Fashion Design

Undergraduate Courses - Milan

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The course trains Fashion Designers with stylistic and creative competencies combined with the ability to define innovative products, develop stories and place a final product in the market.
The different collections and the production of prototypes are the main areas of expertise provided to students throughout the three years of study.
The course offers two specialisations: Fashion Design, aimed at training professionals able to translate their personal narration into a collection of garments and accessories, and Shoes and Accessories Design - taught exclusively in Italian language, which provides a specific training about design and production techniques that considers the peculiarity of the product.
  
Title – The First Level Academic Diploma is recognized by MIUR (Ministry for Education, University and Research) and equated with the Bachelor’s Degree issued by Universities.

  • Credits
    180
  • Start date
    October 2021
  • Duration
    3 years
  • Attendance
    full-time
  • Language
    English

Check the pages dedicated to the creative professions: Fashion Designer.

Context - The world of fashion faces continuous and rapid changes. In the past few decades, the professional once defined as Couturier has given way to a complex and flexible role covering different fields within a multifaceted process: the Fashion Designer.

Methodology and structure - The study path is structured so as to provide students with all the tools required to properly and efficiently create a fashion or accessories collection and place it within the contemporary market. The whole process focuses on the application of one Design Method - the typical Made in Italy one - which constitutes the basis of the whole process, taught to students from the first year until the Final Project. 

Regarding all the different collections studied, a particular attention is paid to the acquisition of pattern-making and sewing skills, textile, leather technology and processing, design techniques, fashion illustration, the production process of garments and accessories. 

Complementary to the technical and methodological disciplines is the particular focus on cultural studies that identify the language of fashion as a historical, artistic and social phenomenon, as a flow of trends and codes, as a creative and visual narrative and as an economic system featured by a production chain and by specific marketing and communication strategies. Students have the possibility to choose among different workshops (changing every year) such as hand embroidery, written analysis of trends, hand knitwear, fur. 

Within the specialization in Shoes and Accessories Design, in addition to designing the collections dedicated to the different types of accessories (women and men), intense workshops ensure a proper use of the tools and machines, for the acquisition of pattern making techniques and bag and shoe manufacturing. Moreover, the course offers a focus on specific technical drawings, the processes of production and use of different leathers and skins, as well as metal hardware design for accessories. 

Career opportunities - Fashion Designer, Shoes and Accessories Designer, Textile Designer, Product Manager, Knitwear Designer, Embroidery Designer.

  • I year

    • Style and History of Art and Costume

    • Design Methods

      This course provides students with the analytical tools they need to examine the nexus between a product and the processes behind its creation. This theoretical groundwork allows students to understand and manage the disciplines that contribute to designing a collection. Every design process is a confluence of functional, technological and formal aspects: the course goes from how the idea is formulated to the development of the actual object. 

    • Technical Drawing

      Familiarity with technical drawing provides students with the basic tools for communicating their work and representing the design process. Students learn the graphic idiom necessary to get the expressive independence. The course deals with all the fundamental phases involved in a correct design representation of clothing and accessories: from freehand illustration to preparatory sketches for the study of a figure’s proportions and on to technical drawing.

       

    • History of Fashion 1

      The evolution of style and fashion in the Western World from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries. The course analyses the social and technical processes that featured the main changes in the fashion world by looking into case studies of Fashion Designers and their collections. 

    • Pattern Making and Tailoring 1

      Model making is the gradual acquisition of familiarity with the techniques for making a collection, both in its constituent components and as a whole. This course provides students with the theoretical and practical tools they need for building models, using the materials most suitable for the scale of the project and the various phases of study. A 3D overview enables the idea to be examined and checked on its consistency in terms of physics laws and elaboration techniques. 

    • Graphic Design 1

      Using graphic composition programs to acquire IT literacy makes it easier for students to express an idea and enables the digital tools of representation to be correlated with the notions of visual perception. Teaching the use of the leading image processing programs enables students to maximise the impact of a concept, manage 2D images and modify their contents. 

    • Textile Culture 1

    • Fashion Design 1

      The workshop activity includes an intensive session devoted to the reproduction of a historical outfit. 

       

    • Figurative Anatomy

    • Arts Semiotics 1

  • II year

    • History of Fashion 2

      The course is focused on the historical development of fashion during the second half of the twentieth century. The evolution in trends and styles is tackled from a historical, cultural, social and economic standpoint, providing students with the tools they need to understand the language of fashion, highlight its mechanisms and identify its key phenomena. 

    • Drawing Techniques and Technologies

    • Pattern Making and Tailoring 2

    • Graphic Design 2

    • Textile Culture 2

    • Fashion Design 2

    • Arts Semiotics 2

    • History of Photography

    • Business Thinking and Management 1

  • III year

    • Pattern Making and Tailoring 3

    • Fashion Design 3

    • Design Methods for Visual Communication

    • Phenomenology of Contemporary Arts

       

       

    • Business Thinking and Management 2

    • Theory and Analysis of the Film and Audiovisual Presentations

    • Fashion Design 4

       

       

Remarkable is that teacher who accomplishes himself what he teaches to others.
(Italian proverb)

IED faculty are professionals that daily face the market. Here you can read their bios.

Olivia Spinelli - Course Coordinator

Olivia Spinelli - Course Coordinator
She has been working in the fashion industry for over 15 years during which she worked for the biggest Italian fashion houses. For Dolce & Gabbana she collaborated for the D&G line and during the time she spent in Versace she coordinated the development of the VERSUS women's collection, than she participated in the creation of the GIGLI man / woman line for the European and Japanese market and continued her journey within the great brands dealing with the GF FERRE women's collection. She currently has her own consulting firm for women's prèt a porter and child collections.

Angelo Montanini

Angelo Montanini
He is an internationally renowned Illustrator who boasts amongst his collaborations important publishing houses such as Rusconi, Mondadori, Longanesi and Editrice Nord. Since the 80s, he has been dealing with illustration-related training in the fashion becoming one of the major experts of the area.

Marta Forghieri

Marta Forghieri
Fashion Designer. With her collections she won competitions such as Feed on Fashion and Next Generation. She has collaborated with major fashion companies, she has been in charge of the second line of Mila Schön and has recently opened a womenswear brand, Smarteez, in collaboration with the company Pleated.

Veronica Foschi

Veronica Foschi
She graduated in Industrial Design with a Final Project about the definition of new communication languages in the suburban realities. She has always been working in graphic illustration and photography. Co-Founder of her own studio with Luca Schieppati. She originally specialised in the provision of 3D visualisation and animation services, as her base interests grew she expanded to include video production and the creation and supply of full-blown, highly visual, interactive solutions.

Emma Holborow

Emma Holborow
Free-lance Designer specialized in knitwear from the Winchester School of Art, she works in Italy as Knitwear Specialist both menswear and womenswear. Her career began developing knitting stitches for a notorious spinning in Milan. She also provides consultancy on knitwear-related matters for companies such as PierAntonio Gaspari, Fendi, CXD, Filatura Filpucci, Prada and Studio Ferré Donna.

Irene Cinus

Irene Cinus
She learned sartorial craftsmanship in Sardinia. Since she has moved to Milano, Irene has worked with fashion brands such as Gianfranco Ferrè and Moschino, and cutting-edge Fashion Designers, such as Carol Christian Poell. While her core activity revolves around patternmaking, tailoring and dressmaking, she is devoted to textile manipulation and artisanal experimentation, like embroidery, needlecraft and beading to create samples and collections. For the last ten years, she has also been involved in higher education.

Rachel Dobson

Rachel Dobson
Specialising in woven design at The Scottish College of Textiles. Since 1991 she has lived in Italy and worked as a textile designer for leading silk weaving mills including Teseo Srl and Ratti Spa, Como, creating fabrics for the main collections as well as developing exclusive designs for clients in the American and British fashion markets. Since 2001 she has worked as a freelance textile designer/ consultant for various Italian weaving mills and textile design studios.

Matteo Menotto

Matteo Menotto
Following his bachelor in architecture at University IUAV of Venice, he specializes at the Politecnico di Milano and attends illustration and fashion courses at Central Saint Martin’s College in London. Since 2007 he has been teaching Personal Design at IED Milan, in 2008/2010 he was visiting lecturer at the Politecnico di Milano and in 2010/11 he worked as illustrator and teacher at ESMOD Berlin. Since 2011 he works as designer in charge of the creative research for graphic prints and jacquard fabrics at Mantero Seta, silk and textile company based in Como. Prints and designs are made for company's high end clients including Chanel, Vuitton, Westwood, Pucci (etc). His work include also freelance collaborations for designers, fashion companies and magazines. Some of his works were exposed in solo and collective exhibitions.

Labs

Projects

IED FASHION GRADUATES 2019
  • Città: Milan
  • Scuola: Fashion
  • Corso: Fashion Design
IED presented the thesis collections of 7 designers in the collective of the 16 schools and academies of fashion on the catwalk on Monday 28 October 2019: Arianna Ablondi Pedretti with Recontres, Pasquale De Lise with Dovevo and instead they are, Domenico Del Gais with DOM, Francesco Murano with Ossimoro Plastico, Giuseppe Serra with Sa Mama and Su Sole, Anna Siccardi with Binôme, Zicen Zhang with Under the Dome.
Visualizza

IED Project: Rencontres
  • Città: Milan
  • Scuola: Fashion
  • Corso: Fashion Design
Arianna Ablondi Pedretti's project finds its main inspiration in contemporary dance and, in particular, in the work of the choreographer Pina Bausch. Rencontres it's about a study that starts from the movement of bodies and continues in the fusion of the male and female garments.
Visualizza

IED Project: Rencontres video
  • Città: Milan
  • Scuola: Fashion
  • Corso: Fashion Design
Arianna Ablondi Pedretti's project finds its main inspiration in contemporary dance and, in particular, in the work of the choreographer Pina Bausch. Rencontres it's about a study that starts from the movement of bodies and continues in the fusion of the male and female garments.
Visualizza

IED Project: Binôme
  • Città: Milan
  • Scuola: Fashion
  • Corso: Fashion Design
The aesthetics of Anna Siccardi's collection is inspired by the harmonious union and the empathic connection between the horse and its rider. The technical fabrics recall an idea of sportiness but at the same time refer to a concept of extreme elegance as well as the study of important volumes and minimal and oversize silhouettes.
Visualizza

IED Project: Binôme video
  • Città: Milan
  • Scuola: Fashion
  • Corso: Fashion Design
The aesthetics of Anna Siccardi's collection is inspired by the harmonious union and the empathic connection between the horse and its rider. The technical fabrics recall an idea of sportiness but at the same time refer to a concept of extreme elegance as well as the study of important volumes and minimal and oversize silhouettes.
Visualizza

IED Project: Ossimoro Plastico
  • Città: Milan
  • Scuola: Fashion
  • Corso: Fashion Design
Francesco Murano's project represents a noble celestial figure, an amazon with a chaste and superhuman beauty. The dress melts and stabilizes on the skin, becomes a container prepared for plays of light and shadow. The harmonic structure opens to the fold in an infinite series of sculpted layers.
Visualizza

IED Project: Devenir l'Autre
  • Città: Milan
  • Scuola: Fashion
  • Corso: Shoes and Accessories
Sara Gasparini's project is a journey that aims at self-representation, accepting oneself, one's emotions and one's body, starting from a reflection on the painter Berthe Morisot and the role of women during the end of the nineteenth century.
Visualizza

IED e Vibram
  • Città: Milan
  • Scuola: Fashion
  • Corso: Shoes and Accessories
Visualizza