Working in the fashion industry requires the right mix of technical skills and creativity. That's why our course will help you develop in those areas and beyond while preparing you for the world of work. We believe that discovering and perfecting your style as a designer is vital, so we help you to find and define your fashion identity and taste.
Our highly regarded course focuses on helping you develop your own designs and get practical experience from the very start. You’ll get stuck into different areas of fashion design, from illustration and technical drawings, to garment construction and cutting, all the way through to portfolio presentation and tailoring. Ours is one of only a few fashion design courses that allow you to explore menswear as well as womenswear.
You’ll have access to industry-standard facilities, equipped with everything you’ll need. These include industrial sewing machines, overlockers, state-of-the-art press and heat equipment, plus much more. Our London campus also gives you the perfect opportunity to explore one of the world’s fashion capitals whenever you want.
Our fashion design degree makes work experience part of your learning from the very start. In your second year, you’ll undertake a six-week work placement working with designers as they prepare for London Fashion Week. In the past, our students have worked with fashion giants like Burberry, Erdem, Molly Goddard and Peter Pillotto.
First and second year students will also participate in a end-of-year degree presentation, where third year students showcase their creative talents to industry experts.
Our graduates have gone onto exciting careers in the fashion industry thanks to our strong links with art and design employers, plus industry partners who sponsor final year students and give visiting lectures.Some students might also be chosen for our annual press show. In the past it has been judged by highly regarded industry figures like Sarah Mower, Andrew Davis and Karen Binns.
You’ll get all the support you need to succeed thanks to our technicians who’re professionals in the industry, ready to help you with projects and anything else you require assistance with.
If you require a little extra help, then we have Student Learning Assistants and Graduate Academic Assistants on hand throughout your time here.
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Illustration – Throughout the course you are taught to hone and develop your own illustrative style. Working with our talented tutors you will experience new ways to approach both hand drawn and digital techniques. The full Adobe suite is free to all students on and off campus.
Sustainable Design approach – The course is dedicated to sustainable fashion design approach. With students actively encouraged to adopt new and innovative way of thinking underpinned with lectures, workshops and seminars. These often explore circular design, sustainable fabrications and innovative pattern cutting techniques.
Pattern cutting – The course is fortunate enough to have industry active technicians that specialise in numerous Pattern cutting abilities including; tailoring, corsetry, zero waste cutting, creative cutting, drape, 2D pattern cutting and digital cutting.
Garment Construction – The course is fortunate enough to have industry active technicians that specialise in numerous construction abilities including; bespoke tailoring, traditional hand sewing, corsetry, zero waste, knit and sportswear.
Collaborative Design – Throughout the course you will be encouraged to work and collaborate with all the Fashion programmes. This is embedded into the first year module entitled “Fashion collaborative projects” that results in a collaborative showcase of work between Fashion Textiles and Fashion Communication students. This allows students to start networking from their first module and build strong relationships during their time on the course.
Employability – We strive throughout the learning process to contextualise each module to align to current industry standards. With key industry speakers and tutors delivering seminars and workshops focusing on employability and running a creative business.
Industry Placements - You will spend six to eight weeks on a work placement in the run up to London Fashion Week, gaining hands-on experience working for a designer. Our students have recently worked for leading industry names like Burberry, Cottweiler, A cold wall* and Wales Bonner.
Final Collection Development – Within your third year you are tasked with the creation and development of your final collection. This should utilise all your previous years of learning and is a process of your own creative exploration guided by specialist tutors and technicians.
This project runs during the first term and will introduce you to essential, core fashion design skills. It will provide a comprehensive grounding in concept and design development, underpinned with technical workshops exploring basic flat pattern-cutting and garment production skills. You will be introduced to the pattern-cutting studios and digital design workshops cultivating a blended learning environment. This allows students to build a strong sense of a fashion community.
During the second term, you will explore intermediate flat pattern cutting and garment production skills through a series of technical workshops. Facilitating an understanding of collaborative practice within the fashion industry. You will develop a greater awareness of your own role as a designer within the broader fashion design process, promoting an interdisciplinary experience, cross fertilisation of practice and knowledge transfer.
This module runs year-long. It will introduce you to the visual research skills essential to fashion design, investigating contemporary and historical fashion, through a range of cultural resources including magazines, film, gallery exhibitions and museum collections. You will consider the way in which project work is presented and communicated to an audience through a variety of outputs including social media, printed matter and online content. You will explore ways of organising and presenting your visual research, using digital and traditional methods, such as hand drawing and relevant computer-aided design tools.
Throughout this year long module, we will introduce different ways of looking at and thinking about fashion, providing an introduction to historical sources and narratives as well as key cultural and contextual theories. You will be encouraged to draw connections between fashions from the past and the present to encourage you to understand the rich cultural and social meanings of clothing and adornment in Western traditions. We cover a broad range of visual and material research methodologies, enabling you to be resourceful and explore different archives and historical collections in a hands-on way.
This project will provide you with an opportunity to explore menswear design and garment construction. We expect you to develop innovative, individual responses to personal research through the production of a contemporary menswear collection. During this term 1 project, we will introduce bespoke tailoring techniques, exploring both traditional and contemporary methods. Advanced pattern-cutting workshops relevant to contemporary menswear will underpin the production of your individual project work.
To support you in the identification of possible career networks and areas of employment, this module incorporates a period of work experience within a chosen field of the fashion design industry. Taking place at the beginning of the second term, a six to seven week internship will provide the opportunity to apply the specialist and transferable skills you have acquired so far in a professional setting. You will reflect on your experiences in the workplace through the production of a visual diary of your experiences that will be presented to your peers and tutors on your return to University.
You will be given a range of opportunities to enable direct engagement with fashion industry practice. We encourage you to consider how your own design practice demonstrates awareness of professional standards and client expectations. You will experience researching, designing and presenting your ideas to a specific client or design company by working on live industry projects and competitions.
To build upon the core academic research and communication skills introduced in the Fashion History and Theory project, you will develop your specialist knowledge and understanding of critical issues in contemporary fashion, related to the production, consumption and mediation of fashion as a global aspect of both culture and industry. We will cover key economic, social and theoretical concepts and explore how they influence the material, visual and consumer culture of fashion, challenging dominant historical narratives and unpicking fashion’s mythologies from a global perspective. You will develop your own independent research interests in contemporary fashion culture and industry, and a critical awareness of the fashion industry, helping you to position your creative work in an ethically-informed and culturally competent manner.
This OPTIONAL module allows you to undertake a year-long internship in the fashion industry, returning to undertake take your final year as a fourth year of study. You will utilise an employment experience to provide an insight into the work methods and operation of a fashion business or freelance role in a field of fashion design and production. You will carefully document the experience, engendering an understanding of the principles of reflective practice and their application in a professional context.
This project will allow you to engage with the identification, organisation and development of a substantial, in-depth, self-directed dissertation with a clear and sustained critical argument. We encourage the pursuit of a research topic related to issues explored in your own practice in any area of fashion. You will further develop critical awareness and self-reflection of historical and/or contemporary contexts of your discipline and research topic, building on primary and secondary research skills embedded in Years One and Two and developing your ability to identify, analyse and critically evaluate appropriate sources and research methods.
This module will run throughout your final year, consolidating all previous learning to produce individual and creative fashion responses to personal research and concepts. You will work on negotiated briefs, exploring your own identity, working towards the development and production of your final collection and portfolio through negotiated, self-directed project briefs.
More information about this course
See the course specification for more information about typical course content outside of the coronavirus outbreak:
Optional modules are usually available at levels 5 and 6, although optional modules are not offered on every course. Where optional modules are available, you will be asked to make your choice during the previous academic year. If we have insufficient numbers of students interested in an optional module, or there are staffing changes which affect the teaching, it may not be offered. If an optional module will not run, we will advise you after the module selection period when numbers are confirmed, or at the earliest time that the programme team make the decision not to run the module, and help you choose an alternative module.
Take a look at some of the amazing work from our graduating students from 2021 Everything is Different and 2020 2020 Vision
Follow us on Instagram for upcoming events, student work and degree highlights.
The photography work that our students create is world-class. Each year, our final year students exhibit their work at our Degree Fashion Show. You can watch previous shows below.
See the brilliant creations of the Fashion Design Showcase.
Fashion student, Tom Lincoln talks about his collection for the recent fashion show in the Quad.
Fashion student Hanna Vestin talks about the inspiration behind her collection at Middlesex University London's annual Quad fashion show.
A sneak peak of the collections from the Middlesex University 2016 Fashion Show at the Vinyl Factory Soho.
Third year Fashion students showcased their creations at an end-of-year show held on our Hendon campus.
Our annual degree show saw fashion students showcase their collections in central London.
Middlesex has strong links with art and design employers. Our industry partners sponsor final year students and give visiting lectures. Your work will be viewed by a large number of industry employers when they attend our final year degree show. Some students may also be specially selected for our annual press show, judged by high profile figures in the fashion industry. Previous judges include Louise Gray, JJS Lee and James Long.
Martine Rose graduated from MDX Fashion in 2002 and is now one of the most feted London designers.
Chloe Johnson, showed her final year collection at Tomorrow’s Talent, an exhibition run as part of the On|Off AW16 London Fashion Week showcase, in collaboration with creative network ARTS THREAD.
Emily Witham saw her latest collection on the runway at London Fashion Week, after being nominated in the 2016 Fashion Awareness Direct (FAD) competition.
Five fashion students were given the opportunity of a lifetime as they showcased their designs at China’s University Fashion Week.
Pop icon Lady Gaga’s new music video, John Wayne, features bold and original designs from Middlesex fashion lecturer Alex Noble.
Our 2016 graduates have been featured in Vogue and our 2017 Fashion Show was published in Dazed and Confused.
We are very proud of our studio workshops in the state-of-the-art facility, The Grove. You will have access throughout your degree to industrial grade machine workshops which include lockstitch, overlock machines, coverstich machine, walking foot machine, seam sealer, bonadex, babylock, blind hemmer, buttonhole and keyhole button hole, Industrial irons, and heat press.
You will also have access to Laser cutting, digital print, digital embroidery, and 3D printing which will enhance your fashion design practice. Our Library Materials room is stocked with a variety of key garments, historical garments, fabrics and materials, and an extensive Visionarie magazine collection to help you with researching and sourcing your projects.
Fashion Studios
Fashion Studio
Digital Fabric Printing
Knitting Workshop
We’ll carefully manage any future changes to courses, or the support and other services available to you, if these are necessary because of things like changes to government health and safety advice, or any changes to the law.
Any decisions will be taken in line with both external advice and the University’s Regulations which include information on this.
Our priority will always be to maintain academic standards and quality so that your learning outcomes are not affected by any adjustments that we may have to make.
At all times we’ll aim to keep you well informed of how we may need to respond to changing circumstances, and about support that we’ll provide to you.
Start: October 2023, EU/International induction: September 2023
Duration: 3 years full-time
Code: W2T3
Start: October 2023, EU/International induction: September 2023
Duration: 3 years full-time
Code: WF30
