Fashion design, which university?

[Loveautumnsky]

Friend's DD is going to study fashion design, I searched the completed university guide, it only provide Art & Design rank and don't have a rank just for fashion.

Can anyone suggest some university name? Or a rank table? thanks.

I think Salford university is supposed to be good for fashion design

Central St Martins.

Heriot Watt

Nottingham is pretty good.

www.ntu.ac.uk/study-and-courses/subject-areas/fashion-textiles

One of my relatives went there and graduated with a first. Unfortunately, she has found that employment prospects if you actually want to design fashion and not just work in a related field are rather bleak. She now works in a related field,

Central st martins in London is the top BUT its won't wow you with facilities, it's very hard to get into. I would say it's for an edgy very worldly student.

Despite many courses being fashion design they are really different depending on the uni/ college. For example some will teach very technical pattern cutting with a leaning more towards tailoring and tradition and some the more creative out there is preferred.

I'm going to put this out there if the student is good they will probably get a 1st at a college outside London. London colleges take the best students and the work is generally a higher level. So is it better to be a big fish in a small pond or not? Really depends what you want to do with it after. I know people from my fashion course who are designers now some high street, some have their own labels. The ones with labels I'm not sure if they make money, it's low key and they are the ones with very rich parents. Did their MA's in New York , weren't particularly talented but you need the money behind you and determination which they do have.

You can also do well at from the following

London college of fashion
Ravensbourne college ( Greenwich)

Plus there are different pathways within fashion .. menswear,womenswear, printed textiles , knitwear, footwear.

I don't know about outside London. I have friends that went to UCA down in Kent and loved it, but haven't done much in fashion since.

University of the Arts London - sometimes specific colleges don't come up on those lists. Central St Martin's would not be listed separately for example (it would be UAL) and not ranked that high because of that even though it's arguably the most recognised 'name' fashion college.

Thank you all for the advice, I will have a look at these university mentioned.

Have you heard about De Montfort University at Leicester? I was told it is quite good at practical.

I took my daughter to an open day at Falmouth for a different course but we walked through the fasion design facilities, which looked impressive.

Falmouth is a bit inaccessible, though, unless you live in Cornwall (or Devon at a push).

De Montfort's location is good. Unfortunately, its marketing is even better. This means you'll need to do quite a bit of digging to find out what it's actually like, rather than what the marketing department wants you to think it's like.

Other than London, the Manchester Fashion Institute at manchester metropolitan is where most of my DDs art class who want to do fashion have applied.

Thanks!

I'm at DMU but the other side of the campus from the scary art and fashiony bits (and I'm such a mature student I'm pretty much invisible to the young trendy things).
Location is decent if you like Leicester or commute (takes me 20 minutes walk from the station and I'm slooooow), fatally near to Highcross for shopping. Campus wise the facilities are very good - always see loads of the design students on the sets of Macs with drawing styluses whenever I'm in the library and there are breakout areas with computers dotted about all over the place. Library resources are brilliant (especially availability of e-books - I'm dyslexic and use screen reading software a lot so these are amazing), library gets a bit noisy sometimes but there are silent study areas with an amusing text to grass up a noisy bugger system in operation which always amuses me endlessly.

The marketing is relentlessly slick though and they're obsessed with getting that fucking Monty the red lion mascot out at any available opportunity - no thank you I don't want a guy in a lion suit flossing his arse through my graduation. It's very much a grumble of mine that so much emphasis at DMU goes into the Art/Design/Fashion side to the detriment of courses like mine - which is probably to your advantage really - the whole of that side of the campus is wonderful and slick and well-provided for in terms of facilities. I think they're (or they claim to be) the only place that does footwear design as well.

I know for my course - timetabling drives me mildly insane at times, and some of the loud village idiot contingent do my head in - but now I've found the areas I like to hide in to get work done and the like - actually the quality of the teaching we have and the responsiveness of our department staff to queries is very impressive and their student support system for any learning disability issues is very very good.

I'm there basically because I'm doing a very very niche course and it's the only place commutable for me.

London College of Fashion or Central St Martins (UAL) or Manchester as mentioned above. These are the names that everyone knows and are specialist. Local universities do not really cut it in London fashion circles and that is where a lot of the work is. Oh, after graduating it is tough!!! Lots of internships. No money.

The CUG may not list the subject area by sufficient detail, but other options are available, e.g.
www.whatuni.com/degree-courses/search?subject=fashion-design&gclid=CjwKCAiAsIDxBRAsEiwAV76N85ZrfnMSdSqIsV5r7DFD8YPEqyUXGIcA4mLUwkZ61FqO_VV6wanOcxoC6HMQAvD_BwE

DS2 and I had a quick look round the department at the University of Leeds when I went with him to an open day, but it was just a quick look out of curiosity (he would be applying for History of Art, but is interested in making clothes - not so interested in finishing them, though, says she still waiting for two dresses to get somewhere near the point of completion...)

DD2 went to London College of Fashion so I do know it! Not just a quick look around.

Useful to think about where designers/brands she is interested in are based and find out if they have links to colleges. Obviously UAL shows are where London industry types watch out for new trends and you’ll have a really eager peer group, plus excellent guest lecturers. It’s very definitely happening place with lots of Chinese, S Asian students which is great for making connections as that’s where the manufacturing bases are.
However, I know couple of people who have gone on from Brighton and Sussex to work for Next and a niche, high end designer (£1000 everyday wear and £££££s red carpet stuff and both through links/recruitment via college.

Thank you so much for the information. 😊

I'd also opt for London College of Fashion as an alternative to St Martins (which is the Oxford/Cambridge of Fashion Design) There will be more job placements in London than elsewhere I would think. Best of luck!

A friend's daughter was considering this a couple of years ago and had University of Leeds, Manchester Met, Sheffield Hallam and Nottingham Trent on her list (she is from Lancs area and preferred uni's within a couple of hours of home). Ultimately she ended up doing a textile degree at Staffordshire.

Is this any help?

university.which.co.uk/search/course?utf8=%E2%9C%93&c%5Bq%5D=fashion+design&c%5Bacademic_years%5D=2020&c%5Bsort%5D=relevance

Thanks! Food for thought.