Op-Ed | The Gap Between Design and Business Education Has Been Filled

FLORENCE, Italy — We live in a short-term-thinking, fast-consuming society. On the one hand, fashion education has to teach students integrity and quality-based design. On the other hand, the fashion business demands short-term operational efficiency, leaving little time for designers to research or absorb the philosophy of a fashion house. How can educators prepare students for a reality that combines two contrasting strategies?

I feel that the industry currently requests two types of fashion design graduates: the creative “dreamer” and the designer who is equally creative, but more “structured”.

At the start of a four-year course, it may be difficult to see which of the two routes design students will take, so it is risky to make this division among students at the very start. But with teachers and students working together, it soon becomes clear where creativity dominates, or where a designer’s more practical side is going to overrule.

The “dreamer” designer with the vision of starting a design label needs a three- or four-year programme with lots of research and real-life projects in collaboration with companies, learning the pace of design and production, alongside what is most important — the development of their own identity as a designer. The more “structured” designer needs a course that, after the first year of design, zooms in on business models and analyses the supply chain and merchandising requirements of a company.

In contrast, a student taking a fashion business course needs to graduate with a different profile — that of the management graduate. Experienced in business, design or communication, the management graduate enters the company prepared, with the ability to understand a designer’s sensibilities and translate them into commercial success, through a personal approach to the business models and strategies required by the market.

In the last six years of educational debate, I feel the gap between fashion design education and fashion business education has been filled. A new generation of faculty and students are set for change, working together on courses such as forecasting or brand management related to the business of fashion and also studying sociology, anthropology and consumer behaviour in our very specific domain.

Now, schools need to refine the subjects and improve the specialisms of faculty members, in order to create clarity for future fashion education students. Students also need clarity about job profiles and the tasks they perform in a fashion company, from brand manager, to communications manager, merchandiser, product manager, or creative director.

But up-and-coming designers and business graduates need more effective and well-organised support to fill the gap between graduation, internships and starting up their own collection or company, to minimise the risk of disappointment or failure. I strongly feel that we, as educators, should structure more programmes that help start-up businesses.

But to come back to my first question, how should education approach the frantic pace of the global market, and its relentless demand that designers create eight or more collections a year? There is a need to slow down, create better and with more passion. Industry leaders, designers, investors and educators need to come together to debate the long-term vision for the industry, and find ways to support fashion’s creative class in the long term.

Linda Loppa is the director of strategy and vision at the Polimoda International Institute of Fashion Design & Marketing.