The Fashion Business & Product Development - Introduction to Fashion Business Summer School and Introduction to Fashion Design Summer School
If you are planning on entering the highly competitive fashion industry, it is becoming increasingly important to understand the ‘Business of Fashion’. In addition, it is vital to have a clear understanding of ALL the roles within a merchandise team and also, knowledge of the supporting roles within a fashion organization. Understanding all aspects will give you confidence and in turn, make you more attractive to future employers.
Increased business knowledge will result in students being able to explore more avenues within the industry and provide them with the ability to work with colleagues across all disciplines of a complex business.
On this multi-faceted unit, students will gain knowledge of all aspects in a clear, understandable format. It is excellent for students wishing to enter the fashion business as part of a product development team in the capacity of the buyer, merchandiser, garment technologist or designer. It is also ideal for those interested in brand management or retail operations.
Students will be introduced to the major roles and responsibilities within the Product Development Team (PDT) including – The Buyer, Merchandiser, Garment Technologist, and Designer. Students will learn about Merchandise Planning, Retail Strategy, Operational Marketing, Network Science, Costings, and Sourcing. Students will be taught about the different types of buying, the buying cycle and how to work with suppliers and manufacturers. Students will learn how to create a balanced collection using a professional Range plan, taking into consideration both historical evidence and trends. In addition, students will analyze Trend Forecasting and the techniques needed to guarantee successful product development and profitability. Students will be introduced to all the levels of retail: Mass-market, Ready-to-wear, Couture, and Bespoke. Students will also learn about the Luxury market, how avant-garde is relevant to the fashion industry and have an overview of fashion futures and retail innovation.
For the first assignment, students will have the opportunity to create their own trend boards as part of the buying and product development process. For the second assignment, students will plan a balanced product offer using a Range-plan, as if they were working as a professional buyer for a Retailer or Boutique. This will be a mix of visuals and text and include a buying cycle critical path, a timeline for phases, brand definition board, purchase-order, costings and specification sheets.
The 3-credit unit will provide students with knowledge of the business side: including finance, the business environment, business structure, the people in business and business organization. The student’s knowledge of fashion business will be tested in assignment 3, which will be a formal test.
This is a challenging unit, which will provide students with an immense amount of knowledge and will serve as an excellent grounding for a career in fashion. Students will acquire a level of expertise which will enable them to apply for professional roles or internships.
Language of Instruction: English
Recommended US semester credits: 3
Contemporary Culture and Fashion Studies - Introduction to Fashion Business Summer School and Introduction to Fashion Design Summer School
This class is delivered out in the field combining tours, informal lectures, group discussions, and self-motivated discovery. Students will participate in a number of museum visits and guided walks through obscure parts of London (some related to fashion, all related to this city).
Students will be encouraged to search for inspiration and gather stimulating information whilst exploring and discovering an ‘alternative’ London. Part of this will be gaining knowledge of the layers of idiosyncratic behavior, cultural attitudes and curious customs that define the real essence of a place.
Students will have the opportunity to examine aspects of what makes ‘Britishness’ and more to the point gain an understanding of ‘Londoness’. Fashion is continually changing and London- with its multi-cultural mix, edgy, vibrant art scene, history, and traditions, is the catalyst that influences these changes. The class will examine the influence of various factors on fashion including social events, popular culture, architecture, the arts, mass media. Also, looking behind the scenes, students will gain an alternative perspective through observing the mechanics of a city steeped in a complex history. Where do people go? What do they say? How do they talk? What do they eat?
The aim is to ‘make a difference’ to the way you find, see, absorb, process, and communicate information – in your own individual and personal way.
Students will keep a journal to help them critically examine, reflect and express your opinions generated by these visits. This combination of sketches, diary, and scrapbook will become a valuable tool to underpin one’s studies.
Language of Instruction: English
Recommended US semester credits: 2
Fashion Entrepreneurship and Marketing - Introduction to Fashion Business Summer School
What is clothing and why do we wear what we do? Is it a form of protection? A product of our self-expression? Wearable architecture at the scale of the body? A collage of shapes and forms used to enhance our natural anatomy? Why and how we wear clothes says a lot about who we are, what we believe and what we dream.
This unit involves learning and practicing the foundational principles of design and applying these to the creation of an individual, personal and innovative womenswear clothing collection.
Initially, students will be introduced to a Bauhausian approach to design ideas. These will be used to broaden their perception of design whilst highlighting essential universal creative precepts, referencing across the scale from architecture to that of the body. Students will use this as a means to articulate existing points of personal interest whilst accessing new inspiration across creative disciplines and bring these findings back into their own work.
Starting from this in-depth research students will explore design possibilities and present work at all stages of development to their peers throughout the course. Along with this, they will become comfortable with sketching and using their sketchbook as a visual diary to record ideas.
Students will utilize all of their creative potentials to design two haute couture garments. Using these more elaborate examples students will proceed in the generation of a small range of five wearable high-street pieces. Students will use market and consumer research methods to develop their fashion products, translating their garments from runway bespoke to mass market high-street. All work and research will be discussed on a one to one basis throughout the unit. The unit is suitable for beginners.
In this unit students will cover:
- How to research
- How to apply your research
- Sketching
- Speed designing
- Basic technical drawing
- Creative clothing drawing
- Working with inspiration, design conceptualization, through design development
- How to design a collection
- Who’s the consumer?
- Range building
- How to put together concept, color and mood boards
- Professional presentation
Language of Instruction: English
Recommended US semester credits: 3
Styling - Introduction to Fashion Business Summer School and Introduction to Fashion Design Summer School
In addition to the study of style tribes, trends and current designer collections, students will gain an insight into the many different aspects of today’s stylist and the various opportunities on offer – fashion editorial, show/catwalk, commercial work, music industry, pop promo and celebrity styling.
Students will work towards the creation of a finished image, working in teams on an outdoor street style shoot, in an out of context environment (Southbank/Brixton/Shoreditch) to create your own editorial image.
Students will examine image creation, including physicality, psychology, individuality, taste, and style, therefore gain an understanding of the skills required to become a great stylist.
Language of Instruction: English
Recommended US semester credits: 2
Fashion Media - Introduction to Fashion Business Summer School
Have you ever wanted to write about fashion? Would you like to work for a fashion magazine or interview industry professionals? Are you interested in style and culture? Would you like to write about trends?
This unit aims to provide students with the techniques and skills required to operate successfully as a communicator within the exciting and ever-changing world of Fashion Media. Students will be taught how fashion mirrors culture, how to analyze the international catwalks. Students will also dissect the different roles within the fashion media – from journalist to style blogger. The expertise gained through this course will also provide transferable skills for industries that are influenced by current and future style and trend. Students will produce a catwalk report, fashion news story, and interview with an industry professional.
The unit will cover the following:
- Catwalk reporting
- Interview techniques
- Analyzing new seasonal collections and dissecting catwalk trends
- Brainstorming feature ideas
- Style and Culture
- Finessing and articulating fashion writing from newsy blog content to bespoke press releases and editorial copy.
Language of Instruction: English
Recommended US semester credits: 1
Visuals for Fashion - Introduction to Fashion Business Summer School and Introduction to Fashion Design Summer School
This unit will address visual communication and help students to develop critical thinking in relation to fashion images and the importance of visual literacy.
It has been designed to help students to produce aesthetically pleasing work, to support the other units within the program. Mood boards, color boards, and final presentation sheets will benefit from an understanding of basic design elements and principles such as color and composition. Students will acquire building tools which they will be able to apply to successful nonverbal communication.
The unit will expand the student’s ability to create, communicate visually, interpret content and make meaning from information, learning to transform concepts and ideas into different types of imagery, through to final presentation.
Language of Instruction: English
Recommended US semester credits: 1
Collection and Portfolio - Introduction to Fashion Design Summer School
What is clothing and why do we wear what we do? Is it a form of protection? A product of our self-expression? Wearable architecture at the scale of the body? A collage of shapes and forms used to enhance our natural anatomy? Why and how we wear clothes says a lot about who we are, what we believe and what we dream.
This unit involves learning and practicing the foundational principles of design and applying these to the creation of an individual, personal and innovative womenswear clothing collection.
Initially, students will be introduced to a Bauhausian approach to design ideas. These will be used to broaden students perceptions of design whilst highlighting essential universal creative precepts, referencing across the scale from architecture to that of the body. Students will use this as a means to articulate existing points of personal interest whilst accessing new inspiration across creative disciplines and bring these findings back into their own work.
Starting from this in-depth research students will explore design possibilities and present work at all stages of development to their peers throughout the course. Along with this students will become comfortable with sketching and using their sketchbook as a visual diary to record ideas.
Students will utilize all of their creative potentials to design two haute couture garments. Using these more elaborate examples they will proceed in the generation of a small range of five wearable high-street pieces. Students will use market and consumer research methods to develop their fashion products, translating their garments from runway bespoke to mass market high-street. All work and research will be discussed on a one to one basis throughout the unit.
This unit will cover:
- How to research
- How to apply your research
- Sketching
- Speed designing
- Basic technical drawing
- Creative clothing drawing
- Working with inspiration, design conceptualization, through design development
- How to design a collection
- Who’s the consumer?
- Range building
- How to put together concept, color and mood boards
- Professional presentation
Language of Instruction: English
Recommended US semester credits: 3
3D Design & Experimentation - Introduction to Fashion Design Summer School
Hats, headwear, headbands, chokers, bracelets, ruffs, gauntlets, armor – all pieces that mask, adorn, celebrate, enhance and maybe protect the body. Armor, for example, isn’t just an element of war, used as protection – it’s a statement. Clothing and adornment work as an extension of personality.
Objects take on another form – when made in leather, dipped in plaster, carved in wood, molded in plastic or rubber, burnished, cut, embellished, tattooed, punched, or tooled.
How do we create something original and new, when we live in a world where everything already exists?
With experimentation comes innovation. New materials create new opportunities. Fashion has a way of enhancing and embracing the past, to redefine the new. For inspiration, while the class is in Paris, students will follow in the footsteps of Yves St Laurent and examine tribal art at the Quai Branly museum: Masks, carnival costume, body markings, scarification…. rich ideas to inform their work. Think theatre and Venetian masks, the grotesque.
In this unit, students will play and invent extraordinary things. Students will create and construct a 3D form to encase the body, their body if they so wish.
Language of Instruction: English
Recommended US semester credits: 2
Footwear Design - Footwear Design Summer School
This is a creative program, and students will be encouraged to be as experimental as possible, bearing in mind commercial restraints. The goal is to inspire students to challenge preconceived ideas and opinions – in order to look at alternative interpretations, conclusions, and design solutions.
Topics covered include:
- Design experimentation and play: learning through deconstructing & making
- Foot analysis, foot anatomy, measuring the foot & fitting
- Understanding the last
- An introduction to fashion forecasting
- Working with inspiration, design conceptualization, through design development
- Sketching & speed drawing for footwear
- Materials & their properties
- From mass market to conceptual footwear
- Understanding the consumer
- Color
- Collection & range building
- Technical drawing for footwear & visual communication
- Sourcing & production.
Language of Instruction: English
Recommended US semester credits: 6
Footwear Making - Footwear Design Summer School
The shoemaking unit is taught in specialist workshops where students will learn through practical experimentation and the application of technical skills. The workshops are situated in the heart of London’s East End, an area historically rich in local crafts and skills, and still one of the city’s most buzzing creative hotspots.
During this unit students will:
- Make a basic court shoe, using a given last
- Create a pattern to cut leather uppers and linings in the clicking room working on a basic last to produce one shoe sample
- Assemble cut uppers and stitch these together in the closing room
- Prepare components for the lasting process (making) of the closed uppers on the last
- Last the upper using traditional as well as hand making techniques and specialist machinery
- Apply a heel and components that are suitable for your last
- Fully realize and construct a product based on your original pattern
Language of Instruction: English
Recommended US semester credits: 3
An Introduction to Rapid Prototyping & RHINO for Footwear - Footwear Design Summer School
LCF has more then 10 years’ experience working with three-dimensional body scanners and have conducted benchmark trials of new systems, evaluated measurement extraction software and supported the continuing development of shape analysis. LCF’s INFOOT digital foot scanner uses safe laser technology and moving scan heads to capture 3D data of an individual foot or last. The shape and measurements can then be used in 3D design processes. Rhino is a 3D product design application used in footwear design. 3D scans of a digitized last and sketch drawings are imported into Rhino to assist in the process of producing exact 3D models of shoe components. Following this, heel unit files designed in Rhino 3D are exported to 3D print a prototype model using a Z Corp additive 3D printer.
During this unit students will:
- Experience 3D scanning technology through lecture & demonstration of the INFOOT digital foot scanner
- Utilize Rhino 3D to create digital lasts, heels, soles and uppers. Produce renders of designs from varying views facilitating their display
- Have knowledge of the processes and technologies involved in rapid prototyping through participation in a lecture and demonstration
- Learn how to utilize the Adobe Photoshop software package to enhance & facilitate professional presentation of their design work
Language of Instruction: English
Recommended US semester credits: 3
