Best Fashion Design and Apparel Design Schools and Programs 2008

US News & World Report has announced its list of the best fashion design and apparel design programs for 2008:

* Academy of Art University
* Ashland University
* Baylor University
* Brenau University
* California College of the Arts
* Centenary College
* College of St. Catherine
* College of Visual Arts
* College of the Atlantic
* Columbia College
* Columbus College of Art and Design
* Dominican University
* Drexel University
* Fashion Institute of Technology
* Framingham State College
* Iowa State University
* Kent State University
* Lindenwood University
* Marist College
* Maryland Institute College of Art
* Marymount University
* Massachusetts College of Art
* Meredith College
* Michigan State University
* Montclair State University
* Moore College of Art and Design
* Mount Mary College
* New School
* Otis College of Art and Design
* Parsons School of Design
* Philadelphia University
* Pratt Institute
* Purdue University–West Lafayette
* Rhode Island School of Design
* Savannah College of Art and Design
* School of the Art Institute of Chicago
* Stephens College
* Texas Christian University
* Texas Tech University
* Texas Woman’s University
* University of Delaware
* University of North Texas
* University of the Incarnate Word
* Ursuline College
* Virginia Commonwealth University
* Washington University in St. Louis
* Woodbury University

In the coming weeks, we’ll be posting profiles of these schools to provide those budding fashion designers among us with more information.

Fashion Institute of Technology

In following with the biography of Calvin Klein, I thought I’d include some information about the fashion school that he attended: FIT in New York.

Located in New York City, the Fashion Institute of Technology prepares students for professional excellence in design, fashion, and business by providing the premier educational experience that fosters creativity, career focus, and a global perspective.

Fashion Institute of Technology offers the following fashion design degrees:

For more information on the fashion design program: Fashion Institute of Technology, or the official site: FIT.

Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design

For those of you out there who are aspiring fashion designers and are looking for more information and tips on various fashion design schools, I wanted to point out that not only did John Galliano go to Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design (in London), but so did Alexander McQueen, Stella McCartney, and Paul Smith, among others.

Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design is a college of the University of Arts London. Other colleges/schools include the London College of Fashion, the Chelsea College of Art and Design, the Camberwell College of Arts, and the London College of Communication. All colleges are located in London.

From the Central Saint Martins site: “Most students start their post-school art and design education with a one year Foundation course which gives them the opportunity to explore all the art and design disciplines and prepare a portfolio for entry to our three year undergraduate courses. Students can follow their undergraduate education with a postgraduate degree, or prepare for a specialist profession on a postgraduate certificate.

“If you are interested in research a PhD or MPhil is the first stage in a postgraduate research career.

“We also run a large short course programme with courses that can help you prepare for further study, change direction, brush up your skills or just enjoy your leisure time. Tailor-made training is suitable for companies and groups of students from the UK or overseas. You can find full details of all our other courses on this site.”

For more information on University of Arts London, click here.
Or, the Central Saint Martins’ site: Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design.
Quick, centrally located, in-depth information on the Fashion Design Program at Central Saint Martins.

Fashion Design Education

Looking to have your own fashion designs featured at fashion week one day?

Formal training and education in fashion design are essential to creating the foundation necessary to get your foot into the door of the fashion design world. Whether you want to be a big-name designer based out of Paris or New York or simply want to have your fashion designs featured in a local fashion boutique, everyone has to start learning the basics of fashion design somewhere.

Many of the most famous top fashion design schools are in the heart of fashion design meccas like Milan, Florence, Paris, and New York (fashion design schools such as Marangoni, Parsons, Polimoda, Créapole).

However, there are many fashion design schools around the world - many much closer to home or more convenient to your personal needs. You don’t necessarily have to go to the school with the most famous name in order to get the best education. Fashion design education teaches you the techniques of fashion design, but it cannot teach you how to be creative. If you’ve got the inner-spark necessary to be a fashion designer, you’ll thrive no matter which school you choose to attend.

For more information on a wide selection of design schools, check out the following site:

More on Haute Couture

Haute Couture was invented there at the end of the 19th century and has felt most at home there ever since. Paris, whose influence in the world of fashion may even go as far back as the court of Louis XIV, still ranks as the capital of haute couture, with its crafts and its almost legendary fashion houses of international renown, its extravagances and its unique savoir faire. As the proving ground for design and research, Paris continues to inspire and attract talents from all over the world. Generation after generation, it breathes new life into haute couture, this luxurious and ephemeral art which, undoubtedly, must go on evolving if it is to survive.

For more than a century, couture has been emblematic of the triumph of costume and fashion. It represents the fusion of fashion—the modern entity that combines novelty and synergy with personal and social needs—and costume—the arts of dressmaking, tailoring, and crafts constituent to apparel and accessories. Founded in the crucible of modernism’s invention in the middle years of the nineteenth century in Paris, with the expanded patronage cultivated by the House of Worth, but still dependent upon the considerable support of Empress Eugénie, couture has long stood as the modern equilibrium between the garment as exquisite aggregate and the burgeoning notions of fashion as a system.

The persistence of the haute couture is as roundly questioned and doubted and debated as the survival of painting or the supposed death of Broadway. Some may have doubted that the couture would survive its founder, the entrepreneurial Charles Frederick Worth. In the early years of the twentieth century, Paul Poiret took couture into an admittedly dangerous path of change, responding to Orientalist and social sirens, but even more to the beckoning of commerce and the use of the couture as a generating engine for fashion and fragrance broadly disseminated. Ironically, the couture flourished in the postwar period, beginning with the immense popular appeal of Christian Dior’s “New Look” in 1947. This supposed fashion novelty was so successful in part because it knew acutely its history and reconvened the finest skills to the couture.

The couture house is customarily composed of two parts, one devoted to dressmaking (flou), the other devoted to tailoring (tailleur) of suits and coats. Skilled workers in each area practice the arts apposite to the area. Embellishments and accessories are added incrementally as applied decoration, often from sources outside the couture house. However, with regard to the unembellished garment, the modern couture house is a completely autonomous workroom of dedicated ateliers. In fact, surprisingly, in view of the elegant locations of most couture houses, the creation of the garments occurs in the maisons particulières of the house, thus under the daily surveillance of the designer as well as in intimate connection with the vendeuses. Depending upon the designer, the design process might begin either with sketches or with a muslin or toile, draped and cut. Fit, both in its tailored form and in its dressmaking variant, is inevitably part of the value of the couture. A designer or trusted fitter will conduct the client through a series of fittings to determine the minute adjustments of the garment to the individual’s size and sense of comfort.

The couture’s offering of distinction in design and technique remains a compelling force, one even more potent when much other quality has atrophied. It remains a discipline of ultimate imagination, unaccountable to cost, with the paradox of being the fashion most cognizant of its ideal clients. It is, as it began, a dream of quality in an era of industry and its succession. The haute couture persists in providing us with a paragon of the most beautiful clothing that can be envisioned and made in any time.

Fashion Design Terminology

What types of collections are seen at Fashion Week? Why do the clothes shown in during Fashion Week differ from what one then finds once the new season hits the stores?

What we see during Fashion Week is considered to be Haute Couture. Haute couture is not only made-to-order for a specific customer, it is usually made from high-quality, expensive fabric and sewn with extreme attention to detail and finish, often using time-consuming hand-executed techniques.

In France, the designation “haute couture” is protected by law. A certain number of formal criteria (number of employees, participation in fashion shows…) must be met for a fashion house to use the label; a list of eligible houses is made official every year by the French Ministry of Industry. The haute couture houses belong to the professional union, the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture.

What you then seen in the stores, therefore, is considered “ready-to-wear”. The French term for ready-to-wear (not custom fitted) fashion is prêt-à-porter. Every haute couture house also markets prêt-à-porter collections, which typically deliver a higher return on investment than their custom clothing. In fact, much of the haute couture displayed at fashion shows today is never sold; it is created to enhance the good name of the house. Falling revenues have forced a few couture houses to abandon their less profitable couture division and concentrate solely on the less prestigious prêt-à-porter. These houses are no longer considered haute couture.

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