FA4025 - Introduction to Fashion Culture

A wide range of teaching and learning strategies will encourage you to acquire a holistic approach to creative problem solving in your design practice. You will gain an understanding of the context and culture of fashion and how it can be used in an impactful way in society. This is a hybrid theory into practice module that is rooted in experiential learning. You learn through participating in peer review, critical analysis and debate in small and large groups, analysing fashion garments, images and news. This supports creative 2D and 3D research skills that underpins your development in pattern cutting, constructed knitwear and printed surface textiles.

Throughout the module, you will document and reflect on your experimental creative processes and skills development. Formative and summative assessment will be used not only to assess your work, but to enable you to improve iteratively (e.g. through essay planning) and in your future learning journey.

Your active engagement with this module is a key component to how you will learn.

• At the start of the module, the creative brief, learning plan, learning outcomes, work requirements and assessment process will be presented verbally and visually by the module tutor.

• Delivery of this module will be a mix of practical studio sessions, workshops, lectures, seminars, group and individual tutorials. Blended studio-based work will facilitate the development of introductory fashion thinking and practice. Directed Study will be set regularly with specific set tasks to underpin your learning and inspire independent enquiry or study.

• Throughout the module, you will receive ongoing formative feedback in formal and informal tutorials. Feedback may be verbal or written.

• To be successful in this module it is important to engage with all sessions and all forms of delivery.

• After summative assessment, you will receive formal constructive written feedback and a grade indicating your achievement in relation to the learning outcomes. Additionally, you will be offered a tutorial with members of the academic team.

• In addition to your module tutors, you will be supported by various other members of staff and university services including:
o Technicians aligned with your modules to provide technical instruction and demonstration of equipment and software required to complete you project work;
o Library staff to guide you in the ongoing development of essential study: IT skills, information retrieval skills and academic writing via Skills Plus;
o Academic Language Skills modules to help students at the Northumbria Campuses whose first language is not English or who have no experience studying in English in the UK.

All modules at Northumbria include a range of reading materials that students are expected to engage with. The reading list for this module can be found at: http://readinglists.northumbria.ac.uk
(Reading List service online guide for academic staff this containing contact details for the Reading List team – http://library.northumbria.ac.uk/readinglists)

Knowledge & Understanding:

2. Recall and explain contextual issues, historical movements and design perspectives that shape fashion design practice.

4. Apply critical thinking to debate fashion design issues or develop creative fashion work.

Intellectual / Professional skills & abilities:

3. Apply fashion design approaches and research methods to develop work.

4. Independently generate fashion concepts, proposals, solutions or arguments.


Personal Values Attributes (Global / Cultural awareness, Ethics, Curiosity) (PVA):

5. Identify design strengths, set clear goals, and align learning objectives with personal design interests.

Formative Assessment process:
You will receive ongoing formative feedback in taught sessions to guide your progression and development.

Summative assessment:
You will submit the following for summative assessment:

Component 1: Creative Process Journal (CPJ) of creative project work (50%)

Component 2: 1500-word essay (50%)

You will be assessed against the following Module Learning Outcomes:

Component 1: KU 4, IPSA 3, PVA 5

Component 2: KU 2, 4, IPSA 4

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This module introduces you to fashion cultures through the exploration of the intersection between the use of dress to express individual and cultural identity, fashion history, contemporary fashion industry practices and the global challenges and debates that are shaping the future of fashion. As a designer it is important for you to understand the agency that fashion has in the global world. For example, this includes not only awareness of the environmental and social harms that have been linked to the fashion industry, but fashion’s ability to disrupt and influence social, cultural, and political change in a positive way. Additionally, the module will help you understand how cultural influences drive the formal elements of fashion, such as silhouette, colour, detail, and fabrication conceptually and aesthetically.