Fashion education is ripe for change. As we emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic, it will require a much more flexible, multi-disciplinary, omni-channel approach, that is more in line with the shifts happening in the industry, especially in terms of digital tools and access. Institutions will need to rethink educational content and delivery to...
20 Jan 2022
In this episode, “The Need for Change” part of “The Future of Fashion Education” series, we summarize the key issues at play between the fashion industry and fashion education. And we highlight opportunities for change that can help to support employees in a fast-changing industry.
Much like retail has had to evolve to meet the demands of shopping across physical and digital channels, education is also being forced to evolve. Contemporary students require new ways of learning, both in terms of content structure and delivery, that build more on the shifts in media than traditional education--leaving academic institutions...
13 Jan 2022
In this episode, “Omni-Channel Learning” part of “The Future of Fashion Education” series, we consider how education must engage multiple modalities as part of a larger strategy that puts the student at the center of the learning process.
In a recent New York Magazine article, author William Deresiewicz stated, “For educational institutions, master’s programs are cash cows since their students get far less financial aid than undergraduates. For students, the master’s program responds to a specific need: American workers are competing more and more with those around the world, and...
6 Jan 2022
In this episode, “The Rush to Offer Graduate Programs” part of “The Future of Fashion Education” series, we discuss how many universities have rushed to leverage their “brand names” to offer new graduate programs, but often without proper planning or integration with industry needs.
In the US, the GI Bill was passed to help World War II veterans acclimate back into civilian life. One of the key components of this bill was to provide servicemen with access to an affordable college education. This had the effect of greatly increasing the amount of people with a college degree from the 1950s on, ultimately shifting education...
9 Dec 2021
In this episode, “Higher Ed Relies on Asia” part of “The Future of Fashion Education” series, we investigate the relationship and reliance between American and European academic institutions and Asian students, as Western countries see declines in domestic student populations.
Due to the specialized nature of retail and fashion, training “on the job” has always been an integral part of the industry. In some cases, this learning was informal, particularly in family run businesses, but it was also formal through apprenticeships, where young people were hired to learn a trade at an atelier with the goal for them to...
2 Dec 2021
In this episode, “The Shadow Industry of Internships” part of “The Future of Fashion Education” series, we investigate the complexity of internships and how they tend to favor the economically advantaged and facilitate an unpaid, or low paid, work culture in fashion.
Fashion as an academic discipline is relatively new. It’s not to say that people haven’t been researching the intersection of clothing and economics, clothing and psychology, or clothing and culture–to name a few–for quite some time, rather that it hasn’t been taken seriously as its own discipline. However, with formalization of fashion as a...
25 Nov 2021
In this episode, “Bridging the Knowledge Gap,” part of “The Future of Fashion Education” series, we discuss ways that researchers and companies may better collaborate to the deeper benefit of both.