MA/PgD/PgC Fashion Design

Course Overview

The MA Fashion Design course promotes innovative design thinking and cultivates an ethos of experimentation befitting postgraduate study in a school of Art and Design. It aims to generate unique responses to market trends and technological demands, nurturing an understanding of contemporary design within global contexts. Within Cardiff School of Art and Design you will be encouraged to explore imaginative fusions between materials and technology to develop your individual creative identity. Throughout this process, you will be embedding your designs within a conceptual framework that embraces social, cultural and ethical perspectives.

Creative collaborations with postgraduate students from a range of disciplines within CSAD are nurtured, working towards a design collection that incorporates garment and accessories, brand styling, promotion and curatorial practices. The emphasis will be on an evolving research trajectory in the preparation of a professional portfolio that can attract careers with international brands, generate successful design labels and also prepare for further postgraduate research. Exit points: On completing 60 credits in total students may be awarded a Postgraduate Certificate; On completing 120 credits in total students may be awarded a Postgraduate Diploma; On completing 180 credits in total students will be awarded a Master’s Degree.

Assessment

The learning outcomes are assessed within the modules through a variety of methods including essays, presentations and project work etc, as seen in individual module descriptors. Assessment takes place at strategic points in the academic year to enable and support your continued development. Group critiques and tutorials offer continuous feedback opportunities. Peer and self-assessment is used extensively.

Employability & Careers

The MA Fashion Design programme enables students to enhance their careers as, or to become, established designers leading towards a career, a PhD, or to a Professional Doctorate in either art or design. Cardiff School of Art and Design offers Professional Doctoral programs in both Art and Design. The MA Fashion Design programme is designed to enable students to achieve the attributes of greater flexibility, adaptability, and individual responsibility and autonomy as professional designers or researchers. The course aims to develop individuality, creativity, self-reliance, initiative, and the ability to perform in rapidly changing environments as well as increasing competence with research skills and methods which will make graduates highly employable as academics and/or researchers, or enable them to develop an active and sustained practice as designers.

The MA Fashion Design enables graduates, as well as mid-career and professional practitioners, from within and outside of the discipline of Fashion Design to negotiate and examine strategies of design and manufacture. All students receive individual PDP tutorials to support employability and life-long learning. Students will be expected to maintain learning journals evidencing continuous visual documentation that integrates opportunities for self-reflection in order to help them develop as effective and confident learners. At the conclusion of the programme, a very high percentage of MA graduates establish or continue their professional practice, enabled by the links they have made with design studios or organisations associated with the visual arts and design. Some elect to continue with their Fashion Design studies at CSAD by undertaking a PhD.