THREE-YEAR BA PROGRAM IN FASHION DESIGN

INTRODUCTION

EDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHY
The undergraduate three-year program in Fashion Design offers a University-level training aimed at providing a strongly professional education in the different creative roles of the fashion system. The program aims at investigating the potential that – starting from research on clothing can be extended to other areas of the fashion sector (accessories, textiles, interiors, exhibition and stage sets, multimedia displays) and to the related design subjects (design and architecture). The course is oriented towards project and technical experimentation and towards cultural and methodological innovation with a focus on the creative markets of the next decades. Design skills and cultural sensitivity are developed in a research context that moves around body, the world of the senses, space and goes through the traditional segments of the textile-clothing sector (knowledge of materials, textile-applied creativity, style and pattern- making, planning of the collection and of accessories) and conjugates them together with the training of the visual culture, thus permitting a creative and critical approach to the phenomenon of Fashion.

DIDACTIC METHODOLOGY
During the first two years students follow educational paths that go through the main concept design and production development areas in order to be able to choose with which professional profile to present themselves on the job market. The two main specialisation fields are Fashion design and Fashion Set and Display Design.
In Fashion Design students study into detail the clothing and style areas while in Fashion Set and Display Design students develop design skills in the field of accessories, exhibition and stage sets for fashion display and communication. Designing in these fields is extremely experimental in all its phases: from concept development to creative and production processes through the exploration of new fashion horizons.

PROFESSIONAL PROFILES
The educational path is aimed at providing students with plausible theoretical, professional and production tools to face markets that are being radically transformed and redesigned. Besides the traditional roles of the stylist, the model-maker and the textile and accessory designer operating in companies and professional studios, the course is focused on training professionals capable of working in the field of fashion communication and display (retail, publishing industry, show business).

PROJECTS AND ACTIVITIES
During the three-year program, students are encouraged to participate in contests and to develop external projects that prepare them for the future experience in companies and in various cultural contexts both in Italy and abroad.
During the academic year 2007/08 many projects were carried out, among which it is worth mentioning: Ethical Fashion in collaboration with fashion associations in the emerging countries that exhibited their collections during the Ethical Fashion Show in Paris, Work Garments that envisaged the organisation of a catwalk of elegant hats for the women workers of Cotton Factory “Cotonificio di Perosa Argentina”; the contest “Decolife” that conjugated safety and elegance for citizens riding their bikes in Milan. The collaboration with the Sheik’s Palace in Abu Dhabi enabled students to make an internship abroad and take part in a contest for the realisation of clothes and accessories for the United Arab Emirates. NABA is one of the founding members of the Platform of the Fashion Training System that joins the National Fashion Chamber and the most important Fashion Schools in Milan.

To have a look at the projects, please visit:
www.do-knit-yourself.com
www.piattaformamoda.it
www.feedonfashion.it

PROGRAM DIRECTOR

Anna Barbara
Anna Barbara graduated in 1993 in Architecture and she has always dealt with the relationships
between sensoriality and Architecture, places, objects and Art.
In 2000 she won the scholarship of the Canon Foundation at the Hosei University of Tokyo in
Japan. She was professor at the Kookmin University of Seoul in South Korea and at the Università dell’Immagine in Milan, at the Politecnico di Milano at the Faculty of Industrial Design and she held courses and lectures in many foreign universities (the Philippines, United States, Japan, United Arab Emirates, Israel, Spain, Brazil, France, Singapore, etc. ). She was a jury member in
many international contests in the field of architecture, design, fashion and took part in biennale and festivals with exhibition displays and installations on the sensorial theme. In 1997 she founded a studio of women designers, E123, and in 2003 the experimental design laboratory LAB_ that is active at an international level. In the past few years she has been carrying out research in the “Archi-Textile” field, that is on the relationship between space and textiles.


CURRICULUM:

FASHION DESIGN SUBJECTS – I year

HISTORY OF COSTUME AND FASHION I
The course consists in the analysis of costumes, composed of garments, accessories, hairstyles and
make-up, as a form of an individual and collective language and communication within society
and in different historical periods. This analysis also includes the historical evolution in the construction of costumes (draping, cutting techniques, use of materials). In the first year students will analyse the evolution of the shapes and of the costume construction and decoration techniques, from draping to cutting techniques, starting from ancient Egypt times, through Mesopotamia, Crete, ancient Greece, up to ancient Rome and study the relationship between body and costume in the various civilizations, up to the late Sixteenth Century.

HISTORY OF MODERN ART
The course traces the birth, the institutionalisation and the crisis of the Western representation model that has characterised Art in the modern age. The optical devices, the geometrical outlines, the idea of the square, the relationship between the observer and the image producer, the role of the client and the exhibition place will be the themes dealt with along this historical journey from Giotto to Velázquez up to Courbet, not according to a temporal linear development but in relation to the level of formalization reached by each of the issues treated. The course proposes a sort of deconstruction “Representation” as a status of the Western modern image.

TECHNOLOGY OF MATERIALS I
Pattern-making and Manufacturing: it provides students with the main notions for the manufacturing of garments (patterns, application on fabric, cut of fabric, manual and machine manufacturing) and with the traditional and innovative finishing methods of garments. More in detail the course will aim at providing students with the techniques necessary to make models for menswear and womenswear collections in an autonomous and professional way. For every garment a paper pattern will be produced.

Fashion Illustration: this course aims at teaching students how to use drawing and its expressive and decoration character as well as making them understand its meaning. Fashion pattern drawing and wearability will be studied in depth.

DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES AND APPLICATIONS
Digital drawing: the course allows the acquisition of the theoretical-practical basic notions of digital graphic representation and photo-retouch through standard software such as Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. Objective of the course is to provide students with the basic elements for the visualisation and presentation of their projects, in order to progressively create a digital portfolio of their works starting from the first year.

CAD: The course comprises the reading and representation of the project, the rules of form through the use of the unified software Autocad 2004 with an evolution from the bi-dimensional to the three-dimensional drawing up to technical drawing and pattern-making.

TEXTILE DESIGN I
Textile design: The course allows to experiment the structural Design, (coinciding with the pipeline of textile transformation) and to show students the differences between structural Design and surface Design. The course goes into some of the most important processes in the sequence of textile transformation, in which the designer can intervene in a decisive way.
Textile culture: the course introduces to textile and non textile materials for garments and accessories, to the traditional techniques and to the most advanced applications used by Italian companies. Knowledge of textiles and materials (with particular reference to innovative materials) and of the techniques involved in the design and fashion production processes will be developed.

FASHION DESIGN I
Fashion methodology: project development It introduces students to the professional methods of Fashion planning: the identification of a trend, the study of a concept and a style, the realization of a mood-board, the communication of a theme through images, the elaboration of colour cards, materials cards, shapes and models.
Participated Fashion: this course develops a method of approach from the idea/concept up to the production of a garment. The program develops a critical culture of Fashion positioning in the contemporary culture.

BODY PHENOMENOLOGY
The body represents the main medium around which fashion is invented. Forgetting about its sizes, its real physical dimension, its shape is an anti-historical abstraction by which we should not be seduced. The debates on the body are those related on the primary essence of fashion and we should start right from there. The course is intended for first-year students and is aimed at highlighting that the body and its sensations are the subjects of the fashion creativity that will be analysed: bodies of tired women, of happy men, of spoilt children, of seductive elderly people, of temporary workers.

FASHION DESIGN SUBJECTS – II year

PATTERN-MAKING
Students will acquire pattern-making competencies for all clothing items (trousers, suits, bustiers, shoulder-pieces), up to the realization of a final book where all the basic schemes and their variants are catalogued. It leads students to develop prototype garments introducing industrial and tailoring techniques.

HISTORY OF CONTEMPORARY ART I
The course deals with an in-depth analysis of the relationship between Art and environmental space within all the artistic movements of the twentieth century starting from one of the protagonists of such research like Gianni Colombo (Milan, 1937- 1993). Colombo’s overcoming of the bi- or threedimensional work and the direct involvement of theexhibition space allow to focus on the temporalization of space as well as on the programming and participation of the work of art. Sectors such as Cinema, Theatre, Design, Video and Architecture will be read in an integrated and historicized framework.

TEXTILE DESIGN II
Textile design: the course goes into the specific tools and methods for the planning of textile design. Students will develop free-hand and software-aided texture projects for the clothing sector, considering the supporting material and the industrial printing processes. The practical exercises are integrated by theoretical lessons on the industrial printing processes and on the role of printed fabrics in the contemporary scenario of Fashion.

Knitwear: the Knitwear course leads students to develop an individual project of garments and accessories through the needles technique and the use of knitting machines in order to carry out actual research and experimentation on the matter, on the techniques and on the entire planning route from ideation to production.

ACCESSORIES DESIGN
Accessories design: this course is devoted to the experimentation with plastic materials in order to make accessories on the basis of conceptual and aesthetic research applying methods that are commonly used in the design field.
Fashion Accessories: starting from an analysis and understanding the accessories and leather market, students will develop a collection through the use of a colour card as well as through image and texture research, applying methods that are commonly used in the fashion design sector.

FASHION DESIGN II
Methodology: the course is divided into two semesters: in the first semester it deals with a project theme that changes every year and that leads students to confront themselves with a concrete need expressed by the market, encouraging them to create new proposals and new ways for the Fashion planning.
Ethic Fashion: in the second semester, the more specific issue of ethic fashion will be analysed: students will be encouraged to elaborate and communicate in a suitable way collection proposals that will be developed individually or in groups having in mind the ethical and no-profit market.
Observatory: this seminar aims at giving students a complete view of the entire project: concept, research and project. In addition to this, an inter-disciplinary approach aimed at fostering students’ observation and experimentation skills will be adopted.
Colour: during this seminar students will consider and discuss about colours from a symbolical, historical and perceptive point of view, making reference to communication and fashion.

PHOTOGRAPHY
Photography: The main character of photography is its specific ability to “capture” all together shapes and movements, spaces and events. Starting from these premises, the course includes teaching, analysis and selection of specific elements of photography techniques; knowledge and in-depth study of photography works as historical models and as part of contemporary imagination; constructing and analysing the photography tools; teaching and thinking about photography as a non-ambiguous language.
Photography Techniques: This course aims at providing students with all the necessary skills to use analogical and digital photographic equipment. Both the shooting and the post-production processes will be analysed. Students will start with a study of light in order to subsequently learn how to use an optical bench, digital equipment and finally software devoted to photographic elaboration. Besides fostering the development of specific technical skills, students are encouraged to reflect on the photographic medium, to learn “to see” and “read” the photographic image as it is.

PAINTING AND VISUAL ARTS
Design for Painting: This course deals with a project theme that changes every year and that allows students to develop an individual approach and a personal project culture. Through a survey of the external context, the analysis of various artists’ works and the constant interaction with the professor, students are encouraged to experiment and to express a personal imaginary through the use of Painting, Sculpture, Installation, Video and Performance.
Painting: The objective of this course is to highlight, through the different aspects of the painting language, each student’s growth potentiality, combining manual skills and consciousness, knowledge of technical tools and of issues concerning shape, colour, composition and space, meant as an infinite territory of possibilities and not as fixed categories.

THEATRE COSTUME
The course consists in the analysis of the statistical features of historical costumes with reference to their evolution into theatre costumes. There will be a reconstruction of the cutting techniques of historical costumes, a creative realisation of costumes – both historical and original – created by students that will learn costume elaboration techniques of textiles.

MARKETING
Students will acquire the basic elements of marketing, the present consumption trends and the current sociological changes. They will learn how to make a marketing plan by analysing all steps involved in the launching plan of a new product. The course also aims at developing a sensitivity towards the issues of self-enterprise, licensing, and market forms that are alternative to the dominant ones.

SEMIOTICS
The course provides the theoretical-methodological tools needed to decode the functioning of the
Fashion system: the ways through which it produces meanings, values and identities as well as the
relations occurring between Fashion and Design and between Fashion and Communication in order
to build a project concept. The course first analyses Fashion as a body language and as a project of ideas to wear, and then goes through the different communication forms of Fashion, its advertising
language and the ways through which not only brand identities but also identities of new subjects
and lifestyles are built.

FASHION DESIGN SUBJECTS – III year

TECHNOLOGY OF MATERIALS II
This course offers the theoretical-practical basic notions to organise and manage spectacular
events for the Fashion sector. It is a practical experience aimed at the production of a performing event that can be produced individually or in teams and, especially, by exploiting all the professional roles present in the Academy, thus learning how to manage the different professional skills involved in the organisation of an event.

PATTERN-MAKING II
This course goes into the skills acquired in the previous years through the creation of garments personalised by students, from the sketch to the pattern up to the production of the finished garment in all its parts. This course supports the design part of the Fashion Design III course from a technical and practical point of view.

FASHION DESIGN (PRODUCT) III
Students are asked to elaborate a complete collection (mood book, colour and fabrics
cards, icon garments, production grid) following a theme that changes every year from the concept stage up to the realisation of product garments.

FASHION SETTING
This course is a laboratory that introduces students to the job market in the area of fashion that is not strictly connected with the manufacturing world. Students will be encouraged to elaborate and prepare a performing event able to put on stage the other dimensions of garments and fashion. The course aims at designing an environment equipped with all the aesthetical features and those related to theatre design such as light, sound, perfume and taste that become fashion design tools going beyond garments.

CONTEMPORARY ART PHENOMENA
The course aims at guiding students through an exploration and critical analysis of the images coming from heterogeneous disciplines and languages characterising contemporary “visual culture” in order to enrich their visual and cultural background and lead them to the definition of new aesthetical morphologies and an original expressive universe. Students will visit exhibitions, take part in conferences and meetings on the relationship between the various languages of artistic expression (fashion, photography, graphic design, contemporary art, music).

HISTORY OF COSTUME AND FASHION II
In the second year of the course, students will analyse the aesthetical ideal of each historical period in connection with the socio-cultural, political and religious context in order to understand why specific silhouettes, materials and colours starting from 1600 up to the present have been made.

DECORATION
Decoration is something totally different from what is traditionally intended with project as it does not involve any forecast, organisation and use hypothesis. Decoration has “no tasks”, its status consists in presenting itself as communication of sensations, as consumption phenomenon in itself, as a list of personal values. Students will be encouraged to deal with three-dimensional objects as they were painting, looking for pieces of visual thoughts in themselves in order to make decoration and its expressive and poetical vocation living.

HISTORY OF CINEMA AND VIDEO
The course has the following objectives: 1) an approach to the themes of audiovisual products in general and of cinema in particular 2) the analysis of the spectator-film relationship in order to make students’ vision of films more critical and effective 3) the knowledge of the cinematographic language and of the technologies underneath cinema 4) the knowledge of the production steps of a movie 5) the analysis of the reading modalities of a script 6) the knowledge of the main movements of the History of Cinema and of the most significant authors.

AESTHETICS
The course highlights the problems and difficulties concerning the situation of Art and of contemporary Culture. It introduces to the basic notions of the philosophical aesthetics and goes through the present trends in terms of artistic research. The course is divided into two semesters. In the first semester students will acquire an aesthetic knowledge, from traditional crucial points up to contemporary times, while the second semester is dedicated to the state of research in a period characterised by a cognitive mortification.

PRODUCT DESIGN I
Project Methodology: The course provides the tools needed to face the complexity of Product Design in order to develop a synthesis ability and to create a coherent proposal. Basic problems are analysed through practical exercises and case studies: the passage from sketch to model, the relationship between men and objects as well as the technical problems in the production of the project.
Intensive Workshops: First-year students will also take part in a number of project workshops in which the representation tools (digital or analogical) represent the most important communication medium between a designer and the rest of the world.

Fashion Design Bachelor of Arts in Italy