The contents of the Master integrate different interdisciplinary themes for better understanding and managing the processes of brand management and retail management. The Master consists of 720 hours of classroom lectures and a final internship of at least 480 hours.
The structure is composed of six learning blocs: warm up, quantitative & project tools, fashion pillars, fashion processes, curiosity, fashion practices, field projects, empowerment & internship. The objective is to accompany the student to the progressive knowledge of the industry and the key processes that characterize the professional profiles involved in the brand management.
Lectures are organized into modules based on the presence of teachers from different areas that can transmit a complete picture of the structure and functioning mechanism of the industry. They include a part of theoretical framework and a large space devoted to exercises, with the aim of transferring methods, techniques and concrete working tools.
Educational Contents
Warm-up: to acquire the basic knowledges
The unit includes 40 hours dedicated to create, an homogeneity of participants’ knowledge that is necessary for the later stages of the learning process. Lessons help to students, according to their origins, to fill some basic gaps in the fields of management, economics, quantitative methods, communication, design, and sustainability. Given the different backgrounds education, the students have to follow the “Warm-up” course related to the master chosen, plus one of their choice, in agreement with the Director of the Master. This unit does not have a final exam.
Quantitative Tools & Project Tools: to acquire quantitative skills and design
The module is composed into 20 hours. Lessons are aimed at the acquisition of quantitative tools and design, through the use of the programs Excel, Indesign and Photoshop. These instruments will be preparatory to the understanding of the processes that characterize firms in the industry and the contents of specialized courses, according to the Master of reference. The educational activities include basic lessons and advanced training in relation to the background of the individual student. There are exercises and tests written by students.
Fashion Pillars: to know the structure of the fashion industry and the working tools
The module is composed of 140 hours dedicated to the knowledge of the structure of the fashion industry, the companies that characterize it and the different business models, strategies, product categories and materials. It also aims to transfer some technical and operational tools for planning and organizing activities, along with tools for investigating and processing qualitative and quantitative market data.
Courses are:
• Project Management
The Project Management for Fashion course aims to provide students with the basic methods of management of Activities and Processes (Planning, Timing, Objectives, Resources, Responsibility, Output, Cost / Benefits ratios) applicable to different types of projects in the fashion industry (Brand and Product area, Retail and Commercial are, Research and Communication area). Contents on the methodologies and tools will be complemented with organizational contents (i.e.: characteristics of project managers, team motivation, project marketing) that allow a proper contextualization in the company context.
• Fashion Business Models
The course has the aim to introduce a general picture on the different Business Models within the Fashion & Luxury industries, from a strategic perspective on Luxury Brands, Designer Brands, Industrial Brands and Retailers, to the management of the positioning in the fashion industry and the different approaches to the management of creativity, from the stylistic identity to the different product strategies. The course will focus on the levers companies can differently implement in terms of communication, image, and retail identity.
• Research Methods & Trends
The course aims to provide a broad view, on one hand, of the different methods and research tools useful to investigate fashion markets and consumers and, on the other hand, on the main contemporary trends influencing fashion and fashion-related industries. Project-research and trend research will be introduced; processes, tools, and artifacts that characterize the research in fashion design: blue sky research, visual research, product research. Tools and stages of the research process: from brainstorming to the concept of the collection. Socio-cultural and scenery research through the cool hunting. Tools and stages of the investigation, from the brief to the final report. Main actors of the trend analysis: fashion companies, research agencies, freelancers. Marketing Research, both qualitative and quantitative: desk analysis and field analysis. The difference between using primary and secondary data. The difference between exploratory and confirmative marketing research. Subsequently, an overview and explanation of the main trends, their diffusion processes, contents, and forecasting, will be introduced, focusing both on fashion related and not-related industries.
• Italian Fashion System
The course Italian Fashion System aims to provide a preliminary view of the fashion industries (fashion industry, important people of the fashion industry, seasonal cycles) and typical strategies of the fashion companies ( product strategies, marketing, communication strategies) with reference to the relationships between the creative and managerial processes. Moreover, will be studied the most important fashion industries in relation to the different market positioning of their products: programmed models, and hybrid models. In order to acquire the specific knowledge of the fashion industry, particular attention will be given to the teaching of the most important terms and vocabulary of the fashion industries. As a matter of facts, to proceed with the correct understanding of the fashion industries terms, it is absolutely necessary obtain the correct skills.
• Fashion Marketing & Brand Management
The Fashion Marketing & Brand Management course aims to introduce students the main fashion marketing techniques and to the framing of the process of formulating, implementing and monitoring the brand identity and brand positioning. This process identifies two different but related application areas: the first one has as its objective the knowledge of the framework and the guidelines from which to derive operational "brand sensitive" marketing processes; the second one has as its objective the direct management of brands as intangible strategic assets, which are connected to specific management processes. The course has been framed within three different but connected areas of application: the management and design of the brand as an immaterial asset; the framework and guidelines for the operational processes; the sociological perspective of branding.
• Fashion History
From the Modernism which celebrates the art and fashion, to the Third Millennium, the course aims to provide an historical overview through the history of fashion. Specifically: the "Roaring Twenties"; Art Deco and the aesthetics of the machine; the emergence of women "couturiers": Madeleine Vionnet, Elsa Schiaparelli, Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel ; cinema and Hollywood fashion in 1930; 1950 and Existentialism; 1960: optimism, art "pop" and street fashion in London; 1970: the punk and the anti-fashion on the streets of London; 1980 and pluralism of fashion; 1990; postmodernism, and globalization in the Third Millennium.
Courses include lectures, exercise sessions and final exams.
Fashion Processes: to be able to manage the processes of Business Management
The module is composed of 180 hours devoted to the main processes of Business Management.
Courses are:
• Fashion Business Management
The module will introduce students to business management process. Specifically, it will analyze the interaction between the management of brand values and their translation into the retail strategy. The course will address some specific issues such as: which are the touch points to be integrated in the perspective of seamless and customer-centric experience? How can the values of the brand be translated into retail codes? How do omnichannel strategies work?
• Fashion Branding Strategies
The course covers diverse theoretical and practical foundations underlying Fashion Branding Management. Mainly, brand identity and brand expressions: The aim is to translate the brand's DNA into visual and stylistic codes expressed in products, services and communication projects.
Brand Portfolio Management: theoretical and practical foundations for managing a portfolio of brands, in order to reach different target markets through the management of individual and collective and's DNA codes.
Product Portfolio Management: Planning and managing product portfolios by increasing market potential and efficiently planning categories and range.
Process Planning: plan the phases and timing of the brand & product release and integrate them with parallel processes (eg. Communication and retail).
• Merchandising & Buying
The module aims to examine the basic elements of the definition of the collection structure through a merchandising plan to the management and planning of the buying, exhibition and communication of the products with the final consumer. Referring to the basic contents related to consumer analysis and the differentiation of the different channels and formats, the main processes related to project management and product management are examined, representing the incentive to obtain the economic performance of the sale point. Particular emphasis is given to the most advanced methods both for "time/delivery" and "place".
• Brand Communication Management
The course will glance at fashion communication field and at the major job profiles involved. Nowadays fashion communication means knowing how to create and manage an integrated communication strategy, organize an ad campaign, deal with the media and relationships with those operating throughout the sector, organize events and fashion shows, and also implement a launch plan for a product, a designer or a brand. The course also offers an overview of marketing and communication planning for the fashion industry with an emphasis on the Italian brands. After an introduction about the analysis of marketing, brand management, distribution channels, communication and advertising strategies, it will focus on reaching target audiences using marketing communication channels on-line and off-line.
• Transmedia Storytelling & Content Strategy
The course is aimed at providing students with skills to manage online and transmedia communication strategies. Furthermore it provides students with the most updated and still developing knowledge about new and Social Media as innovative tools of communication. The second part is aimed at providing students with tools to manage innovative e-commerce businesses. The discussion of real business cases will help the students to learn about the contemporary issues in managing with efficiency and effectiveness an e-commerce business.
• Omnichannel Strategy
The module aims to provide a comprehensive and interdisciplinary approach of the current channels and retail formats in the fashion / luxury / design industry, along with the key indicators of economic performance of the retail and wholesale processes. During the course, students will analyze the main formats that are present today in the industry (eg: traditional and innovative, off-line and on-line, integrated and independent, large and small, …), with the aim to understand the uniqueness of each of them, also in relation to the context of the relevant market (geographical, cultural, locational). The common thread of this course is the need, from the brand’s point of view, of an ΄omnichannel and multiformat‘ approach aimed to establish a seamless experience across the different touch points.
• Digital Retail Experience
The module is aimed to cover, through an interdisciplinary perspective, the process of the integrated design of retail formats, taking as a point of reference the maximization andi digitization of the experiential dimension of the point of sale, both in its communicative and business values.
The key points of the design process are the coherence of the retail format with the brand, the location (country, areas, etc..), the content (products, services, sales staff). The course is enriched by a series of case studies of best practices for the creation of the retail experience, both online and offline. Working on real case studies, the students will develop visual merchandising skills too.
• Contemporary CRM
The module aims to examine the relational dimension of the point of sale, with particular reference to the relationship between the consumer and the store personnel. The store, both online and offline, is evolving as a place of experience in which the relational component acquires an increasingly important role, pulling alongside the material components of the store (products and spaces). Furthermore, the organized management of the relationship with the final consumer allows hoarding fundamental knowledge for the improvement of customer satisfaction for the design of all levers that are upstream of the retail mix.
• Ethics & Sustainability
In this module we will talk about how to manage sustainability through the different activities of the value chain. Through lectures, business case discussions and testimonials, numerous corporate best practices will be analyzed. Creating shared value in fashion means being able to respond to the needs of many stakeholders: the environment, society, institutions, art, culture, the territory and consumers. A responsible fashion company has already started the long and complex journey of integration between ethics and aesthetics within the value chain, in constant balance with all stakeholders.
Courses include lectures, exercise sessions and final exams.
Fashion practices: field testing the competences
Curiosity
The module will consist of a series of seminars in order to provide a broad vision of social and cultural evolution of fashion, with several important interdisciplinary studies on the major Italian brands. Particular attention will also be devoted to some significant contemporary phenomena such as the spread of global trends, the hybridization of styles, the emergence of new forms of production and sustainable consumption patterns, the success of new communication methods related to new media.
Field Projects
These courses are based on the creation of two projects, each lasting five full-time weeks, and it is coordinated by a multidisciplinary team of teachers. Each module consists in the preparation of a project on a real case study provided by leading companies directly involved by the Faculty in the educational activity. From the project brief provided by the company, students’ teams will be set up in order to finalize a viable proposal that offers solutions to the objectives set by the company together with the teachers. The objective is to obtain projects that integrate brand strategy, product strategy, retail strategy and communication strategy, innovation and that is consistent with the reality of the company, simulating work processes as close as possible to the reality of professional contexts. The evaluation of this phase occurs at the end of the course, through the presentation of the projects. The projects will be discussed by a committee composed of professors of the module and assessed in the presence of representatives of the companies involved. Companies will have the early opportunity to select potential students for the internships that will take place in the final phase of the master.
Empowerment Career Management
The module is aimed at providing the necessary skills to deal with selection processes carried out by companies both in the context of internship, and placement in the job market. During the module, students will be put in contact with both Head Hunter specialized in the fashion field and design area, and with companies’ representatives in charge of the selection, coming from the most important and significant companies operating in the fashion industry, in order to understand the dynamics of the selection and to enhance their own professional profile.
Internship
The internship is one of the most significant experiences of the master; coordinated by the Director of the Master, consists in the trial, in a business context, of the skills learned during the courses. It is based on a training project collegially agreed by Milano Fashion Institute and by the host company.
Italian Language
The module is aimed at the introduction to the Italian language for international students. The didactical objective is the understanding of the most common ways of interaction and communication, both in everyday life and in the professional contest. The Students will be divided into two parallel courses , after having attended a preliminary assessment test, for evaluating the starting level of the knowledge of the language:
B1 level, designed to provide students with the skills needed to sustain a job interview in the Italian language and to introduce the basic vocabulary of the fashion industry for being able to work properly into an Italian job environment.
At the end of the courses, students will attend a final exam. After passing the exam, students will have the opportunity to get the internationally recognized PLIDA certificate (B1), confirming competence in Italian as a foreign language in accordance with the six levels of the Common European Framework.