Fashion Design with Textiles

Fashion design with textiles is a discipline that develops creative vision and technical craft simultaneously. Fashion design concerns itself with the conception, development, and communication of clothing and accessories as cultural objects, commercial products, and expressions of identity. Textiles adds a further dimension: the materials from which fashion is made, the fibres, yarns, fabrics, prints, and surface treatments that give garments their physical qualities, are not neutral backdrops to design but central to what fashion is and how it communicates.

Understanding textiles at a specialist level opens possibilities in design that generalist approaches cannot reach.

At Huddersfield this three-year full-time programme combines the aesthetic, intellectual, and interdisciplinary skills needed for fashion design with a textiles specialism. You will study contemporary fashion design, developing skills in research, concept development, technical drawing, and garment production across womenswear, menswear, and gender-neutral clothing. The textiles element introduces you to techniques including weave, print, knitwear, and surface design, developing an understanding of how textile choices and innovations contribute to the identity of a garment or collection.

The programme includes a sandwich year and a work placement, ensuring you gain practical industry experience before you graduate and build the professional portfolio that employers and further study programmes expect.

Graduates in fashion design with textiles find careers across the fashion and creative industries. Fashion designer, textile designer, print designer, knitwear designer, fashion buyer, and product developer are among the most direct roles, alongside positions in fashion media, styling, and brand development. The technical textile knowledge adds a specialism that is valued by manufacturers, mills, and brands developing their own fabrics and materials.

Many graduates also continue to postgraduate study in fashion design, textiles, or sustainable design, or develop independent design practices in fashion or textile art.