Objectives
The yearlong intensive programme aims to provide students with the necessary theoretical and practical knowledge and tools and experience to become Fashion Management professionals.
. Enable Fashion Design, Marketing, Product and Business Management professionals to overcome disciplinary boundaries in order to grow into key drivers of organizational success.
. Develop students’ understanding of the complete ecosystem behind fashion business, to make them capable to face the actual fashion market challenges, adding value to their previously acquired professional knowledge and skills.
. Help Fashion designers, communicators, managers & marketing professionals interested in Fashion, become Fashion managers, Fashion managers become fashion leaders, and Fashion leaders become organization leaders of the future.
. Develop into leaders capable of combining creativity, managerial skills and entrepreneurial mindsets within the constraints of Fashion Business realities.
. Make future Fashion managers understand the power of developing strategies, creating brands, and delivering products and services successfully centred in the consumer.
. Provide students with Fashion and Business Management tools that will enable them to become powerful key contributors in the Value Creation Chain, within the corporate environment or as independent professionals, who can adapt perfectly into the business environment through a deeper understanding of its reality and culture.
. Develop proficiency in using the tools provided. Students will be able to identify appropriate use of these tools to balance academic and practical knowledge, efficiency in communication and ability to evaluate necessary trade-offs when faced with real business challenges.
. Expand the students’ roles and capabilities in working with innovation teams.
. Encourage critical thinking to allow students to be active citizens of our global society.
Methodology
At IED Barcelona Fashion Management is taught by a faculty body of practitioners from Fashion & Business, through the analysis of case studies and the execution of real-industry projects commissioned either by multinational companies competing in the global economy, or local companies competing in the international markets. All the contents, methodologies and tools are taught from the specificity of the fashion industry. This approach facilitates the training in decision making, placing the students in a real context for innovation and experimentation.
With the aim of giving a broad and complete preparation to develop their professional careers in the fashion market, students are trained in different and complementary fields. The complexity of managing a fashion business requires a proper knowledge on diverse tools, and the ability to apply critical analysis to quickly react on a changing landscape.
Fashion Managers should manage the complete cycle of fashion, from product conceptualization until the product is set on the store and packed in consumer’s shopping bag. The expertise on the fashion market is approached from the key disciplines involved in the fashion system. Experts in these fields will transmit students their experience on fashion trends, process of product design and production, branding, retail and visual merchandising. The awareness on Fashion Culture, complemented with Semiotics, Market Research and Trends will give a proper awareness to understand the target.
Business skills are taught from the perspective of fashion business. Marketing, sales, finances, distribution and supply chain are tackled from the fashion business specificity, from the big company’s perspective, but also giving the tools to undertake start-up projects as entrepreneurs.
Following the learning-by-doing methodology, students are constantly developing projects in teams. The Fashion Management Master students are hosted in a dedicated classroom, a space that it's transformed in an innovation design studio where students experiment with new tools an knowledge, with the guidance of the faculty. Small groups of students in the class facilitate the application of this hand-on methodology.
Leading managers need to have strong personal skills, to head projects involving heterogeneous teams of people. They should be capable to be the reference for the working team, but also transmit confidence to senior positions and investors. Personal branding, people management and creative leadership will be then integrated during the development of classes.
Fashion leaders must be able to communicate very clearly their concepts, either to the business staff or to the working team in order to achieve the desired results. Therefore the students are taught a very diverse set of tools, to train their skills to a level where they can communicate well.
With the aim of creating synergies between future professionals, some transversal activities will be held for exchanging knowledge with students of different programs is part of IED philosophy.
PERSONAL RESEARCH PROJECT
The Personal Research Project is the single most important piece of written work that students undertake during their RSP Research Study Program. PRP is the culmination Master and should demonstrate that the student has acquired skills, knowledge and analytical capabilities.
The project is an original piece of research involving primary data collection which aim is to undertake an individual work that meets the requirements outlined in these guidelines in order to achieve a passing grade.
The objectives of the thesis process are the following:
.To identify a feasible project in the student’s area of study
.To establish clearly defined objectives and/or questions to be investigated
.To design and implement an appropriate (design research/process) methodology
.To understand the adding value proposition (concept)
.To create a business development plan based on the previous concept.
.To create feasible and concrete design proposals
.To demonstrate analytical skills and produce valid findings
.To apply theory to practical reality
.To draw appropriate conclusions and recommendations where necessary
.To produce a well organized and well-written final document and an effective oral presentation of the thesis
INTERNSHIP
After finishing classes and presenting the two real industries projects, students have the opportunity to implement and prove all the knowledge acquired and skills developed in a three months internship.
In the same period students are working on their PRP so that they can choose to focus their investigation on a personal project or to connect it with the internship.
FIELD TRIPS
To give students a wider understanding of market state-of-the-art, 2 field trips are scheduled in the course curriculum, one to Milano and the other to Paris.
With the guidance of professors and coordination, students will explore different markets and professional contexts in Europe.
Field trips take students for 4 days to European Fashion Capitals to exchange knowledge in different environments. After this days devoted to academic activities, students have the opportunity to discover the city by their own.
Student's profile
The master recognizes and welcomes students from a range of backgrounds: graduates in disciplines of business areas, commercial, marketing and communication, fashion design and mass distribution; or professionals in the field of business management, the retail or fashion industry in general, and theoretical fields, interested in implementing and leading innovative projects in the context of the fashion market.
At least one year of professional experience is required to join the Master course.
Admission requirements
To enter the validation process, all candidates should submit the following documentation:
. Academic background: Undergraduate degree is required.
. Certificate of English proficiency: official IELTS or TOEFL certificate.
. Motivation letter.
. Portfolio
. Candidates should pass a personal interview with the Academic Coordination.
IED Barcelona structures the programme in a flexible way to attract students with different specialties and with various backgrounds. This creates a multidisciplinary environment for the students during the course, to development of a complete vision through fashion management.
Career Opportunities
Students who take this Master will add value to their professional experience integrating multidisciplinary teams or independently innovative undertaking their own business; they can develop their career in the areas of project management and strategy in companies related to the fashion area and retail.
Coordinator
The coordinators of the Master support the choice of the teaching team, all of them professionals with extensive experience, and associated with prestigious institutions and organizations in their fields of expertise. We have the participation of prominent international professors and speakers, who will explain to students the different approaches to Design Management.
Teresa Buhigas
Degree in Business Administration and an ESADE MBA. Since 1990 she has been involved in strategic marketing consultancy projects in very different sectors for private companies, being fashion design among them. Along her career she has been collaborating in institutional and international projects, among others, with the Barcelona Olympic Games Committee, the World Bank Group, Spanish Government, the Barcelona city hall, FAD (Fostering Arts & Design ) and Inexmoda.
Teresa has been member of the ESADE Business School Faculty during twelve years in the Marketing Management Department. Teresa joined IED in 2002 focusing with in strategic marketing subjects and Major Project tutorials. Since 2011 she is leading Westminster’s Marketing Strategies and Techniques Module at the BAH Westminster’s Fashion Marketing and Communication Program offered in Barcelona.
Duration and frequency:
Start: January 16th 2020
Timetable: full time
Frequency: 11 months
* The educational planning for all IED Master courses is aligned with the criteria established by the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). The IED Master program has adopted a credit structure that follows the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS). The IED Master issues private degrees.
