Fashion Design and Promotion with Integrated Foundation Year

Fashion design and promotion is a degree that combines the creative and technical skills of designing clothing with the marketing, communication, and brand management expertise needed to bring fashion to audiences. Fashion design is concerned with the conception, development, and realisation of garments, drawing on creative vision, an understanding of the body, materials knowledge, and technical pattern cutting and construction skills. Fashion promotion addresses how those designs are communicated to consumers, buyers, and the media through campaigns, styling, visual merchandising, digital content, and brand storytelling.

Together they form a programme for students who want to engage with fashion as both a creative and a commercial practice.

At the University of Sunderland, this four-year programme with integrated foundation year offers a supported entry route into degree-level study, providing additional academic and creative preparation before the main degree begins. Through the degree proper, you will develop both the design and the promotion skills that the fashion industry values, working with industry-standard techniques and building the portfolio and professional awareness needed to enter a competitive sector.

The programme includes a sandwich year, a year abroad, and a work placement, giving you substantial professional and international experience. These elements allow you to develop your skills in real fashion industry contexts, encounter different fashion cultures and markets, and build the portfolio and professional network that careers in fashion typically require.

Graduates from fashion design and promotion degrees pursue careers across the fashion industry in roles including fashion designer, stylist, brand manager, fashion communicator, buyer, visual merchandiser, fashion journalist, and social media and content manager for fashion brands. Many also work in the wider creative industries in roles that draw on their design and communication skills. Postgraduate study in fashion design, fashion management, or marketing is available for those who wish to develop their expertise further.