Fashion and Textiles

The aim of the course is to develop your creative and intellectual potential and to provide you with the relevant knowledge and skills required for a career in the fashion and textile industry. You will be involved in projects that combine fashion drawing and illustration, creative pattern cutting and garment production, embellishment and embroidery, and surface pattern design. The course will also cover marketing, promotion, styling and professional practice.

During the course, you will be encouraged to produce individual ideas whilst developing an understanding of the needs of the fashion and textile industry.

This highly creative award-winning course will equip you with everything you need for a successful career within the exciting and fast-paced fashion industry. You will develop practical technical skills such as pattern cutting, draping and production as well as creative skills in fashion design, illustration, technical drawings, computer-aided design, fashion Trend Forecasting and surface pattern design for fashion using both traditional and non-traditional methods. You will regularly take part in national and international live competition briefs and build a creative, professional portfolio that can be used for job interviews or further study.

Successful completion of this course will equip you with the relevant skills and knowledge required for employment in: Fashion Design, Pattern Cutting, Illustration, Textile Design, Surface Pattern Design, Marketing and Promotion and Styling. The course has a special focus on students that wish to become independent designers.

95% of our previous students have continued their study to ‘top-up’ their qualification with one extra year of study at our Bedford campus or another university to gain a full degree in Fashion / Textiles.

Course Modules

Each student has access to an individual workspace with the use of a KL Mannequin to use both in and out of class. This enables you to truly immerse yourself in the design process and to explore and practice the skills you have been taught as part of the course.
The Fashion and Textile department arrange a number of trips as part of the programme to ensure that you combine both contemporary and modern concepts in your research and design processes. Examples of previous trips include the Victoria and Albert Museum, the London Fashion Show, New Walk Museum and the Fashion and Textile Museum. The course also includes a subsidised trip* to a European City which is linked to an assessed assignment. Previous locations have included Paris, Madrid, Barcelona, Berlin and Edinburgh.
At the end of your course, you will be involved in arranging and presenting your designs in an external fashion show – this develops your professional employability skills and is a fantastic way to showcase your talents to a wider audience.
*subject to availability

Modules studied include*:
Visual Communication; Ideas Generation and Development; Contextual and Cultural Reference; Professional Practice Design Exploration in Fashion; Techniques & Processes in Fashion; Experimental Textiles; Experimental Printed Textiles; Experimental Embroidered Textile; Cultural Understanding in Fashion; Pattern Construction; Garment Manufacture and Fashion Collection Realisation.
*Modules may be subject to change