Fashion Design: Product Development
The goal of undergraduate design education in the School of Design is to provide a foundation that will allow graduates to deal with diverse professional challenges appropriately and to master tools and media of the future. This foundation has three components:
- an integrated twelve quarter curriculum, rather than a collection of courses, concentrating on the design process rather than product
- one and one-half years of supervised experience in the design field through the professional practice (co-op) program
- a structured liberal-arts education
About the Program
Fashion Design: Product Development is a track in the Fashion Design program which focuses on development of fashionable, consumer wanted goods for apparel manufacturers and retailers. Fashion-Product Development is the planning, development and presentation of fashion-directed product lines for identified target markets with regard to styling, assortment, timing and pricing. Both design and merchandising interact in industry, and the education process will mirror this interaction. Because the track is interdisciplinary, it covers: aesthetics of apparel and image; consumer buying; target marketing; textiles and clothing in the global economy; historical perspective; theoretical perspectives; application of theory to contemporary problems; and managerial responsibilities.
Objectives for students in the Fashion Design: Product Development track are to understand the design process, the product development process, and the interaction of design with merchandising. They are involved in researching consumer behavior, understanding current merchandising concepts and functions, and developing merchandising skills for manufacturing and fashion retailing. Students must develop a knowledge of material specifications and cost analysis; have research, writing, presentation and computer skills; and possess critical thinking skills.
Students spend their first year in Foundation Studies concentrating on rudiments related to optical and tactile sensations that intensify perception, and focusing on formal and fundamental concepts of two- and three-dimensional organization. Emphasis is placed on process and its ingredients: inquiry, analysis, comparison, evaluation and language. These studies are an introduction to tools, methods and materials including the development of basic technical ability. The chronological order of courses provides continual linear experience through a carefully planned analytical sequence of interlocking components.