Fashion Design Major - Bachelor of Design Te Tohu Paetahi mō te Hoahoa

You’ll work predominantly in a studio-based environment, developing practical skills through a range of innovative, hands-on projects. You’ll explore your ideas in creative settings that draw on a wide range of methods used in contemporary design practice. This hands-on approach encourages you to think critically about fashion – not just as something you make, but as a field shaped by both material and conceptual ideas.

By building your skills in critical thinking and craftsmanship, you’ll graduate confident and ready to make a meaningful impact in the rapidly evolving creative landscape.

Year 1

In your first semester, you’ll explore questions of responsibility, sustainability and ethics at the centre of the design process. You’ll do this by drawing on place-based knowledge, while working in a creative studio environment.

Throughout the year, you’ll be introduced to the key contexts that influence contemporary fashion designers, including the important connections between clothing, art, music and culture. By focusing on everyday fashion, you’ll be encouraged to adopt a regenerative and restorative approach to design practice. Exploring and critiquing fashion histories will give you the opportunity to experiment with design aesthetics, develop sensitivity to materials and build your making skills in our fashion studio workshops.

By the end of the year, you’ll know how to respond to creative prompts and begin to understand how to design from research and what’s involved in developing a creative concept. You’ll have gained foundational skills in practical pattern cutting and sewing, as well as an understanding of the global mechanisms of the fashion industry and their impacts. You’ll also start to build your connection to the wider world through a growing awareness of diverse design influences, helping you identify and articulate what you contribute to the field.

Semester 1 courses

• DESN511 Introduction to Design Practice (30 points)
• DIGD507 Mahitahi | Collaborative Practice (15 points)
• DESN512 Making and Media (15 points)

Semester 2 courses

• FASD511 Fashion Design Practice I (30 points)
• Plus two courses* from your second major, your minor(s) or elective courses

Year 2

In your second year, you’ll build a professionally focused fashion design practice within a vibrant and creative studio environment. The emphasis is on hands-on, applied learning through making, combined with a critical exploration of slow fashion values – such as craftsmanship, artisan skills, sustainability and care – bringing these values to life in your work.

You’ll expand your understanding of fashion by exploring how clothing can tell stories, engaging with current design practices, and integrating new and emerging technologies. This approach helps you develop a thoughtful, values-driven approach to design.

By the end of the year, you’ll know how to develop a creative concept, showing a deeper awareness of your personal connection to your creative practice and its wider contexts. You’ll be able to design based on research and will have demonstrated intermediate skills in pattern cutting and making. Your work will reflect your commitment to values-led design practices, and you’ll begin to answer important questions like ‘Why do I design?’ and ‘What matters most to me?’.

Semester 1 courses

• FASD611 Fashion Design Practice II (30 points)
• Plus two courses* from your second major, your minor(s) or elective courses

Semester 2 courses

• FASD612 Fashion Design Practice III (30 points)
• Plus two courses* from your second major, your minor(s) or elective courses

Year 3

This year, the focus is on understanding the global mechanisms and contexts of fashion, and demonstrating your grasp of these concepts. You’ll study in a creative studio community alongside your classmates, a great environment to further develop and refine your creative voice.

You’ll deepen your knowledge of fashion design practice by exploring critical theories and concepts, and by further investigating making processes and techniques that relate to form, structure, and the relationship between garment and body. You’ll be able to show how you respond creatively and critically in broader contexts, answering the questions ‘What informs me?’ and ‘What is essential to me?’.

In your final semester, you’ll complete a self-directed design project that integrates your learning across your majors and minors. This project will reflect your personal and professional goals through creative research and design-led outcomes. The year ends with a public exhibition.

Semester 1 courses

• FASD711 Fashion Design Practice IV (30 points)
• Plus two courses* from your second major, your minor(s) or elective courses

Semester 2 course

• DESN711 Integrated Design Practice (60 points)

_{*Two 15-point courses or one 30-point course.}