The contents of the Master integrate different interdisciplinary themes for better understanding and managing the processes of fashion product development and marketing through the whole pipeline.
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 knowledge
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 background 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 unit is divided of 20 hours. Lessons 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 includes 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 unit is composed of 140 hours dedicated to the knowledge of the structure of the fashion industry, the companies that characterize is and the different business models, strategies, product categories and materials. It also aims to transfer 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 project 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.
• 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 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.
• 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
• 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.
• 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 on the main trends, their diffusion processes, contents and forecasting, will be introduced, focusing both on fashion related and not-related industries.
Courses include lectures, exercise sessions and final exams.
Fashion Processes: to be able to manage the processes of creation and product development
The unit is composed of 180 hours devoted to the main processes in order to enhance and promote the identity of the brand, implementation and management of development processes of the fashion product
Courses are:
• Brand Design & Product Design
The educational setting of the Brand Design unit is innovative and interactive. It tackles the covered topics with synergy and cross-reference, correlating them in a sort of direction enabling the student to check through the educational path the combined learning of the different subjects, directly putting into practice with the partnering companies, different stages of creativity. Traditional classes are integrated with case studies, interview with well known entrepreneurs, group sessions and exercises. The subjects included in Brand Design will be developed crossing application classes into different research fields such as: the brand value chain, the brand communication values, the brand extension (vertical and horizontal), from third partying to partnership, creativity and licensing, product personalization, retailing identity, the brand as an asset.
The unit of Product Design discusses the various phases of the development process of a fashion collection and identifies all the activities related both to the organization and management of the creative processes and to the collections’ architecture and planning, depending on company and market’s constraints. Starting from the definition of the stylistic elements that characterize the identity of the company and the corporate DNA, there will be a focus on the different processes, actors involved and products typologies that are developed, depending on the different business models of the industry. Finally the development processes of the fashion collection are analyzed: from the development of research activities and the definition of the collection’s structure, to the development and engineering of the collection.
• Fabrics, Materials & Technologies
The unit aims to provide an overview of the knowledge of materials and their uses. Technological developments and innovation in recent years have implemented a range of fabrics commonly used in apparel. The course aims to provide knowledge that will be useful to orient students as "commodity trader" in the fashion pipeline that goes from fiber to yarn to fabric and thread; it also aims to offer a knowledge in the leather goods and accessories’ materials. Students become aware of the various stages of textile processing, preparing an own minimum stock of textiles, in which the most common definitions are put. The objective of this course is the creation of a first personal and searchable archive, that will be a useful tool for the professional profiles that operate in the functions of product development.
• Merchandising & Pricing
The unit will introduce students to brand management process. Specifically it will analyze the interaction between brand values management and their translation into product strategy. The course will address some specific issues such as: where does product innovation takes place? How product strategies are generated? How do companies plan and manage different product portfolios? How brand values are translated into product codes? How do product iconic codes interact with seasonal/trend codes? The course will also propose a short exercise as an example of planning a strategy of brand extension.
• Communication Design
The unit combines the themes fashion and communication: these two areas have always worked in pair to convey a style, a brand or a single product. The course is aimed at providing students with a clear perspective about the fashion industry peculiarities, with reference to trade communication management. It is made up of two parts. A first part aims at exploring, together with the students and through the study of case histories and their topics, the reasons and the effects of the communication strategies used in today fashion system, with specific reference to trade communication tools and strategies. A second part aimed to explore typical visual tools and artifacts used to communicate collections and products to trades and buyers.
• Brand & Product Management Processes
Through careful study of the new user scenarios, the project of the course will be a breeding ground for creativity, with which the complex work of research and development of the data collected gives rise to a real product. Following the principle of the polytechnical methodology the course will be organized in form of a short workshop, involving practical activities and helping the students in the development of design concepts of their own. The students shall form small teams learning how to work in groups, to cooperate with each other and to divide complex goals assigning smaller tasks according to each other's skills and background.
Structure
In strict connection with the courses dedicated to Fabrics and Materials and to Product design research this course will be divided into three subsequent modules, each dedicated to the development of a Fashion design product according to the following three areas of application in fashion:
- Accessory Design;
- Fashion Design;
Each lecture will therefore provide a series of activities from group reviews and practical tools instructions to lectures dedicated to specific examples and case studies.
The Accessory Design module will focus on fashion accessories, defining a specific theme and helping the students deliver a new product of their own according to the latest techniques and trends.
The Fashion Design module will be dedicated to the definition of a capsule collection for the fashion industry following the example of national and international case studies. The students' teamworks will be given a brief of the capsule collection with specific contents.
Starting from a fabric of assigned size, the different teams will be asked - following the theme and the trend assigned - to print on it with a rapid printing technique (sublimation, laser, etc.).
Then each team will deliver the drawings of their capsule collection and a prototype necessary for the final shooting and a presentation catalogue.
• Entrepreneurship & Start Up
This course is aimed at introducing Students to the issues related to the process of starting a new venture, and to the understanding of the main “building blocks” that are needed in order to create a startup and a realistic business planning process: from the identification of entrepreneurial opportunities, to the analysis tools, strategy and positioning formulation, business model definition, financing definition and economic projections, up to the final “elevator’s pitch”. Overall, the course is focused on the “lean” principles, and its outcomes in terms of maximizing value creation.
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 specializing 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:
Intermediate Italian 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 (A2 for beginners, B1 for advanced), confirming competence in Italian as a foreign language in accordance with the six levels of the Common European Framework.