Fashion industry is a diverse and multifaceted phenomena:
All these areas listed above are parts of one whole phenomena loosely called fashion industry.
Not all of these fields have a need in fashion figure drawing skills: nobody expects a fashion model to also be a professional fashion illustrator. However, in the fields of apparel design and manufacturing the drawing skills are extremely important. Drawing is a visual language used by fashion professionals to communicate. Remember the saying that one picture is worth one thousand words? That would be an understatement in fashion industry.
Drawing for fashion design and apparel manufacturing is a very goal-oriented and specific genre of drawing. The manner in which your apparel or fashion design is depicted on a human figure determines how your project will be understood by other fashion professionals.
There are some specific fields of fashion drawing for fashion design and manufacturing:
Garment drawings, fashion flats, spec drawings and various forms of technical drawing for fashion are all part of drawing process. Although not all of these drawing types require drawing a human figure, all of them are based upon understanding of human figure achievable only through actual figure drawing experience. For example, if you are drawing specs for garments, you are not drawing a figure but your garment drawing must be true to proportions and basic human anatomy.
Fashion drawing for fashion promotion, advertisement, fashion merchandising and marketing purposes could be reinforced greatly by skills in figure drawing for fashion. Figurative fashion drawing is traditionally a powerful tool for conveying ideas to the buying audience, be it a professional wholesale buyer or end user at the store. Nordstrom is a great example of a company which artfully uses fashion drawing and illustration to communicate specific style and fashion concepts to the buyer.