TOPICS: FASHION MAKING PRACTICUM: TEXTILES & TECHNIQUES in Spring 2025 (CM5091A)

In this practicum, students will draw connections between fashion and its main materials, especially textiles. Emphasis will be on making, seeing, touching, analyzing, and creatively engaging with textile techniques for fashion production.

This course is devised as a hands-on immersion into the materiality of fashion, exploring fibers, raw materials, dyes, textiles, finishes, and garment construction. It will also address pattern making, surface ornamentation, textile design, and the different stages of collection design. Issues of production and labor, functionality, seasonality and sustainability will also be integral to class discussions.

Through lectures, seminars, site visits, and studio times, and working across times and cultures, students will gain in-depth insights into a diversity of artisanal practices. They will demonstrate knowledge of the different materials and techniques, and their central role in designing, producing and experiencing fashion, as well as in societies around the world. The final project will consist of developing a collection of textiles for fashion, illustrated with color palettes, sketches, photographs, sourced textile swatches, and handmade prototypes.

No prior hand skills are needed.