MA Fashion Degree

Location & map

This course is based at our Hendon campus in north-west London.

Address: Middlesex University, Hendon campus, The Burroughs, London NW4 4BT UK

To find out how to get to the campus see Travel Directions to Hendon campus. The nearest tube station is Hendon Central on the Northern line.

Nearest halls of residence

There are four halls of residence either on or near to Hendon campus. Usher Hall is on campus, opposite the College Building.

Platt and Writtle Halls are at the same location in Colindale, a 20 minute walk from campus.

Ivy Hall is also a short distance away by public transport in Cricklewood.

Open days

University Open Evenings

Open evenings are a great opportunity to learn more about your chosen subject, meet academic and admissions staff, find out more about Middlesex and what life is like on campus. Open evenings for this course are held at our Hendon campus in London, for information on how to get here see our locations page.

Book Your Place Now

Book your open evening place now – make sure you select postgraduate, Hendon campus open days. The dates for open evenings are included in the booking form.

See the programme for the day and find out more about open evenings at Hendon. 

If you can't make our open day, there are more opportunities available for you to come and visit us. Campus tours are available throughout the year if you would like to have a look around. Led by Student Ambassadors, they take place most Wednesday afternoons at 1pm. You will get a feel of the campus atmosphere, plus the opportunity to ask any questions about being a student at Middlesex University. Click here to book your campus tour.

Portfolio and Interview

The application is just the first step in our selection process, we also invite you to an interview and review your portfolio of art and design work. We’ve put together some simple notes to help you prepare:

Your portfolio

• Be selective about the work you show while continuing to show a range of skills and ability
• Show mostly recent work that you are most proud of
• Consider how to present your work and the impression the overall look of your portfolio will have on the viewer
• We like to see lots of work but don’t overfill your portfolio - you should be able to carry it by yourself!
• You do not need to bring large pieces of 3D work, photographs are sufficient

Sketchbooks are extremely important. They should be a ‘diary’ of your thinking and include observational and speculative drawings/sketches communicating a visual sensitivity. We also look for evidence of how you develop and work through your ideas. Include photographs and collected images and importantly your reaction to them, but avoid letting your sketchbooks being merely scrapbooks

Your interview

We will arrange an interview with you which may last about an hour. We use the interview to allow us to find out more about you, to better understand your aspirations and interests and for you to learn more about us. The interview will explore why you want to study the subject with us, there will be no trick questions, so don't be too nervous.

Facilities

The Art and Design Department provides the best of traditional and cutting edge facilities for our students. The University has supported and encouraged this through the development of our new art, design and media building in Hendon which opened in September 2011.

There is a wealth of specialist technical help with professionals dedicated to helping you achieve excellence in our workshop areas. One entire floor of the main building is dedicated to workshops. There are 3D workshops for metal, wood, plastics, ceramics, glass and small metals (jewellery.), as well as extensive Digital Media and Digital Darkroom facilities, an expanded colour darkroom provision, black and white darkrooms, and dedicated fashion workshops for garment construction and textiles.

Among this there is also a large print area which includes screenprint, etching, letterpress, fabric and wallpaper printing.

Our art and design facilities are second to none.

Take a look at our Facilities Gallery to explore our specialist facilities for graphic design more detail.

As a student you will be able to hire specialised equipment for use in your assignments.

Our Tutors

Your tutors will be artists and designers themselves; we believe in practicing what we preach and being able to showcase what our lecturers have achieved themselves. You will be learning from the best and have the opportunity to utilise the skills and contacts of others.

To carry the technical skills forward into the next generation we have technical staff who have worked at couture level with incredible designers like Marios Schwab and Viviene Westwood. These highly skilled and experienced academics will not only encourage and inspire you, but teach you skills and inject knowledge rivalled by no other university.

Veronika Kapsali (MA Fashion Course Leader)
Veronica has worked with Middlesex since 2009 and has successfully set up and run our innovative Fashion Textiles degree. She is now responsible for developing and teaching MA Fashion and helping the next generation of fashion professionals develop their careers and launch themselves into the industry.

Veronika studied Fashion Textiles herself at the London College of Fashion. Moving into the fashion sector after graduating, she has held a variety of roles including designer, consultant and lecturer while conducting research into Biomimetics and smart materials. She has lead several consultancy projects for clients including London College of Fashion, Western Australian Department of Agriculture and the US Military Science Commission. Her skills are not only research driven, but also extensive in fashion design, textiles, printing, pattern cutting, sustainable production and clothing functionalities.

Gillian Charles (Director of Programmes - Fashion, Textiles, Jewellery) 
Gillian completed her wonderfully rigorous education through a three year course specialising in Fashion. The woman who taught her technical skills had been trained in the Balenciaga atelier when Balenciaga was still there. Fashion Illustration was taught by the wonderful stylist Michael Dunne and life drawing classes, run by artist Andrew Verster, were preceded by a six month course in Anatomy. Once she knew the name and function of every muscle in the body she could draw them all too. The depth, focus and rigour of Gillian’s own education informs her ideas for education to this day.

After an intensely hard working, lucrative and energising career in the fashion industry – ending in over nine years as the Design Department Manager for Warehouse – Gillian found herself teaching at the Royal College of Art. “That first day in that hallowed building was one of the most important in my career as I fell irrevocably in love with the academic side of Fashion and vowed to move to teaching within a university.” She quickly succeeded in gaining a part time permanent post at Middlesex University starting in 1994. In November 2001 she took over as Programme Leader of BA Honours Fashion and was ambitious not only to maintain the brilliant reputation of the degree, but also to build on it. Gillian so developed first the BA Honours Fashion Design, Styling and Promotion degree and then added BA Honours Fashion Textiles to the portfolio.  They have both proved enormously successful, and as Head of Fashion at Middlesex she continues to be ambitious and plans to extend the portfolio even further.

Richard Sorger
Richard Sorger graduated from Middlesex in 1991 with a first in Fashion Design. Upon graduating he moved to Milan for a year to teach fashion design in a private school, before returning to the UK to work for London based designer Abe Hamilton . After two years, Richard decided to concentrate more on the teaching side of fashion design, taking up posts at various institutions including The London College of Fashion, Middlesex University and Central Saint Martins. From 1999 to 2001 Richard and Benjamin  Kirchhoff designed a womenswear label together, called SorgerKirchhoff, selling in London and Paris. (Clients included Björk and Kirsten Dunst.) In 2004, Richard started designing his eponymous label, (clients included Courtney Love, Jennifer Lopez, Cindy Crawford, Kate Beckinsale and Heidi Klum,) and in 2009 he launched his second line, RJS by Richard Sorger. (Clients currently include Kelis, Alexandra Burke, Cheryl Cole, Alice Dellal, Diane Vickers, Fearne Cotton, Marina and the Diamonds, Sienna Miller, Sarah Harding and Jessie J.) He has been commissioned to produce special pieces for Swarovski and for the Victoria and Albert Museum, who recently acquired one of his dresses for their permanent collection. He has collaborated with Meadham Kirchhoff, Manolo Blahnik (for Meadham Kirchoff) and ASOS. In 2006 he co-authored the book called 'The Fundamentals of Fashion' published by AVA Books.

Lily Parker
Lily comes from a design background, graduating from Nottingham Trent in 2005. She went on to complete a PG Cert in creative pattern cutting for industry, having worked for a year within the industry herself. She trained at Richard Nicoll and has cut patterns for designers including House of Holland and Polltock and Walsh. Lily has run her own label LP.BG for 3 years with business partner Ben Grimes. Having won the New Gen award they now have stockists all over the world, from Matches London to United Arrows and Harvey Nichols in Hong Kong.   She is currently cutting and tailoring for Richard Nicoll, consulting for brands such as Felicity Brown, who shows with Fashion East, as well as being involved in the development of Lulu and Co. This season, Lily will be collaborating with shoe designer Charlotte Olympia on a capsule collection to accompany her main line. “I really enjoy having the ability to keep working in the industry while teaching; this gives me the freedom to continue learning as my career develops. I feel I have more to give to the students when I am still within the hub of the industry.  I am also amongst the truly exciting people within the British Fashion industry, so I am in touch with trends and what is generally going on – to the benefit of my students!”

Colin R Smith
Colin is our Principal Lecturer in jewellery and accessories. He studied jewellery and graphics at Grays School of Art, Aberdeen and jewellery at the Royal College of Art, before setting up a private practice in Clerkenwell and undertaking various design commissions. Colin was a freelance designer with Carrera Optic (formerly Optyl Brillenmode) from 1983-97, being solely responsible for the design of the Dunhill range of ophthalmic and sunglass eyewear.

He started teaching at Middlesex in 1986 on the jewellery programme. Since then he has held many posts, including the Head of the Integrated Computer Unit in Product Design, Programme Leader in Jewellery, Curriculum Leader of Applied Design, Academic Chair of Applied Design, Link Tutor for various partners and more recently the Head of Collaborative Development for the School of Arts. Colin still maintains an active teaching commitment and has been able to teach the fundamental skills of jewellery making to first year students, as well as working with second and final years students on digital manipulation and presentation. Colin will hold a key role on the Jewellery and Accessories pathway of MA Fashion.  

Gwen Fereday
Earlier in her career Gwen worked as a colour matcher for the Fashion and Textile Industry using her knowledge of historical and contemporary colouring methods and materials to cover a wide range of demands. Gwen has matched colours for Phase Eight, Sabre International, Reiss, C&A, as well as smaller design companies and designer/makers. In the area of textile conservation and restoration she has been asked to match the silk background for a Blenheim Palace tapestry repair and was commissioned to dye all the colours for Nest Rubio’s carpet reproduction series that she transcribed from paintings by Holbein and his contemporaries, piecing the designs together from the original carpets found in museum collections and depiction of carpets in the paintings.

Gwen has been asked by a marine archaeologist to test dyestuffs from a Swedish vessel of the East India Company that sank in the 1740s with its cargo intact, and has researched authentic eighteenth century dye recipes. The British Museum Press published her book called ‘Natural Dyes’ in 2003. Currently Gwen is researching colour and synaesthesia for a PhD, working with grapheme synaesthetes and using her skills as a dyer to reproduce their colour stories.

Meg Osborne
After leaving school and starting work for the Ministry of Defense for 8 years, Meg found a creative outlet in making clothes. She decided to take this hobby and turn it into a career by enrolling in night classes in life drawing and fashion illustration, getting a portfolio together and applying for a place on a BA Fashion course at the London College of Fashion.

Meg won the Royal Society of Art award for Fashion Design in her second year at University and from this she spent a month in Japan as a guest of the British Council, before graduating in 1999 with a 1st Class Honors Degree. The year after graduation she was asked to re-design the British Scout Movement uniforms, which was the first re-design since 1950. Since then, Meg has produced her own collections, worked as a freelance designer and stylist, as well as being an Associate Lecturer at the London College of Fashion for 8 years. She joined Middlesex in 2009 and is now the course leader of BA Fashion.