As a fashion enthusiast, Istituto Marangoni is one of those erudite institutions everyone wants to be a part of. It is a renowned fashion school that was founded in 1935, hitting a milestone in 2015, it created 80 years of history, and success in training the top professionals of Fashion and Design. It currently educates 4,000 students per year from 107 countries at its schools, located in Milano (the School of Fashion and the School of Design), Firenze (School of Fashion & Art), Paris, London, Mumbai, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Miami, the international capitals of fashion, design, and luxury.
With a commitment to offering top-level fashion education, after 5 successful years of operation in India, Istituto is expanding its horizons by providing a new postgraduate course in Fashion & Textile Design Management to assist students to explore how modern creativity can be integrated with traditional craftsmanship using surface embellishment techniques.
The postgraduate programme in Fashion & Textile Design Management equips and prepares students with the creative skills and professionalism that the global fashion system demands. Considering the rapidly changing landscape of fashion, the dynamic 9-month long course cultivates design creativity, individual style, and personal vision of students through a series of project-based activities that reflect different aspects of the industry. Students learn design and making methodologies in traditional and digital textile design, as well as training in a variety of surface embellishments like as embroidery, beading, thread-work, and print. Consistent practise with workshop experience is incorporated into the course, as well as professional expertise provided by academic staff, researchers, and visiting designers with expertise in both local and international craftsmanship excellence. Given the course’s focus on surface design and embroidery, Istituto Marangoni Mumbai’s long term partner Rilievi Group, a leading company in handmade tailoring and embroidery for the haute couture industry, will offer students practical training.
Speaking about the addition of the course, Mr. Tarun Pandey, COO – Istituto Marangoni, Mumbai said, “India’s fashion industry is rooted in craftsmanship traditions such as embroidery and a wide variety of surface embellishments. These crafts have become an essential element in the development and production techniques of the most renowned ready-to-wear and haute-couture brands. Not only will any Indian fashion designer implement embroideries and other embellishments in their designs, but these are also becoming increasingly employable and attractive for designer opportunities abroad. International fashion houses are seeking creative professionals with the specific technical knowledge of these antique crafts, applied to contemporary creative thinking and aesthetics.”
Speaking on the collaboration with Istituto Marangoni Mumbai for their postgraduate programme in Fashion & Creative Surface Design, Mr. Paolo Marri, Executive Director – Rilievi India, Pvt., Ltd., says, “Rilievi and Istituto Marangoni have always had a common challenge – to marry India’s textile heritage with the ‘made in Italy mindset. Rilievi has collaborated directly with some of the most significant contemporary fashion designers, such as Gianni Versace, Giorgio Armani and Miuccia Prada, amongst others. Working with these revolutionary creative minds requires a great deal of technical knowledge, the ability to interpret the poetics of each designer, as well as the ability to go off the beaten track and bring innovation and creativity to the heart of the embellishment development process. It is this experience that we want to share with the students of the Fashion & Textile Design Management course – the ability to work conceptually and technically at the same time, because, as Richard Sennet says, to ‘make is to think’.”
At postgraduate level, participants will already have experience in fashion design, pattern cutting, garment making and portfolio creation in order to successfully meet the challenges of this course in conceptual research, design development and experimentation, collection realisation, marketing, networking, creative team leadership and personal branding. They are encouraged to work experimentally with the shape and construction of garments, with the use of renewable and sustainable resources, and to devise imaginative ways of working with materials and techniques, all while keeping an eye on the true Indian creative artisanship in fashion combined with internationally acclaimed Italian excellence in craftsmanship, design and style. To realise their full potential while gaining advanced fashion design skills, Istituto challenges their participants to develop their own innovative thinking about fashion, embroidery and surface design – what it is and what it can become. They are also allowed to explore their own unique identity as designers and explore their position within the fashion industry.
