Best Fashion Designing Institute in India: Admission Process, Eligibility, Exam Pattern, and Selection Process

Published by Shikha Kumari on Jun 18, 2025

There are over 2400 fashion designing colleges in India. Out of them, around 1200 colleges are privately owned, around 300 are government aided while others are public-private entities. With so many colleges, sometimes it becomes difficult to choose the best designing course for anyone. In this blog, we’ll talk about the best fashion designing institute in India, its admission process, entrance exam, eligibility criteria and selection process.

NIFT (National Institute of Fashion Technology)

National Institute of Fashion Technology is the best fashion designing institute in India. There are 18 functional campuses of NIFTs across India which offer design courses and have a total of 5,289 seats. Let’s have a look at all the NIFT campuses and their admission process. 

List of all NIFTs

Here is a list of all the NIFT campuses offering fashion design courses in India.

• NIFT Delhi
• NIFT Mumbai
• NIFT Gandhinagar
• NIFT Raebareli
• NIFT Bangalore
• NIFT Chennai
• NIFT Patna
• NIFT Hyderabad
• NIFT Jodhpur
• NIFT Kannur
• NIFT Kolkata
• NIFT Shillong
• NIFT Bhubaneswar
• NIFT Kangra
• NIFT Bhopal
• NIFT Srinagar
• NIFT Panchkula
• NIFT Daman

Entrance Exam

Admission to NIFTs takes place through the NIFT entrance exam that is conducted by NTA. It comprises 3 parts – 

• Creative ability test (CAT) – It is a paper based examination
• General ability test (GAT) – It is a LAN based CBT (Computer Based Test) examination.
• Personality Test – It is an offline interview round.

Eligibility Criteria

Any candidate who is an Indian citizen and qualifies the minimum age and educational criteria can apply. 

Qualifying age 

Maximum age should be less than 24 years as on 1st August of the year of admission. The upper age limit may be relaxed by a period of 5 (five) years for candidates of Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe/Person with Disability (PwD) categories.

Educational Qualification 

The candidate should have any one of the following – 

• Passed the plus 2 level examination in the 10+2 pattern of examination from any recognized Central/State Board of Secondary Examination, such as Central Board of Secondary Education/State Board New Delhi/Council for Indian School of Certificate Examination, New Delhi.
• A pass grade in the Senior Secondary School Examination conducted by the National Open School with a minimum of five subjects.
• 3 or 4 years diploma recognized by AICTE or a State Board of Technical Education after secondary examination/10th standard.
• Any Public School/Board/University Examination in India or in foreign countries recognized by the Association of Indian Universities as equivalent to 10+2 system.

Application Process

• Candidates have to apply online at the official website.
• Application Fee: The application fee has to be paid through online payment gateway on the admission’s website only.
• Non-Refundable Fee for Open/OBC (Non-Creamy Layer)/Open-EWS Category: Rs. 3000/.
• Non-Refundable Fee for SC/ST/PwD Category: Rs. 1500/-.

NID (National Institute of Design)

NID is one of the finest design institutes in India. It has 3 campuses all over the country and offers top notch environment and administration. It offers a total of 425 seats for bachelors of design course. Let’s learn about NID in detail.

List of NIDs

• NID Ahmedabad
• NID Bengaluru
• NID Gandhinagar

Entrance Exam

The NID Design Aptitude Test (DAT) is a national-level entrance exam conducted by the National Institute of Design to provide admission to design UG and PG programs. The application fees for the exam is Rs. 3000. The exam takes place in 2 parts –

• Prelims
• Mains

Eligibility Criteria

The candidate who qualify the minimum education and age criteria can apply

Qualifying age

• Candidates for this course must be equal to or below 20 years old on July 30.
• Candidates from the reserved categories are eligible for a three-year age reduction in the maximum age limit.

Educational Qualification

Candidates who are taking or have already passed the Higher Secondary (10+2) examinations from AISSCE/IB/ICSE or any other qualifying examinations from a recognised board can apply.