Fashion Design (with placement year)

UCAS code: W232

Here's what Leeds Arts University says about its Fashion Design (with placement year) course.

Discover your own design aesthetic and create a fashion collection and portfolio that showcases your individual energy and talents. This practice-based degree course embraces the diversity of fashion design in the 21st century. Join a community of passionate students, all focussed on becoming informed fashion-design creatives.

You will explore and learn this multifaceted design discipline and its historical and contemporary context, alongside broader factors that influence fashion design, including global fashion narratives, gender, sustainable practice, and ethics.

As a result of our connections with the fashion industry you will benefit from inspirational speakers, live projects and external visits. Access to these activities demonstrates the esteem in which this course is held and our ability to produce ‘industry-ready’ graduates.

Working with partners which have included the British Fashion Council’s ‘Colleges Council’ and Graduate Fashion Week we offer opportunities to enter competitions, attend insightful seminars and presentations, and showcase your work on a variety of external industry platforms.

Using the latest technologies within our Mac suites including CAD 2D and 3D design software, our staff will support you to realise your designs. Our dedicated teaching team encourage practice-based skills from developing initial research into sketches, ideas and designs into patterns, which are realised into garments using industry standard equipment. We help you cultivate the attitude and skills needed to succeed as a professional fashion practitioner.

Year one – Learn and explore the core skills required for fashion design, such as fashion drawing and illustration, design methods, colour awareness and application, pattern cutting and garment production, visual research methods, portfolio presentation, and digital applications for design. Educational visits to galleries and exhibitions offer a cultural insight into the fashion ecology and inspire your work.

Year two – Continue to develop your work process and presentation skills, taking pride in your work and gaining confidence in sharing your creations through live projects and collaborations, and also learning about 3D fashion design. Through pattern cutting and garment production, you will combine elements of traditional tailoring techniques with contemporary genderfluid design and you will explore and apply the technique of creative pattern cutting, as integral to the design process.

Year three – This self-directed final year takes a holistic approach to your practice. You will produce a body of work supported by reflective and critical writing, culminating in the realisation of your graduate fashion collection and exciting opportunities to showcase your work. Live projects will further enhance your portfolio in preparation for employment, forming your identity as a creative fashion-design practitioner.

*This course includes a placement year (also known as a sandwich year, work placement, industrial placement, or year in industry), which provides a fantastic opportunity to enhance your employability and gain practical experience in your field of study. The placement year typically occurs after year two and before year three. Please see the Undergraduate Placement Year FAQs on our website for more information: www.leeds-art.ac.uk/undergraduate-placement-year-faqs