BA (Hons) Fashion Design

This course offers or includes the following modules. The modules you take will depend on your pathway or course combination (if applicable) as well as any optional or open modules chosen. Please check the programme document for more information.

Modules for the integrated Foundation year option are listed on the Integrated Foundation Year for Art and Design page.

Year one (Level 4) modules

• Research for Design Development
• Presentation and Illustration
• Introduction to Fabrications
• History and Context: Introduction to Visual and Material Culture
• Introduction to Form, Construction and Cut
• Design through Cut

Year two (Level 5) modules

• Introduction to Tailoring and Live Brief
• Introduction to Tailoring
• Fashion Portfolio
• Fashion Design: Contemporary Issues and Practice
• Period Fashion for Design Innovation
• Professional Placement Year

Year three (Level 6) modules

• Visual and Material Culture: Final Study
• Portfolio Projects and Final Project Capsule Collection (20)
• Portfolio Projects and Final Project Capsule Collection (40)
• Design Realisation
• Fashion Portfolio and Self-Promotion

What you'll learn

Overview

Fashion is a dynamic and challenging discipline that is an expression of what people feel and think. It is about evolution and change through design, influenced by cultural, social, historical, economic and political change. To this end you’ll cover all aspects of the design process, from research and design development, drawing and illustration, colour and fabric development, historical and cultural studies, as well as the ability to translate ideas from 2D to 3D.

We foster active, experiential learning; encouraging you to become a critically engaged, independent thinker.

Course structure

Year one

This level covers the core fundamentals of fashion design disciplines including 2D and 3D practice; design, drawing, fashion illustration, CAD, construction, pattern cutting, ideas research and trend research as well as fabric sourcing and development; the relationship between fabric and design. You’ll develop two-dimensional presentation skills investigating ideas through drawing within a sketchbook to inform your three- dimensional work and may use the Fashion Museum as a key resource for research. Tailoring is also covered at this level.

We’ll introduce you to fashion history and context.

Year two

In your second year you’ll be encouraged to develop a more personal design style and to develop ideas through research, design development, and design translation using drape and modelling on the stand. You’ll develop your drawing and fashion illustration skills and learn to communicate your ideas and design process within a fashion portfolio, as well as participate in a live project brief offering the chance to be selected for a paid internship in San Francisco. You’ll also undertake an external brief.

Year three

At this level you’ll develop a more strategic perspective and negotiate a body of work that reflects your personal practice as a designer, drawing together your academic experiences and personal interests to develop a highly professional contemporary fashion collection. You’ll work as a designer in industry working with external companies or collaborating with other disciplines as necessary. As part of professional contexts you’ll enter national design competitions, develop a strong fashion portfolio and self promotional materials, as well as greater knowledge of business and roles within fashion to help you develop an employment strategy.

Students will have a presence at Graduate Fashion Week in London that is attended by industry and press from the UK and overseas, as well as showcasing work in Bath at the Bath School of Design degree show.

How will I be assessed?

Continuous assessment: 84% main study modules, 16% historical and critical studies. There are no written exams.

Graduates have been employed at Zara (Spain), Chinti & Parker, Osman, Peter Pilotto, Old Navy (San Francisco), Erdem, Berghaus, Issa, Toast, Dune, Mulberry, Roland Mouret, Boudicca, Coast, Karen Millen, Giles Deacon, Gieves and Hawkes, Esprit (Cologne), French Connection, Sharon Wauchob (Paris), Joseph, Zara (Spain) and Nicole Farhi. Other graduates have progressed to study Master's degrees or set up their own businesses.

Careers could include:

• In-house designer
• Freelance designer
• Design consultancy
• Creative pattern cutter
• Freelance pattern cutter
• Designing/pattern cutting for manufacturers
• Forecasting
• Styling
• Buying
• Product developer
• Technical designer

• Tutorials: The most individual form of teaching you’ll receive outside of one-to-one help in the studio.
• Lectures: Lecturers may be members of the course academic team or visiting specialists.
• Group discussion/seminars: These provide a platform to debate and examine implications, influences and demands of a project as well as issues of interest to ensure that you're well informed. Active participation in an exchange of ideas is essential to help you develop articulate and confident attitudes to your work.
• Practical demonstrations: A specialist will demonstrate techniques, skills, equipment and a variety of technical procedures that you’ll need to know to complete modules.
• Group criticisms: Completed projects are usually evaluated as group criticisms. This allows you to analyse and evaluate your work in a group context and learn to explain your ideas coherently. You should learn to evaluate criticism, how to accept it and how to give it.