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LOCATION
Docklands Campus
Location Fees and Funding
Here's the fees and funding information for each year of this course
Overview
The MA/MFA Fashion hinges on the concept of the designer as a pioneer, identifying and developing new terrains beyond the
Integral to its philosophy is that it is a space for creative minds to consider what the future of fashion looks like, shaping
Depending on the degree type chosen, students will develop their learning over 6 to 8 modules, that aims to facilitate
Students will have the opportunity to experience professional engagement in a context relevant to their individual
Past students have gone on to launch their own businesses or work freelance in a number of areas within the fashion
You can apply for this course as an MFA or MA. The MFA takes one extra year and you can apply by choosing the MFA option when you click 'apply'.
MA (Master of Arts)
1-year course with a focus on researching, developing creative practice and implementing an interdisciplinary learning project or curriculum initiative with measurable impact within a project environment (e.g. Learning organisation, arts organisation, business enterprise and innovation, design-oriented organisation, social-engaged project context).
- 6 modules = 180 Credits at Level 7
MFA (Master of Fine Arts)
2-year course with a focus on researching, developing creative practice and implementing an interdisciplinary learning project or curriculum initiatives in year 1 that lead to a larger-scale embedded research project in year 2. The emphasis of the larger-scale research project will integrate several interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary contexts through practice, research and live projects, applying a range of seminal and contemporary theories to project research and development from a number of relevant disciplinary domains (such as design, innovation, business and enterprise).
- 8 modules = 360 Credits at Level 7
All qualification outcomes involve the same 6 or 8 modules.
The nature of the work for each student will emanate from the context of their practice-based research.
What makes this course different
WHAT YOU'LL LEARN
The entire programme will be designed around mixed delivery of seminars, workshops, residencies, industry briefs and collaborative interdisciplinary projects and visits to collections, galleries, practitioners, museums and community groups which will ensure the field of study is both global and local.
Knowledge is developed through:
- Practically based design projects developing the key skills (research, design, recording information, exhibiting and presenting work)
- Lectures, seminars and practical demonstrations
- Live client project work and visiting professionals
- Thinking skills are developed through
- Reading and Research, both primary and secondary, quantitative and qualitative
- Essays, reports and action plans
- Formulations of judgements with presentations and exhibitions
- Self directed study
- Practical skills are developed through
- Working with academic, visiting and support staff
- New technologies, CAD digital media, digital fabric printing, photography and digital imagery
- Competitions, national and international
Skills for life and work (general skills) are developed through
- Presentations, individually and in groups
- Industrial placement, working with professionals as part of a team
- Working in teams and group situations in project and assignment work
- Organisational skills and time management
DOWNLOAD COURSE SPECIFICATIONS
COURSE SPECIFICATION - MA Fashion
pdf, 132.12 KB
COURSE SPECIFICATION MFA and MA Fashion
pdf, 123.76 KB
MODULES
- Core Modules
Identify Concepts and Technologies CloseIdentify Concepts and Technologies
The main aims of this module are to facilitate the student to identify a conceptual and technical field/fields of advanced research and study within the subject area through critical reflection on their own work within the wider context of professional process and progress. It also aims to provide the opportunity to study the subject of cut and construction of clothing and textiles. Modern and historical making processes will form the basis of new 3D practices on which the student will define their own work within the wider context of sustainable and ethical design.
Define: Concepts and Technologies CloseDefine: Concepts and Technologies
The main aims of this module are to facilitate students to critically reflect on their initial research projects, to define their practice both conceptually and technically and produce a body of work which reflects professional process and progress. This will evidence independent, original work and research within the subject area.
Define: Live Industry Project CloseDefine: Live Industry Project
The aim of this module is to enable the student to experience professional engagement in a context relevant to their individual practice or chosen career path through the completion of a live industry project. The student will also use this as an opportunity to design, curate and realise an exhibition, installation or other presentation of their collection.
Professional Life: Advanced Fashion Portfolio (Mental Wealth) FT7020 CloseProfessional Life: Advanced Fashion Portfolio (Mental Wealth) FT7020
The aim of this module is to enable the student to experience professional engagement in a context relevant to their individual practice or chosen career path within the subject area. Professional engagement can take place within a wide variety of contexts. For example, the student may choose to design and manage a live project, submit for a competition, design and run a workshop or digital campaign.
Consolidate: Concept and Technologies CloseConsolidate: Concept and Technologies
The main aim of this module is for students to develop a coherent and sophisticated body of work for exhibition or presentation, as appropriate to their subject. The module culminates in a showing of work, which will demonstrate a sustained level of practice necessary to achieve a Master's qualification.
Fashion Consultancy Project/Internship CloseFashion Consultancy Project/Internship
This module will provide an opportunity for the students to:
- Plan, prepare and undertake a master-level work placement (minimum 10-week maximum 12-week) in industry that is pertinent to their career objectives.
- Research, identify and pursue appropriate realistic placement / employment
- opportunities.
- Enhance professional practice through experiential understanding and development of employability and practical skills.
- Recognise and report on their understanding of various roles within a professional team.
- Give opportunity for networking environments that may lead to a mentorship/sponsorship.
- Record and reflect upon experiences whilst on placement in order to enhance their ability to contextualise the working environment.
- Core Modules
Creative Practice CloseCreative Practice
As part of the final year in an MA/MFA pathway, this module is a supervised, independent, student-driven creative practice module, which offers students an extraordinary opportunity to develop their creative practice in depth and to complete a professional-standard, full-length creative output in their discipline. Students from a range of practice-based programmes will create individual practice-based research plans with their supervisor and programme leader in order to meet the learning outcomes described in this module. Students develop their own working practices with supervision by their named programme supervisor in order to explore and advance their projects and reflective components.
This module will:
- Offer individual students the opportunity to critically develop his or her own work in the context of a rigorous but supportive intellectual climate.
- Encourage students to identify and explore those key contextual issues relevant to their artistic practice.
- Guide students to critically evaluate their work and that of their peers in the context of contemporary professional artistic practice.
- Enable students to achieve the highest possible standards in their work, so that MFA graduates have the confidence, maturity and intellectual and interpersonal skills necessary to function as successful creative practitioners.
The module aims to:
- Enable students to work with a significant level of autonomy in the production of a practice-based project
- Enable students to produce a body of work that demonstrates a resolution of practice and critical understanding
- Prepare students for the public presentation of work in collaboration with their peers and professionals in the field.
- Allow students to confidently contextualise their own work within the parameters of contemporary art practices.
- Further develop the ability to identify and formulate new critical insights into established practice
- Further encourage informed critical reflection upon the relations between the student’s own practice and current issues within their discipline.
Students are expected to demonstrate independence and 'ownership' in relation to their learning experience. In this focused environment each student learns how to organise and structure their working patterns in order to prepare themselves - both intellectually and practically - for the life of a professional practitioner in their chosen area. Each student, in conjunction with the programme team, will develop an individual learning plan and contract, which will stipulate the specific content of the creative practice involved in meeting the learning outcomes of the module.
Professional Platform CloseProfessional Platform
HOW YOU'LL LEARN
The fashion subject area is made up of industry knowledgeable staff, entrepreneurs and business owners, so you can be sure you will be learning in real time. We believe it is important that your education is consistent with the times and reflects the industry you will progress into.
When not attending timetabled lectures or workshops, you will be expected to continue learning independently through self-study.
This will typically involve skills development through 3D studio and workshop development, online study, reading journal articles and books, working on individual and group projects and preparing practical and written coursework assignments and presentations.
Your independent learning is supported by a range of excellent facilities including online resources, specialist facilities, such as edit suites, the library, the full Microsoft Office software, including MS Teams, and Moodle: our Virtual Learning Environment.
Our academic support team provides help in a range of areas – including learning and disability support.
When you arrive, we'll introduce you to your personal tutor. This is the member of the academic course team who will provide academic guidance, be a support throughout your time at UEL and who will show you how to make the best use of all the help and resources that we offer.
Each year you will spend around 200 hours of timetabled learning and teaching activities. These may be lectures, workshops, seminars and individual and group tutorials. Contact hours may vary depending on each module.
The approximate percentages for this course are:
- Year 1: scheduled teaching - approx. 300 hours; guided independent study - 1,500 hours
- Year 2: scheduled teaching - 200 hours; guided independent study - 1,000 hours
Your individualised timetable is normally available within 48 hours of enrolment. Whilst we make every effort to ensure timetables are as student-friendly as possible, scheduled teaching can take place on any day of the week between 9.00am and 6.00pm.
For undergraduate students, Wednesday afternoons are normally reserved for sports and cultural activities, but there may be occasions when this is not possible.
To give you an indication of class sizes, this course normally attracts ten students a year.
We have our own baseroom for group work and collaborations.
HOW YOU'LL BE ASSESSED
Practical coursework will include: garment construction, technical sewing files, reports and presentations. Theoretical coursework includes essays, research files, sample and development portfolios, practical design development, group and seminar presentations.
The approximate percentages for this course are:
- 50% coursework
- 50% practical
You will have the opportunity to gain feedback from your lecturers, peers and our industry partners. We aim to provide feedback on assessments within 20 working days.
CAMPUS and FACILITIES

Docklands Campus, Docklands Campus, London, E16 2RD
WHO TEACHES THIS COURSE
The teaching team includes qualified academics, practitioners and industry experts as guest speakers. Full details of the academics will be provided in the student handbook and module guides.
Related Courses
WHAT WE'RE RESEARCHING
Our academic team are dedicated to furthering the knowledge of creative practice and how it impacts on the fashion industry.
One of our research areas is sustainable design within fashion and textiles. In a collaborative project by UEL researchers; we've been analysing and identifying new materials and decorative methods. Our BA Fashion Design senior lecturer, Joe Hunter's environmental design ideology has been ongoing since the early 90s and is reinvigorated with a new soft sculpture, printed with trash and skinned with denim offcuts to create an oversized soft toy designed to initiate kids into environmental preservation.
Additionally, we're also looking at how new digital technology can transform fashion shopping experience and further increase in-store customer experience. MA International Fashion Business programme leader, Kent Le, is conducting his PhD on the use of Augmented Reality on Fashion Promotion with his research being presented in international conferences such as International Conference on Contemporary Marketing Issues.
Our Head of Department and Course Leader for BA Fashion Design, Beatrice Newman, is an entrepreneur and has launched her own brand, Korlekie, which specialises in unique made to order clothing that has been worn by the likes of Alesha Dixon, Rita Ora, Ellie Goulding and Tiwa Savage from Nigeria. Her specialist area of research surrounds building a sustainable fashion business with emphasis towards the development and preservation of craftsmanship using heritage hand craft and digital technology.

With a diverse student body that come to UEL from all over the world, students will be able to grow their network on campus whilst experiencing what London has to offer. Students will have the opportunity to work with clients and industry professionals as part of their MA/ MFA Fashion degree at UEL, allowing students to sharpen their skills in design and business, developing outcomes towards further research and innovative enterprises.
Beatrice Newman
Head of Department, Fashion
YOUR FUTURE CAREER
We're proud that our students go on to make their names as designers, design coordinators, pattern cutters, fashion technologists, product developers and retail managers.
As one of our graduates Lucy Johnson, who now owns streetwear label Brahboys, says of the course, "It was a fun and emotional experience that I'd recommend to anyone thinking of a career in fashion."
At Graduate Fashion Week 2016, one of our students, Antonia Nae, won the prestigious Lipsy Red Carpet Award for her sweeping black dress.
The quality of our students' work is held in such high regard that a group of our undergraduates were commissioned to create the costumes for a pivotal scene in the hit movie, Absolutely Fabulous.
UEL Fashion and Textiles area has strong links with industry that have been developed over the past 30 years and have worked with companies such as Erdem, Polo Ralph Lauren, Jenny Packham, The Collection, Asos, Marks and Spencer, Timothy Everest to name some. UEL fashion students are in high demand in industry for placement candidates as well as graduate employees due to their high level of skills and professionalism.
Explore the different career options you can pursue with this degree and see the median salaries of the sector on our Career Coach portal.