FA5024 - Fashioning Identities

Learning and teaching strategies on Fashion Communication encourage you to acquire a flexible and imaginative approach to problem solving through enquiry-based learning. You will become an active participant in your learning, integrating creative practice with academic and intellectual skills.
The extended studio (X-Studio) environment is integral to this process, encouraging individual intellectual freedom and a creative collaborative community. The X-Studio embraces our physical studios and making workshops as well as our virtual spaces to create a flexible and rich environment that is responsive to your learning needs.
This dedicated approach has been developed over many years of continuous teaching innovation, research and industry collaboration. It has created a supportive extended studio culture that encourages you to learn flexibly, dynamically blending your learning and University experience between physical and digital interactions both in real-time and online at your own pace.

This extended studio culture not only helps you to become a more confident autonomous learner but also prepares you for a dynamic design industry in which an extended studio philosophy is current practice.

Lecturers with industry experience and supporting research will guide you through the module, developing your understanding of professional standards and practice. Guest speakers from the creative industries will help you situate your own work in a professional context.

You are encouraged to advance your visual literacy and to be aware of current issues and debates. Working in groups, you learn to be flexible and collaborative, to identify and redefine problems in a creative way and focus on solutions that are both relevant and empathetic.

Traditional, new and emerging technologies are used both in the delivery and realisation of outcomes, and you will learn to present your work and ideas using a range of media and communication tools to a variety of audiences in different situations. You will create digital portfolios and presentations, reports and essays, as well as image-based/multimedia submissions.

• At the beginning of your programme you will be allocated a Guidance Tutor who will be able to provide advice and support in relation to your academic, personal and professional development. Formal guidance tutorials will allow you to reflect on what you have achieved and identify your strengths and weaknesses
• Tutorials with lecturers provide advice on the direction of your work and whether you are meeting Module Learning Outcomes. These will be timetabled, and will help you to progress your ideas.
• Project briefs are introduced via briefing sessions, where the task is fully explored by both staff and students
• Live projects with industry and regional, national and international external partners extend the practical study of the subject area within an industrial context, where possible. They are also designed to support student confidence in their ability to handle professional practice within the creative industries
• Students experience a range of teaching, learning and assessment methods and course work is largely project based
• Modules are delivered through a combination of delivery modes, with guided and independent learning
• Additional study skills materials and workshops are available through Skills Plus at https://library.northumbria.ac.uk/skillsplus/ and Linkedin Learning
• Students are expected to maintain a project plan and are encouraged to take responsibility for their own learning
• English language support is provided for international students
• University student services offer specialist support e.g. financial, disability, mental health, international student support etc.
• eLP includes all relevant documentation and learning material, e.g. module briefs, lecture content, video demonstrations, reading lists and weekly tasks, together with meeting spaces, discussion boards and notices
• Visiting professionals support relevant and current practice where possible

All modules at Northumbria include a range of reading materials that students are expected to engage with. The reading list for this module can be found at: http://readinglists.northumbria.ac.uk
(Reading List service online guide for academic staff this containing contact details for the Reading List team – http://library.northumbria.ac.uk/readinglists)

Knowledge & Understanding:

Evidence your confident approach to undertaking and communicating your research in relation to structure, content and quality of debate.

Intellectual/Professional Skills & Abilities
Demonstrate critical analysis in the selection and evaluation of media, cultural and fashion studies research evidence or source material in order to communicate your research findings.

Personal Value Attributes
Demonstrate your ability to form independent judgement or articulate reasoned arguments through a visual essay.

Assessment will be conducted through:

Formative
An abstract of 200-250 words (MLO1-3)

Summative
A multimedia research presentation or essay. Comprising of at least 20 slides and a script of 2500 words, with an indicative length of 20 minutes (MLO1-3).

N/A

N/A

This module offers you the opportunity to deepen your knowledge and understanding of fashion communication in relation to critical and cultural contexts. It will introduce you to the different research methodologies through which fashion is interpreted in academia. A programme of stimulating lectures, workshops and theory-based sessions will develop your understanding and critical engagement with contextual fashion issues, fashion theory, critical analysis and research, and support you in writing a thought-provoking research-informed multimedia research presentation or essay.

Students will build on key concepts in fashion media, culture and history explored and interrogated in year one, covering a range of disciplines, this time applying more advanced research methodologies. You will learn how garments and clothes tell stories, and contribute to the creation of identities.