BA (Hons) Fashion and Textile Design (AOD, Sri Lanka)

In ‘Fashion Thinking 1: Professional Practice Preparation’ you will look at the industry from two perspectives. You will develop a critical understanding of the key social, political, theoretical and practical work-based considerations relating to contemporary fashion design and the broader fashion industry to support your development as a responsible designer in a challenging professional environment.

The module encourages you to extend academic skills in knowledge retrieval, library and web-based research and critical analysis to inform your judgement presented in written, oral and visual presentations. By engaging with lectures and seminars delivered by Fashion Historical and Critical Studies and Design lecturers, you will develop knowledge and a critical perspective on issues and practices in the world of fashion such a sustainability, responsible design practice, corporate responsibility, branding, fast and slow fashion. You will gain important tools to join the fashion industry with a clear vision of the processes involved in sourcing, applying and undertaking of a student internship or study abroad. Skills of analysis and written exposition will evidence your critical awareness of the key issues and practices related to contemporary fashion design.

You will apply your valuable insight to the fashion industry from our long-standing relationship with global fashion companies and designers as you start your preparation for a desirable, exciting fashion experience in a multi-faceted international industry, or in testing an enterprise idea.

You will gain insight to roles and responsibilities, rules of engagement and industry’s expectations of interns from online talks buy industrial partners and experts through role-play and studio workshops. This will to give you a realistic overview of industrial experience and how to realistically approach the application process for a successful outcome. You will develop the ability to evaluate your skills from an area of practice, highlighting your strengths and communicate this in a way that is a desirable asset to a placement provider.

You will be assessed on final outcomes comprising of a 1500-word essay critically reflecting on issues relating to the contemporary fashion industry; and a ‘professional tool kit’ containing documentation; C.V., cover letter and portfolio, balancing personal creativity with professionalism; skills, content and finish in screen-based format, to support the employment application process.

In ‘Fashion Design Project 1’ you will learn how to further develop your design skills in relation to professional practice. The creative design brief will be industry focused on a specific market level or brand, as a ‘Live project’. This module will introduce you to the balance designers must achieve between craftsmanship, aesthetic ideals, responsible practice and commercial restraints and opportunities.

This project will help you to understand the relationship between the creative and commercial requirements of Fashion design, and provide the opportunity to develop specialist skills and knowledge of materials, skills and processes in the realisation of your Fashion design concepts. Students are able to select a specialist area of study in this module, exploring the creative challenge of either technical pattern cutting; haute couture construction techniques, fashion print design or constructed knitwear design or a negotiated combination of pattern cutting with printed textile design or constructed knitwear design to support your career aspirations.

You will learn how to research, develop and design a market-led collection of garments presented as a Fashion design portfolio.

In addition to the portfolio, you will produce and communicate a Fashion artefact or creative solution, which will take the form of a garment or a sample package to contextualise the portfolio collection. In the Fashion workshops using industry standard equipment, students specialising in garment design will produce a garment of their own design, students specialising in printed textile design will learn the fundamentals of printed textile design through screen printing to produce a printed textile sample collection while students specialising in constructed knitwear design will learn the fundamental knitting skills on industrial machinery and produce a range of technical constructed knitwear samples.

The industry facing nature of this project supports the industrial placement period, which begins in the following semester in the FA5017 Fashion Industrial Placement module.

‘Fashion Thinking 2: Concepts and Theory’ offers insights to key subjects and external influences relevant to academic theoretical study and advanced fashion design practice. This module will inform your understanding of the changing fashion landscape and zeitgeist in the study of the global, contemporary, cultural and market influences that impact on the fashion industry and contemporary issues,

The module encourages you to extend academic skills such as knowledge retrieval, visual analysis, object and image-based and archival research, through proposal writing, critical justification and visual communication.

In Component 1 you will learn how to research and write a proposal in preparation for the Level 6 AH6007 Dissertation module.

In Component 2 you will be guided by specialist tutors on how to use creative and critical thinking to confirm who you are as a designer. You will work on your creative practice holistically across both FA5013 and the parallel FA5014 Fashion Design Project 2 modules. In this FA5013 module you will develop your creative practice conceptually and theoretically by creating your own fashion concept within the zeitgeist, taking into consideration relevant issues such as identity, diversity, responsible design practice and new technologies, enabling you to set your practice within contemporary culture.

You will refine your aesthetic judgement and visual communication skills through taking an intellectual approach to advanced image making in sketchbook and portfolio. You will be encouraged to move beyond the barriers of fashion and look to other disciplines and approaches to advance your creative practice and find new ways of thinking, working and making. Philosophical and communication theories will help support your experimental approach to image making using hand-rendered and digital techniques

There may be an opportunity to take part in relevant national competitions or live/collaborative projects, that will allow you to work with industrial partners to develop your professional skills and understanding.

This work may be used to underpin final collection work at Level 6 where relevant.

In ‘Fashion Design Project 2’ you will identify emerging developments in fashion to inspire individual creative direction and enquiry of fashion design practice, cumulating in garment/sample realisation and portfolio communicating a distinctive individual handwriting that confirms who you are as a designer. You will work on your creative practice holistically across both FA5014 and the parallel FA5013 Fashion Thinking 2: Concepts & Theory modules.

You will learn how to form a creative concept from research gathered independently over your industrial placement and/or study abroad experience covering a range of global, historical, contemporary and cultural influences with a view to you to evolving your personal design philosophy. You will revisit design methodologies in research translating ideas to design development and engage in the production of garment prototypes, printed textiles or constructed knitwear sampling in specialist studios and workshops developing your knowledge and own focus within individual study skills. You will be encouraged to challenge production processes within the specialism producing investigative sampling to inform garment design.

The module challenges you to broaden knowledge of fashion market levels, extending your previous experience, by focusing on ‘Luxury’ fashion as a conduit for developing progressive knowledge of aesthetic principles and skills in fashion craftsmanship. This will enable you to make decisions about your ambitions for personal development towards level 6 and employment.

Your portfolio will give you opportunity to develop an experimental approach to fashion Illustration through personal investigation of creative and intellectual stimuli. You will be encouraged to integrate traditional and digital media with a view to communicating your fashion outcomes to a range of audiences.

You will create a fashion presentation communicating your creative outcomes appropriate to Fashion context.