Creating fashion professionals for the 21st century: A tale of pedagogical
tensions and emerging challenges
Ruth Bridgstock, Dean Brough and Adrian Thomas
Creative Industries Faculty, Queensland University of Technology, Queensland, Australia
The ‘Fashion Tales’ Conference identifies three fashion discourses: that of making, that of
media, and that of scholarship. We propose a fourth, which provides a foundational base for
the others: the discourse of fashion pedagogy. We begin with the argument that to thrive in
any of these discourses, all fashion graduates require the ability to navigate the complexities
of the 21st century fashion industry. Fashion graduates emerge into a professional world
which demands a range of high level capabilities above and beyond those traditionally
acknowledged by the discipline. Professional education in fashion must transform itself to
accommodate these imperatives.
In this paper, we document a tale of fashion learning, teaching and scholarship – the tale of a
highly successful future-orientated boutique university-based undergraduate fashion course in
Queensland, Australia. The Discipline consistently maintains the highest student satisfaction
and lowest attrition of any course in the university, achieves extremely competitive student
satisfaction scores when compared with other courses nationally and internationally, and
reports outstanding graduate employment outcomes.
The core of the article addresses how the course effectively balances five key pedagogical
tensions identified from the findings of in-depth focus groups with graduating students, and
interviews with teaching staff. The pedagogical tensions are: high concept/ authenticity; high
disciplinarity/ interdisciplinarity; high rigour/ play; high autonomy/ scaffolding; and high
individuality/ community, where community can be further divided into high challenge and
high support. We discuss each of these tensions and how they are characterised within the
course, using rich descriptions given by the students. We also draw upon the wider
andragogical and learning futures literatures to link the tensions with what is already known
about excellence in 21st century higher and further education curriculum and pedagogic
practice.
We ask: as the fashion industry becomes truly globalised, virtualised, and diversified, and as
initial professional training for the industry becomes increasingly massified and
performatised, what are the best teaching approaches to produce autonomous, professionally
capable, enterprising and responsible graduates into the future? Can the pedagogical balances
described in this case study be maintained in the light of these powerful external forces, and
if so, how?
1. Introduction
Over the last decade, the fashion industry has been transformed. We have moved from an
analogue era of manufacturing and standardisation to a globally networked digital age
characterised by continual change and innovation, where creativity is prized by governments
as a key driver economic growth (Cutler, 2008; Department for Culture Media and Sport,
2008). There is evidence of this transformation in all sections of the fashion value chain. For
instance, online affordances mean that global trends are now directly accessible by both
designers and the general public. This immediacy of designs has provided a new and
challenging era for the fashion industry as designers no longer have the sole high status
privilege of influencing and creating design directions – consumers can bypass traditional
retail avenues and create unique designs with low volume off-shore production readily
available. Alongside this, the entire process of garment fabrication is in flux, as lead times
from design development to retail ready have decreased dramatically and many consumers
now expect new designs on a weekly basis – fashion labels such as Zara and H&M being
classic examples of short lead times for production and distribution. This shift has also
applied to the textile industry where digital printing has enabled new and unique fabric
designs to be produced quickly in very small runs.
As the fashion industry has been transformed in the 21st century, the knowledge and
capabilities required of fashion professionals has also transformed. Advanced disciplinary
skills, such as bespoke pattern cutting, are still one of the cornerstones of the discipline, but
many of these skills have morphed as a result of digital advancement with the use of software
programs such as computer-aided pattern design. Many fashion professionals must have the
capacity for highly experimental innovation, and yet be adept and pragmatic technicians in
order to execute ‘wearable’ and ‘saleable’ garments. In addition, 21st century fashion
graduates are challenged to embrace a range of additional capabilities. They must be highly
self-motivated and entrepreneurial, possess digital and network savvy, and be committed to a
continuous process of product and self-reinvention in order to stay in the game. In this paper,
we document a case study of a boutique course which targets the development of these 21st
century capabilities as well as high level disciplinary knowledge and skills.
The course
Queensland University of Technology’s Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) Fashion course is a
three year full-time undergraduate program offering a mix of theory and practical units,
primarily delivered in a studio setting. The design practice in the course is contextualised
through units in fashion theory and strengthened through sustainable practices and computeraided design. Also offered is the four year full-time double degree course, Bachelor of
Business/Bachelor of Fine Arts (Fashion).
Beginning students undertake key exercises to develop the ability to be ‘design risk takers’
without the shackles of constraint from construction issues - one example of this being the
‘Sox’ project, where students in the second week of entry into the course are asked to create
a garment entirely from 10 pairs of socks. This project requires students to challenge their
existing notions of garment creation using atypical items for inspiration. Students feel
empowered to create nonconforming garment designs in a relatively quick time frame as the
socks have a degree of pre-formed structure and this assists them to create relatively complex
garment designs with minimal construction skills. Following this, designs are translated, and
at times abstracted, with the assistance of fashion technicians to realise a technical solution –
as an example, in first year students create designs based on shapes, such as hexagons or
triangles, and fashion staff work one-to-one with each student to unpack complex technical
solutions in order to support fruition of the garment. This approach allows students to expand
their design confidence early in the course, alongside developing an aesthetic that is not
hindered by procedural limitations of construction - which also provides a master/apprentice
relationship for them to observe and learn advanced technical skills. In the latter stages of the
course, there are numerous industry-led projects that allow students to engage in authentic
learning and understand pragmatic constraint. A design-led approach, a process whereby
innovation and creative thinking is used at the ground level to producing a more innovative
solution (Wrigley & Bucolo, 2011), mixed with real world applications, is a prime learning
and teaching driver in the course.
Course outcomes
QUT’s BFA Fashion course is demonstrably highly successful. According to the national
benchmarking survey of recent graduate course satisfaction CEQ (Australian Graduate
Careers Australia, 2012), the QUT Fashion course achieves consistently higher ratings than
its Australian university fashion program competitors (Queensland University of Technology,
2011). The course also performs extremely well when compared with courses from other
Faculties and disciplines. In 2011, QUT benchmarked course performance in the university
by administering a variety of quantitative measures to its 582 postgraduate and undergraduate
award courses (including measures of student satisfaction, course attrition, and course
demand). The BFA Fashion course was the highest performing course in the university by a
considerable margin (Queensland University of Technology, 2011).
2. Method
We conducted the study with the aim of exploring and unpacking the key pedagogic
determinants of the success of the BFA Fashion course. To this end, we conducted hour-long
focus groups (Kitzinger & Barbour, 1999) with graduating students. A total of 19 students
participated across three focus groups, representing two-thirds of the graduating cohort. A
series of open-ended questions were developed to explore students’ perceptions of the course
experience, and aspects of pedagogy and curriculum. Recordings of the discussions were then
transcribed in full and analysed by the research team.
A grounded approach (Glaser, 1992) was taken to analysis of the transcripts. Through a
procedure of constant comparison (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) involving iterative analysis of
consistencies and contrasts in participant responses, theory emerged from the focus group
data.
3. Findings
As analysis of themes continued, five pedagogic themes began to emerge from the data. Each
of the themes involved an effective and seemingly paradoxical balance of opposing
pedagogic emphases. These paradoxical themes included: (1) high concept/ authenticity; (2)
high disciplinarity/ interdisciplinarity; (3) high rigour/ play; (4) high autonomy/ scaffolding;
and (5) high individuality/ community, where community can be divided into high challenge/
support (see figure 1).
Figure 1. Key pedagogic themes emerging from the analysis.
3.1 High concept/authenticity
This paradox reflects twin course philosophies, which are mirrored throughout the university.
While QUT, as a ‘university of technology’ is known for the development of applied
technical and vocational skills aimed at engendering graduate employability, there are also
core learning experiences from first year which address fashion theory, fashion history and
social contexts, and encourage students to take a theory-informed approach to practice - units
such as ‘Introduction to the Industry of Fashion’, ‘Unspeakable Beauty’ and ‘Contemporary
Fashion’.
. . . I have friends that go to vocational training courses in fashion and they miss the whole conceptual
stage . . . Like they look at the environment in fashion at the moment and they make something to suit
it. Whereas for us we’re sort of thinking forward . . .
I decided to explore my identity as a designer and it came from looking at feminism – exploring what
feminism is and what the modern woman is . . . it’s changed so much since modernity and postmodernity. For this collection it’s about the woman and her internal and external world.
While theory-informed practice is a strong feature of the course, very little student learning
takes place in a conventional lecture or seminar room. The majority of the course is
experiential and studio-based. Learning begins as theory, is grown and experimented with in
the ‘safe’ space of the studio, and is then translated into authentic contexts such as industry
projects. One example of this was the ‘hot-house’ project with Westfield (a large national
fashion retailer) where students were required to design and produce a collection of garments,
aligned to the aesthetic of individual retail outlets based at Westfield stores, and the garments
were then judged by renowned fashion journalists and significant financial prizes were
awarded. Another example is the project run with David Jones (a national department store),
where students were required to present their design range to the General Manager of Buying
and in doing so gained authentic feedback in a real world context. One more example is the
Fleet Store, a ‘pop-up’ store (a temporary store set up for a defined period of time) in the
central city which was student developed and managed – students obtained initial funding
and support for the concept, designed and produced the garments, created the store fit out,
hired managers, and dealt with all the business and promotional aspects of running a
commercial fashion retail enterprise.
[The Fleet Street store] is the most real-world thing we've done so far and it's pretty different having to
finish work to a standard where it's going to be out in the public realm, rather than just handing it into a
few people to be marked. It's a very different thing.
3.2. High disciplinarity/interdisciplinarity
The second thematic paradox emphasises the depth of disciplinary and technical knowledge
and skills developed during the course, such as the ability to produce/translate accurate
technical drawings, comprehend and exploit the qualities of textiles, and produce well-fitting
and well-constructed garments. These skills are primarily developed in integrated studio
units, with around 12 to 15 contact hours per week, and design, patternmaking, fabrication
and CAD are married to create connected learning for key discipline skills. In the final year
of the course, studio-based Master classes are organised in order to hone a diversity of
discipline skills, including draping, corsetry, and CAD pattern grading. The curriculum is
mapped to ensure industry-current practices are maintained throughout the course, allowing
that in a three year degree, it is becoming increasingly challenging to provide allencompassing training for the diversity of skill sets required for the fashion industry.
The paradoxical theme ‘high disciplinarity/interdisciplinarity’ also emphasises the fact that
the fashion industry now intersects with many seemingly unrelated disciplines, such as health
(sun-safe fashion), business (fashion marketing/PR), science (wearable robotics), architecture
(fashion and housing liveability), journalism and media (fashion blogging) and visual arts
(fashion curation). The learning futures literature has identified interdisciplinarity as a central
theme to the growth of creative economy, and interdisciplinary capability as a significant
component of the 21st century skill set (Bridgstock, 2012, in press; Hearn & Bridgstock,
2010), and students in the BFA fashion are provided with rich opportunities to explore
interdisciplinarity. First, they can enrol in elective units in diverse areas such as journalism,
fashion and film costuming, fashion buying and interior design. Second, they can undertake
internships and industry-based projects with an interdisciplinary focus – examples include
fashion blogging for sun-safe garments for the Queensland Cancer Council and internships
with millinery and shoe design companies. Third, approximately half of the Fashion cohort
choose to study a Business/Fashion double degree, and within the Business degree they can
select areas of study which include advertising, marketing, management, and public relations.
it’s a “perfect opportunity for us to take what we've learnt from business, take what we've learnt from
fashion and put it together and practise it”. I think we’re really highly employable because this course
[double degree] makes you really adaptable. I guess it’s like with sewing: you know the technical skills
of that, so this is kind of having a technical background of business where you know where companies
are coming from.
3.3 High rigour/play
The third thematic paradox, ‘high rigour/ high play’ relates to a learning environment typified
by hard work and high standards, but also where fun, humour, and experimentation are prized
as important to a positive learning experience, and as a key underpinning of creative work
(Pink, 2005). Rigour involves creating an environment in which each student is expected to
learn at high levels, is supported so do so, and is able to demonstrate learning at high levels
(Blackburn, 2008). Play does not need to be at odds with rigour in the classroom – rather,
their co-mingling can result in exceptional and creative learning outcomes. As Mihaly
Csiksentmihalyi (1997) argues, a playful attitude and approach to work is a hallmark of
creativity, and yet so is an appropriate degree of challenge to work.
In the BFA (fashion) course students undertake a very high workload, with an expectation to
produce an array of technically complex garments which require numerous iterations in the
sampling process. At the same time, students have enormous fun experimenting and pushing
conceptual and technical boundaries. Selected course elements provide a safe space for them
to explore cutting edge original and creative fashion, and not be beholden to the pragmatics
of sale volumes, manufacturing costs, or sizing variations. Other course elements impose
realistic and pragmatic constraints, and encourage students to be creative within those.
Everyone has fun, everyone has a laugh, like even when you’re there at five o’clock in the morning. It’s
a testament to your character. I really think persistence is probably one of the words, like if you didn’t
persist or you didn’t have the strong character to just keep pushing, or the people around you to keep
pushing you, it wouldn’t happen.
I think also, not really in a competitive sense, but seeing what your peers are doing you get so inspired
and amazed by all this amazing work and you’re like, well I’m here too, I can do that as well.
3.4 High autonomy/ scaffolding
This fourth thematic paradox encapsulates the educational challenge of providing the right
balance between student autonomy and formal structure/individualised support to facilitate
self-directed learning. The QUT fashion course is configured to maximise the ability to
maintain structured independent learning environments, where students are given freedom to
develop design outcomes relevant to their individual needs, and are supported to take
maximum advantage of this freedom using scaffolding strategies. In particular, in the final
phase of the course they are supported to work with industry based mentors (shoe designers,
costume makers, milliners, textile designers etc) and connections are provided for key local
and off-shore manufacturing concerns to produce final commercial-ready products.
. . . there was the theme, but within that there were very few constraints on what we could produce.
Something about that lets you learn a lot and then test yourself, and that you sort of can structure it so
that you can get out of it what you want to get out of it, and that might be different for everybody.
3.5 High individuality/ community
The fifth thematic paradox represents a pedagogic balance between tailored learning
pathways for pursuit of individual student interests, learning styles, aptitudes and career
pathways, and the creation of a strong and supportive learning community.
Students are supported to create unique career pathways throughout the course – if a student
has a passion for menswear design or sustainable fashion, a flexible approach is taken in
studio units that will allow the individual to develop design and skill attributes relevant to
their career slant. This approach allows an opportunity for student peers to be exposed to a
multiplicity of learning directions, as they are required to present their body of studio work to
their peers on regular basis. Additionally, in the final semester of the course there is a unit
called ‘Fashion Futures’ where students have the opportunity to map out proposed career
outcomes on a one-to-one basis with lecturing staff.
. . . the way you go about designing is so conceptual, and mine’s completely different
sort of about fit and feeling and wearability.
and it’s all
They treated us very individually from the beginning and they wouldn’t sort of say this is what fashion
is or this is what a collection is. They would listen to us and they would give us advice . . . they never
tried to create a group of people who did the same thing. It was always very individualistic.
While students pursue individual learning journeys and interests, the course also employs an
intentional learning community – community of practice approach (Price, 2005; Wenger,
1999) in order to maximise sense of belonging and student learning through collaborative
knowledge construction. The ‘QUT fashion family’, as it is colloquially known, has as its
physical base a number of dedicated fashion studios with 24/7 secure access for students. The
open plan studios are well patronised on weekends and after scheduled classes, wherein
significant socialising and peer-to-peer learning occurs.
We’re all the best of friends now as well, and it’s such a supportive creative environment that you
know often we understand each other on a level that no one else really understands us.
For me, it’s like a family . . . I came from a science degree where there were really thousands of people
in a lecture theatre and now it feels really good to be part of be small group.
The high individuality/high community pedagogic balance is reminiscent of McWilliam’s
(2008) notion of ‘flocking’ for creative capacity building, in which students operate within an
environment where a class of students, like a flock of birds, can exploit the features of social
learning to ‘fly higher’ collectively, and concurrently pursue their own passions.
3.6 High challenge/ high support
The power of ‘flocking’ in ‘high community’ is summarised in the paradoxical sub-theme,
‘high challenge/high support’. Placed in a close-knit, high performing intensive learning
community, students push themselves and each other to meet and exceed their individual
learning goals. There is a strong undercurrent of co-opetition within each cohort, as students
see and are inspired by what others are producing, challenge themselves to attempt projects
which stretch their abilities, and work co-operatively to solve problems. A key approach
taken by fashion studio staff to develop and foster individuals to attempt to surpass their
learning expectations is provide a supportive environment (in the sampling studio phase) with
comments from staff such as, “I’ve never done that before, but let’s try it”, “Why not, let’s
have a go” and “We’ll experiment together and see if it works - if it doesn’t, let’s take a
different approach”. This approach fosters a co-learning atmosphere, between staff and
students, and they begin to understand that the journey is equally as important as the
destination for design practice and this contributes to heighten design outcomes.
We’ve [voluntarily] taken on a workload that is probably bigger than we’ve had to. Like me and my
friend making shoes for the show, which is a bit crazy. It’s just a bit nuts… everyone just gets really
inspired and goes the extra mile.
In those first few weeks Wendy [QUT fashion lecturer] would always be like, you can do anything,
nothing’s impossible. We always find a way for you to do it – if you’ve got something quite
challenging, the teachers work really closely with you to resolve that design.
Conclusions
The pedagogical paradoxes outlined in this paper explain much of the QUT BFA (Fashion)
course’s success, in terms of student satisfaction, engagement with learning, and graduate
outcomes. The course design makes the most of the studio space, the disciplinary and
pedagogic expertise of the staff, and the boutique nature of the course, to create an
immersive, supportive, challenging, fun, and collaborative experience for students, which
focuses on real world 21st century fashion work outcomes.
The BFA(Fashion) is highly unusual in the contemporary higher education context, in which
there has been an increasing emphasis on mass delivery and teaching efficiencies (Jauhiainen
& Laiho, 2009). Academic staff responsible for studio courses may feel besieged by these
policy imperatives, and may perhaps be called upon to justify their comparatively higher use
of teaching resources per student than large-scale lecture-based courses. This study has
demonstrated the pedagogic pre-eminence of a studio approach for design learning.
So what can university fashion teachers who are responsible for large classes do to capitalise
upon the success factors identified in this paper? An intentional learning community
approach can still be fostered, through the sequencing of successive units, and the consistent
grouping of smaller numbers of students in tutorial classes. Explicit attempts can be made to
engender peer learning, accountability and support, and the curriculum expanded to address
interdisciplinary, and to include an emphasis on authentic learning (‘real world projects’,
work experience), particularly in later years. Finally, course content should embrace the 21st
century, in terms of global opportunities and trends and associated skill needs.
References
Australian Graduate Careers Australia. (2012). Course Experience Questionnaire Overview.
Retrieved 17 May, 2012, from http://www.graduatecareers.com.au/start-home/startaustralian-graduate-survey-an-overview/start-course-experience-questionnaire-overview/
Bridgstock, R. S. (2012, in press). Professional capabilities for 21st century creative careers: lessons
from outstandingly successful Australian artists and designers. The International Journal of
Art and Design Education.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1997). Creativity: Flow and the psychology of discovery and invention. New
York: Harper Collins.
Cutler, T. (2008). Venturous Australia - building strength in innovation. Report on the Review of the
National Innovation System. Canberra: Australian Government.
Department for Culture Media and Sport. (2008). Creative Britain: New talents for the new economy.
London: Department for Culture Media and Sport.
Glaser, B. G. (1992). Basics of grounded theory analysis. Mill Valley: The Sociology Press.
Glaser, B. G., & Strauss, A. (1967). The discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for qualitative
research. New York: Aldine.
Hearn, G., & Bridgstock, R. S. (2010). Education for the creative economy: Innovation,
transdisciplinarity and networks. In M. Peters & D. Araya (Eds.), Education in the creative
economy. New York: Peter Lang.
Jauhiainen, A., & Laiho, A. (2009). The dilemmas of the 'efficiency university'policy and the
everyday life of university teachers. Teaching in Higher Education, 14(4), 417-428.
Kitzinger, J., & Barbour, R. S. (1999). Developing focus group research: politics, theory and
practice. London: Sage Publications.
McWilliam, E. (2008). Building Creative Capacity Building in University Graduates: What we can
learn from boids and voids. Cultural Science, 1(2), 1-10.
Pink, D. H. (2005). A whole new mind. New York: Penguin.
Price, D. V. (2005). Learning Communities and Student Success in Postsecondary Education. A
Background Paper. New York: MDRC.
Queensland University of Technology. (2011). QUT CEQ reports. Retrieved May 17, 2012, from
https://qcr.qut.edu.au/pls/qcr/ags_ceq_rep.ceq_fac?pTabHierarchyID=960&pSecurityID=140,
Wenger, E. (1999). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Wrigley, C., & Bucolo, S. (2011). Teaching design led innovation: The future of industrial design.
Design Principles and Practices, 5(2), 231-240.