Graduate Diploma in Fashion

Course detail

The Graduate Diploma in Fashion offers a one-year Higher Education programme for international and, for the first time in 2014, graduate students. It aims to produce mature and sophisticated designers equipped to work in and design for the international market.

The course offers students with a background in fashion design or a closely related discipline the opportunity to take a fresh view of their work and their creative direction.

The course’s learning and teaching philosophy emphasises creative freedom and offers you the opportunity to explore and experience London as an international fashion design centre and a rich resource for research, providing invaluable insights into progression to postgraduate study or employment in the International fashion industry.

The learning and teaching are project-based and offer you the freedom to experiment and find or re-define yourselves within a creative environment. The course emphasises breadth as well as depth of research and an innovative approach to design development.

The Graduate Diploma in Fashion begins with staff-directed and / or industry projects aiming to support you in identifying and further developing your strengths and addressing your weaknesses. This enables you to develop your work in consultation with staff on an ongoing basis.

Fundamental to the course is the commitment to support your creative development with appropriate design, technical (pattern cutting / garment construction) and professional skills to help you to take advantage of the benefits and challenges that studying in London provides.

Later projects are negotiated with course staff and self-directed, offering you the opportunity to demonstrate independent learning in the context of your final project.
The curriculum also introduces you to the potential of a range of different approaches to the visual communication and articulation of design ideas. Personal and professional development emphasises the skills and aptitudes required in designing for a specific market, researching and taking account of current trends and, in particular, the personal presentation skills required to support application for entry into postgraduate study and/or employment in the international fashion industry.

You leave the course with a portfolio and realised design work that will effectively support access to postgraduate study and / or entry into employment in the fashion industry.
The Graduate Diploma in Fashion lasts 30 weeks of full-time study structured as two units over three terms.

The course is credit rated at 120 credits, and comprises two units. Unit Onr (60 credits) lasts 15 weeks. Unit Two (60 credits) follows after the completion of Unit One and also runs for 15 weeks.
Both units must be passed in order to achieve the Graduate Diploma, Graduate Diploma with Merit or Graduate Diploma with Distinction.

Autumn term:
Monday 24 September 2018 – Friday 7 December 2018
Spring term:
Monday 7 January 2019 – Friday 15 March 2019
Summer term:
Monday 15 April 2019 – Friday 21 June 2019

Course outline

Unit One - Diagnostic: research and creative development

This Unit has a diagnostic function, with projects that seek to build on your existing strengths and identify areas of your design work that need to be developed. The Unit culminates in a project normally set by a practitioner working in industry that enhances and consolidates your skills in working creatively to a set design brief.

Presentation to Course Team and fellow students of:

• Pre-entry (current trends shows and exhibitions) project
• Portfolios (as submitted for application)

This introduces you to the course team and to one another. It also gives the course team the opportunity to make an initial evaluation of your strengths (to be developed) and weaknesses (to be addressed). It provides an opportunity for you to become more confident in talking about your work in a presentation or critique in English. You are also introduced to the rest of the Fashion Programme, the College and Student Services.

This project offers a combination of talks, escorted visits and personal explorations of London as an international fashion centre and how it operates in relation to marketing, retail and production as well as design.

This project (set by the course team) supports you through the process of: identifying and using a range of approaches to research (libraries, galleries, museums, shops, the internet); using London as a resource and/or focus of research; identifying and using different approaches to design development (draping, cutting, deconstructing and re-assembling a vintage item, new / unusual materials etc.) through to making a fully realised garment. The emphasis is on broadening of possibilities and the excitement of experimentation.

This project is led by a practitioner from industry. It is relatively short in order to give you an idea of the restricted timescale for design development prevailing in the industry. You are required to work to a prescriptive brief and design for a specific market. In relation to your Personal and Professional Development you benefit from the opportunity of consultation with a practitioner.

This project (set by the course team) equips you with a framework within which you can reach an insight into who will wear your clothes and how to go about designing to meet their needs. You are required to document intensive research in a variety of media as well as your design development process and to produce a finished garment. The project enables you to design with greater focus and understanding.

The portfolio presentation tutorials take place towards the end of Unit One. Their purpose is to review your portfolio to date and provide advice and guidance on compiling a professional portfolio suitable for interviews for postgraduate study or for employment. The tutorials will supplement the IT for Presentation provision described below.

The course team believes that the creative use of design and presentation software is an essential part of the creative designer's repertoire and may be a key deciding factor in employability. The emphasis in these sessions will be on IT as a creative design tool and this will be linked in to the current studio project, thus supporting you in applying learning in the development of your personal projects and the associated portfolio work.

Research and Cultural Awareness are integrated in the curriculum and will include a mixture of visits to museums, galleries and key retail outlets and the range of opportunities available in the capital e.g. fashion weeks and exhibitions as well as input on market analysis.

An intensive programme of Fabric and Fibre Awareness is also provided in order to support your fabric choices and design decisions.

In Unit Two you use the knowledge and skills acquired or extended in Unit One to develop a rationale for your final design output. Continuing from Unit One, further support will also be provided at this point in developing your personal presentation skills (including CV-writing) to support application for further study or employment. The major part of this period is given over to completion of the final project that defines what you have gained from the course. This comprises realised creative work together with a portfolio of design work. This Unit concludes with final assessment, examination and your degree exhibition.

The initial weeks offer you an opportunity to reflect on your learning so far and, in consultation with tutors, to refine your final project proposal as to rationale (including market awareness), concept, indicative timescale for realisation and nature of work to be presented for assessment. You will be supported in developing a proposal which is congruent with the learning outcomes of the course and viable in relation to the time and resources available. You present your final project proposal to your tutors for agreement.

You work on the realisation of your final project. Although design tutorials and pattern-cutting and garment construction support are available, the essential skills of self-directed and self-managed learning within a defined envelope of resources are emphasised. Throughout this stage, presentation and IT support and tutorial support are also available on a regular basis to ensure that you have the opportunity to resolve any difficulties as they arise.

On the Graduate Diploma in Fashion, PPD is directly integrated with the subject of study and the discipline. Relevant knowledge and skills are addressed and embedded in the two Units.

In addition to pre-sessional English language classes we offer free in-sessional English language support classes to students currently studying a full time course at the University. These weekly classes are taught in the context of art, design and communications and are designed to support you with the language and language skills you need to complete your course successfully.

If you would like one-to-one time with a language tutor to look at your writing, get help understanding a difficult text, or prepare for a presentation, you can book a tutorial. Tutorials last 30 minutes and there are sessions every week during term time at all the colleges and also at the Language Centre. There are three types of tutorials:

• Drop in tutorials - just come along on the day and write your name on the sign up sheet
• Bookable tutorials
• Online tutorials - send up to 500 word by email to an English tutor who will check your work and reply with corrections within a few days.

GD Fashion Programme Specification 2018/19 (PDF, 445KB)

Facilities

• Knit workshop

  Find out more about our knit workshop

• Digital Access Print

  Find out more about our Digital Access Print

• Print & Dye

  Find out more about our Print & Dye facilities

Staff

Course Leader: David Kappo

Designer/Cutter: Kaori Homma
Design Tutor: Aimee McWilliams
Fabric and Fibre: Veronica Shattuck

Second Year Tutor: Jona Piehl
Second Year Tutor: David Chambers

Course Tutor: Bethany Shepherd

Course Technical Co-ordinator: Becky Edwards

Course Lead Administrator: David Mansfield

Home/EU Student Administrator: Richie Kaboh
Overseas Student Administrator: Colin Tebb