Columbia College Chicago, founded in 1890, is an arts and media institution offering undergraduate and graduate programmes across a range of disciplines including visual arts, performing arts, music and communication.
Fashion is an art and an industry. To succeed in it, you’ll need cutting-edge business skills and an appreciation for style. Located in Chicago just steps from the Magnificent Mile, Columbia will prepare you to enter the rapidly changing world of fashion through hands-on classes that interact with the industry.
We offer a Fashion Studies BA with two tracks: product development and merchandising. Modeling the industry, we bring together seniors from both concentrations to work as a team to design, prototype, and actually sell a market-ready project. Our Fashion Design BFA emphasizes technical proficiency informed by research, design, and creative exploration.
Our core classes will help you think critically about fashion and imagine how style can solve problems and contribute to culture. You’ll gain real-life experience outside the classroom by working with retailers and wholesale showrooms in Chicago. You’ll build on this experience by honing professional skills in marketing, technology, analytics, and design.
As a graduate, you’ll join a network of alumni who work as technical designers, merchandisers, buyers, pattern makers, marketers, stylists, and digital media specialists.
About Columbia College Chicago
Columbia is a private, nonprofit college offering a distinctive curriculum that blends creative and media arts, liberal arts, and business, creating a dynamic, challenging, and collaborative space for students who experience the world through a creative lens.
Having launched a hybrid-educational format designed to cater to the needs of both current and incoming students, faculty members from the creative arts school share their new academic approach to help prepare students for an industry transformed.
The fashion department of the private, nonprofit college offers students opportunities to travel or study abroad across locations from Athens and Berlin to New York and Los Angeles. BoF sat down with three students to hear about their experiences.
The fashion department of the private, nonprofit college offers students opportunities to travel or study abroad across locations from Athens and Berlin to New York and Los Angeles. BoF sat down with three students to hear about their experiences.
The creative and liberal arts college’s curriculum is rooted in hands-on learning, immersive experiences and their diversity, equity and inclusion mission. The chair of fashion studies shares insights alongside faculty and students.
The creative and liberal arts college’s curriculum is rooted in hands-on learning, immersive experiences and their diversity, equity and inclusion mission. The chair of fashion studies shares insights alongside faculty and students.
Having launched a hybrid-educational format designed to cater to the needs of both current and incoming students, faculty members from the creative arts school share their new academic approach to help prepare students for an industry transformed.
Having launched a hybrid-educational format designed to cater to the needs of both current and incoming students, faculty members from the creative arts school share their new academic approach to help prepare students for an industry transformed.
BoF meets former and current students to hear how studying fashion in Chicago creates opportunities for experimentation and innovation.
BoF meets former and current students to hear how studying fashion in Chicago creates opportunities for experimentation and innovation.
Fashion's future creators and decision-makers are taught a narrow worldview in school, helping to perpetuate racism, fatphobia and other damaging tropes that plague the industry.
Fashion's future creators and decision-makers are taught a narrow worldview in school, helping to perpetuate racism, fatphobia and other damaging tropes that plague the industry.
Dr Colbey Reid explains why the school's graduates are “ready to work at a Chanel or a Macy’s, but also at a Google or an IBM.”
Dr Colbey Reid explains why the school's graduates are “ready to work at a Chanel or a Macy’s, but also at a Google or an IBM.”
Check out this week’s new partners and openings on BoF Careers, the global marketplace for fashion talent.
Check out this week’s new partners and openings on BoF Careers, the global marketplace for fashion talent.
American fashion schools are producing more than 2,200 fashion design graduates every year, yet only 23,100 Americans are currently employed as designers. Which schools give their students the best shot at success?
American fashion schools are producing more than 2,200 fashion design graduates every year, yet only 23,100 Americans are currently employed as designers. Which schools give their students the best shot at success?
