Great news, fashion designers!
FIT is officially launching a Master of Fine Arts program in Fashion Design that will welcome its first class in fall 2017. This two-year, full-time program focuses on practice-based research and is open to students with varied experience in creative areas ranging from apparel design to architecture, engineering, and software development.
This program is the first Fashion Design MFA in the SUNY system and is offered through FIT’s School of Graduate Studies. The Fashion Design MFA centers on a unique thesis process that supports innovation in design, fit, cut, construction, silhouette, and materiality. This process of translating inspiration into malleable design ingredients and solutions are divided into 4 concepts:
- Play: Working individually with faculty mentors, students explore the possibilities of their thesis with freedom, openness, and intent to take it in unexpected directions.
- Focus: Each student is matched with a specially selected industry partner who advises on sharpening and clarifying the idea, creating initial prototypes, and defining the market.
- Edit: Based on the best ideas, strongest samples, and happy “accidents” from previous thesis phases, students develop, design, and prototype their collections.
- Conclude: Students present their collections along with a paper explaining their thesis process and defend their thesis to a select panel of industry experts. Collections will be shown to investors, industry leaders, and other important audiences through an exhibition, a publication, and a presentation, providing a highly visible showcase for the work.
The curriculum includes two international field experiences and courses and exploring the relationship of technology to creativity in design.
For more information on the new program, click here.
Meli B