London Florence: Fashion Accessories Design

This course introduces you to leather design and the range of skills used when working leather, from traditional techniques to new technologies as well as how to get the most out of 3D printers to create jewellery. It will give you an understanding of the most important aspects of the creative and artisanal process using the state of the art facilities in Polimoda.

This course is intended to contrast the long heritage apparent in the luxury leather goods market with the innovation and huge potential that modern technologies offer to contemporary fashion accessories, and to exploit the characteristics of both cities and schools involved - offering a wider perspective and different approaches that will feed into your personal project.

Creativity, research and practical sessions combined with tutorials and project revisions will enrich your personal vision of the future of fashion accessories. During the course you will take a number of accessories from concept and research development to final designs on paper, in London and in Florence take your designs to produce a contemporary leather bag and a piece of 3D printed jewellery.


Learning Outcomes:

• Learn how to use a variety of tools and machines in Polimoda’s specialist leather manufacturing laboratories
• Understand the processes required to produce 3D printed jewellery
• Leanr how to research concepts which can be developed into designs
• Understanding the application of research in the design process to produce design solutions, which make an imaginative use of different technologies
• Leave with the ability to communicate ideas using drawing and other visual forms appropriate to the accessories field as well as presentation skills to enable you to sell your idea to your target audience
• Have a collection of leather and printed samples for your portfolio that you have created during the course
• Produce a prototype contemporary bag
• Produce an innovative piece of contemporary 3D printed jewellery

London:

This course is designed to give you an authentic Central Saint Martins Fashion Design experience, using experimental research and design development pathways that are original and innovative.

The course focuses on finding inspiration, researching, and developing ideas for Fashion accessories. A key element of the course will be utilising and developing your research skills. You will research contemporary British Accessories designers identifying their trademark characteristics. You will learn how to incorporate such elements into your own work to give you a distinctive style. You will explore your ideas by gathering inspiration from a variety of sources as the starting point for creative design research. You will then go on to develop and interpret your research ideas into accessories designs and work on small samples.

A series of workshops led by industry professionals will cover pattern-making and accessories illustration. You will explore a range of different techniques to present your ideas to an advanced portfolio standard.
Research will also include a trip to key British stockists (Dover Street Market, Browns, Liberty, Harvey Nichols) to enable you to capture the current British Fashion scene. You will also do research trips to the V&A, as well as East London studios, stores galleries and nightlife. Research will be captured in your sketchbook, through drawings, photos, test samples, fabric swatches and notes.

During the course there will be drawing workshops, which will help you to develop your own individual fashion drawing style.

The course will take you through a series of individual and group tutorials and by the end of the week you will have created a significant portfolio of work, designed a collection of 6 pieces inspired by the work you completed on your personal universe. The accessories will be properly illustrated and accompanied by extensive research, colour palette supplemented with additional fabric and leather research, prints and fabric manipulation.


Florence:

In Florence the practical work begins where you will start to work in the well equipped workshops to develop your own samples, producing work under the guidance of the highly experienced tutors and technicians.
As a continuation of your design work in London, you will research the heritage around ‘Made in Italy’, what it means in contemporary accessories, and the strong tradition of Florentine historical leather craftsmanship, which also influences the contemporary Italian designers.
The City of Florence and its outskirts have a lot to offer for inspiration, research will include a trip to key Italian stockists.

You will also do research trips to the Salvatore Ferragamo museum, the Anthropological museum, as well as stores, manufacturers, galleries and nightlife. Research will be captured in your sketchbook, through drawings, photos, souvenirs, test samples, fabric swatches and notes.
The courses will take place at Polimoda’s campus in Villa Favard, with it’s incredible library and fully equipped laboratories in Scandicci.

During the course you will start to turn your two dimensional concept for a bag into fabric samples and 3D prototypes. You will receive demonstrations and undertake exercises using a variety of tools and machines used in the leather manufacturing laboratories. From the first day you will have to start practicing sewing and construction techniques and will be guided by our Master Artisan so will finish with detailed samples of bags.

You will also work with the latest technologies using the specialist scanners and 3D printers to fabricate a piece of printed jewellery. Learning how to use this state of the art equipment and understanding how it can push boundaries in the fabrication process.

By the end of the fourth week you will have designed a collection of accessories inspired by the work you completed on your personal universe and seen through the eyes of the Italian design tradition, and informed by Italian culture. You will also have produced a bag and jewellery prototype.