MA Fashion Design Technology (Womenswear)

Creative and Technical Innovation

The unit is designed to establish and develop your creative thinking and expand on your practical skill levels.  Your work will develop individually in response to workshops and introductions to supporting facilities and equipment.

You will evaluate and expand on your existing technical and practical skills by exploring innovative manufacturing and pattern cutting methods that can be applied to your future practice.  You will explore alternative research methods to strengthen and expand your knowledge and understanding of creative research and technical processes.

Collaborative Challenge

This unit is your opportunity to innovate and explore developmental processes and engage with collaborative working practices. You will develop your professional negotiation, teamwork and networking skills that are essential in the cultural, entrepreneurial and creative industries. The emphasis of this unit is on cross-disciplinary student-led collaboration. You can conceive of your own project or engage with industry and college-based briefs.

Establish, Prototype and Test 

This unit is designed to support the planning and development of your Master’s Project in order for you to achieve a coherent and original body of work, by the end of the course.  The unit concentrates on the development of your studio practice and its evaluation, underpinned by in-depth research. You are required to develop your critical practice, to analyse review, and revise your focus in line with your expanding theories within the context of your proposed market. The process of development and review culminates in an oral presentation in line with your Research Proposal outcomes.

Research Proposal

Developing effective approaches to research is crucial for success in your Masters project and in your wider career. In this unit you will explore approaches for theoretically interrogating your practice and your discipline. Throughout this unit you will uncover your research philosophy, defining how you look at the world and your work. You will build and extend your core research capabilities, developing a robust theoretically justified research proposal that you will complete in your Master’s project.

In the process of developing your research proposal you will explore a range of research methodologies, methods and approaches, describing how you will utilise primary and secondary research tools in your Master’s project. You will build a theoretical framework to test your ideas in order to bring you to an understanding of the relationship between theory and practice. Using this framework, you will develop research questions for your topic and ensure that the aims of your study are achievable, ethical and sufficiently critical. You will be supported in developing disciplinary specific approaches to your research, discovering opportunities for interdisciplinary exploration in the process.

Masters Project

The Masters Project is the final stage of your Masters’ course and is the culmination of your studies providing you with a space to synthesise all the knowledge and skills you have gained on the course so far. Your project will be self-directed and you will negotiate the shape and direction of your project at the outset with your supervisor. This important final phase of your studies is where you will effectively communicate your work along with your ability to critically interrogate your practice with robust approaches to research and theoretical analysis. Upon completion of your project, you will have generated a high-level Masters’ quality piece of work that will showcase your practice, academic literacy and the professional standards that will act as a platform for your future career and professional development.

The standard entry requirements for this course are as follows:
 

• An Honours degree at 2.1 or above in a related discipline. Applicants with a degree in another subject may be considered, depending on the strength of the application;

• OR equivalent qualifications;

APEL (Accreditation of Prior (Experiential) Learning)

Applicants who do not meet these course entry requirements may still be considered in exceptional cases. The course team will consider each application that demonstrates additional strengths and alternative evidence. This might, for example, be demonstrated by:
 

• Related academic or work experience (minimum of three years)

• The quality of the personal statement

• A strong academic or other professional reference

• OR a combination of these factors

Each application will be considered on its own merit but we cannot guarantee an offer in each case.

English Language Requirements

IELTS level 6.5 with a minimum of 6.0 in reading, writing, listening and speaking. 

The course seeks to recruit students from diverse socio-economic and cultural backgrounds, and welcomes applications from mature students.

The course seeks to recruit students who can demonstrate:
 

• a strong commitment towards innovation and research in an aspect of the fashion industry and the motivation towards a career in the industry;

• an awareness of current fashion and relevant experience in the fashion arena;

• appropriate knowledge and skills commensurate with the course, including the ability to develop complex concepts, design, pattern cut and manufacture clothing.

Home fee
£11,550

International fee
£23,610

Masters graduates have an acknowledged advantage in the employment market, obtaining work in a wide range of vocational and academic fields related to fashion. The course provides the industry with graduates who will have the capability to work as part of a creative team as a colleague and an individual. The graduate will have transferable skills for the creative industries including an understanding of high levels of design, time and project management, production and technical knowledge of types of manufacture supported by an aesthetic awareness and academic underpinning.

The course in the past has benefited from constant contact with the industry. External assessors and tutors, leading buying and merchandising teams, stylists and photographers, journalists and editors, entrepreneurs and business consultants show an increasing interest in the emerging talent the course generates. International employers include Alberta Ferretti, Alexander McQueen, Zac Posen, Chloe, Loewe, Pringle, Hussein Chalayan, Roland Mouret, Topman, Savile Row Tailors, Browns Focus, Harvey Nichols, Topman, Savile Row Tailors and Browns Focus.

Graduates from the current MA Fashion Design and Technology have gained employment as innovators within the broad field of fashion design and technology or have identified a fashion house, large corporate company or alternatively choose to build their own identity through the launch of their own design label. Further employment of graduates has included trend prediction, stylist, illustrator, freelance designer or broad aspects of the creative industries.

Further employment opportunities include trend prediction, stylist, illustrator, freelance designer or broad aspects of the creative industries. The MA also provides an excellent preparation for higher level research degrees (MPhil or PhD), with an increasing number of graduates undertaking research in fashion related subjects.