Fashion, Textiles & Footwear with Integrated Foundation Year

Fashion, textiles and footwear together encompass some of the most practically complex and culturally significant areas of design. Fashion design involves the conception, development and realisation of clothing and accessories, requiring an understanding of garment construction, textiles, trend analysis, market positioning and the visual communication of a design idea. Textile design addresses the surfaces and materials from which fashion is made, encompassing weave, print, embroidery, knit and the development of functional and aesthetic fabrics.

Footwear design adds a further technical and creative specialism, combining structural engineering with aesthetic sensitivity in objects that must be both functional and desirable.

At the University of Northampton, which has a long-established connection to the UK footwear industry in particular, this four-year programme begins with an integrated foundation year that builds your creative and technical grounding before the degree proper begins. Northampton's expertise in leathercraft and footwear manufacture is a distinctive asset that gives the programme a depth of material knowledge not easily found elsewhere. Across the full programme you will develop skills in pattern cutting, construction, material experimentation, CAD and creative research, building a body of portfolio work that reflects your personal design vision.

You will engage with the history and cultural context of fashion and dress and with the sustainability challenges that the fashion industry now faces.

Graduates go on to work as fashion designers, textile designers, footwear designers, costume designers, fashion buyers and stylists, or in roles in retail, trend forecasting, brand management and fashion education. The industry operates at every scale from luxury houses to mass market retailers, and across product categories from clothing to accessories to interiors. Many graduates build freelance practices alongside studio employment.

Postgraduate study in fashion, textiles or design is also a pathway for those who want to develop specialist expertise or pursue academic research in the field.