profits.