The contents of the Master integrate different interdisciplinary themes for better understanding and managing the processes of design and wellness.
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, lifestyle pillars, lifestyle processes, curiosity, lifestyle 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.
Lectures are organized into modules based on the presence of university teachers, professionals and manager 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 a basic "vocabulary"
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, sociology and design. Given the different background education , students can decide to attend all of part of the lessons, 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, Photoshop, Autocad e Rhino. 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.
Lifestyle Pillars: to know the structure of lifestyle sectors: design, wellness, cosmetics and events and related work tools
The unit is composed of 140 hours dedicated to the knowledge of the structure of the sectors design, wellness & cosmetics and events, of the companies that characterize them, of the various creative, managerial and communication models.
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 Lifestyle 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 sectors of Design, Wellness and Events (Brand and Design area, Beauty and Wellness area, 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 & Design Business Models
The course has the aim to introduce a general picture on the different Business Models within the Design, Fashion & Experience industries, from a strategic perspective on Luxury Brands, Designer Brands, Experience Providing brands, to the management of the positioning in the different segments of the Lifestyle 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 Italian Lifestyle consumers. 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 Lifestyle and not-related industries.
• Italian Fashion & Design System
The main resource of the Italian territory is its vast cultural, material and immaterial heritage, whose value is not limited to the greatest number of world heritage sites of humanity, but to a vast and precious archive that still today continues to inspire companies and creatives from all over the world and with economic potential that is still largely unexpressed. The course presents some of the best-known masterpieces of Milanese art, design and architecture with an outline of Italian heritage.
• Creativity Management
The course aims to introduce students to the main ways of managing creative processes, starting from the antecedents, up to the paths that lead to product formulation, according to the different perspectives of problem solving and experimentation, as well as the generation of ideas and the related organizational and market outcome.
• Marketing & Brand Management
The Marketing Innovation & 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.
Courses include lectures, exercise sessions and final exams.
Lifestyle Processes: to be able to manage the processes of creation and product development of the sectors that characterize Italian design, wellness and brand event processes.
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 Italian design, wellness and events.
Courses are:
• Brand Extension and Merchandising
The course introduces to the dynamics and productive logics related to the main commodities protagonists of brand extensions processes, starting from the design, up to the accessory and the experience design. The course will introduce you to the main challenges that characterize the respective product sectors, as well as the way in which merchandising plans are built for the design of product portfolios by companies.
• Brand Development Processes: Lifestyle Design
The development of the Italian design system takes its roots in the merger of different inputs: from public and private institutions, to blending logics of designining differet spaces: museums, studios, foundations and theatres and, last but not least, the great variety of temporary spaces (for fashion shows to design exhibitions). The course is focused on the development of a set-up project, combining managerial and design issues, together with some theoretical introductory lessons and targeted visits for a better understanding of project issues based on designing spaces for lifestyle brands.
• Brand Development Processes: Cosmetics Management
The course introduces to the process of product development within the cosmetics and perfumes sector, starting from the ideation and sharing of the concept, up to the realization phases and the introduction within the reference market, with the related marketing techniques. An important component of the course will be carried out by a guest speaker of the sector and related case histories. The course is realized in partnership with CosmeticaItalia, Assolombarda Cosmetica and the most qualified Made in Italy cosmetics companies.
• Wellness Design
The course introduces you to the Wellness sector, with particular reference to both the planning of wellness experiences in retail and luxury hospitality contexts, and to design-driven companies that design their own offer system around wellness. Subsequently, the main trends that, at an international level, characterize the sector will be analyzed.
• CRM & Experience Design
From the Milanese aperitif rite to the organization of an event for buyers or a post-fashion show experience for celebrities and VIP clients, the role of experience is constantly growing inside the business processes of fashion, lifestyle and luxury companies. The common denominator lies in the ability to design relations with stakeholders, and to carefully craft effective strategies experience management. The course will present the most interesting practices, benchmarks and managerial techniques of Italian excellence in a sector that is in constant evolution, thanks to the hybridization process, in order to know how to design experiences and to manage relations through advanced techniques of CRM.
• Digital Branding
The module combines the themes of design and digital communication: these two areas have always worked together to convey a unique style, brand or product. The course aims to provide students with a clear perspective on the peculiarities of the lifestyle sectors, with particular reference to digital communication management. The course consists of two parts: the first part aims to explore, together with the students and through the study of case histories, the reasons and effects of the communication strategies used in the areas of lifestyle today. The second part aims to explore the typical visual tools and artifacts used to communicate creations and products to trade targets and buyers.
• Event Design & Management
The course introduces to the planning, organization and management of complex events and, more specifically, to the basic skills and methodologies used in the development, production and management of successful events for industries with a high symbolic and experiential content, according to a perspective able to combine brand communication objectives and marketing initiatives and products.
Lifestyle practices: field testing the competences
Curiosity – Italian Fashion Cities
The main Italian cities are never just cities of art, nor are they just fashion cities or productive centers, but they are often at the same time important centers of production and promotion for fashion that host different productive districts (with different vocations) together with a significant artistic heritage, with many historical or inspirational connections to the contemporary productive world. The course includes various guided tours and in-situ lessons (in the city of Milan) and ex-cathedra lessons, also in preparation for the Field trip (Florence and Rome).
• Study Tour
Several study tours are planned in the cities of art and Italian design, in order to convey to students the experientiality connected to the phenomenology of art and design themselves.
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.
• 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.
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, the students will be supported in the analysis of competences in view of the drafting of Cv and motivational letters, in the regulatory framework of internship contracts, in the search for internship offers, in conducting interviews with companies, in choosing the internship offers.
The Empowerment & Career Management Module will be carried out through the following courses:
- CAREER MANAGEMENT & ETHICS, to understand the process of placement on the one hand, and on the other the main problems related to ethical behavior within decision-making processes in business and organizational contexts.
- SOFT SKILLS & EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE, to learn about the soft skills that increasingly impact business selection processes, as well as the constituent elements of emotional intelligence, with a strong emphasis on practical behavioral simulations within company contexts.
- CORPORATE CULTURE & PERFORMANCE, to learn about the exciting theme of corporate and entrepreneurial culture, starting from the context of family businesses, up to the fulfillment of performance methods and paths within these organizations.
- CROSS CULTURAL MANAGEMENT, to learn about the specificities of interaction processes in contexts characterized by different cultures that often lead to a discresity between conveyed messages and communication vehicles, at the base of the phenomena of "cultural crush".
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.
