Textiles Design with Business Studies BA(Hons)

How this course is delivered

COVID-19 has changed everything. We’ve made some changes to the way our courses are taught to keep everyone safe and that will help you stay connected and involved in university life.

From the start of term in September, you’ll learn through a blend of on-campus and digitally enabled remote learning that will provide lots of opportunities to interact and engage. Together with carefully managed access to libraries, labs, workshops and studios this means your studies are as collaborative, practical and flexible as possible.

Year 1

Year 1 introduces you to the three disciplines of knit, print and weave for fashion. You will then specialise in one area to fully explore and develop your skills in media and materials, textile design, construction and fabric realisation for fashion.

Modules

• Market Research and Business in the Creative Industries

  This module introduces you to and equips you with a range of transferable skills, qualities and attitudes that will prepare you for professional career paths in the creative industries. Through investigation and critical reflection, you will have the opportunity to develop your knowledge and appreciation of the scale and scope of the creative industries and begin to locate yourself, your interests and your practice within a vocational context.

• Introduction to Visual Research

  This module is designed to introduce you to a wide range of observational, investigative and experimental approaches to drawing and colour theory and other methods of gathering and developing visual research.

  The module initiates an understanding of the value of visual research to help enrich your vocabulary of colour, shape, texture, composition and idea generation/development and enable you to successfully produce sketchbook work to support your textile design development work.

• Textiles Rotation

  This module provides you with an introduction to the differences between knit, print and weave as individual specialisms and their respective industries. Your critical investigation will inform your choice of pathway specialism. You will be expected to focus on the technical aspects of each textile specialism to experiment and investigate these processes. Using the technical knowledge within each specialist project and visual research you will produce three collections of designed textile samples, one for each rotation.

• Textiles Specialism

  This module enables you to gain a greater understanding of the potential of your chosen textile specialism. A series of projects will develop your creative and technical abilities, extending your skills to explore and develop methodologies in visual and textual research encouraging an experimental approach to design within your textile specialism.

  The module also introduces you to relevant digital software packages and establishes fundamental digital design communication skills essential for design development and presentation within your textiles specialism.

• Design and Culture Under Scrutiny

  This module introduces key debates relevant to the analysis of the past and present in fashion, textiles and fashion communication. Through lectures, seminars and exhibition visits, you will be introduced to, and engage with, critical ideas and academic approaches relevant to your field of study.

  The module is designed to support studio work through the development of critical thinking and formal written skills.

Making sure that what you learn with us is relevant, up to date and what employers are looking for is our priority, so courses are reviewed and enhanced on an ongoing basis. When you have applied to us, you’ll be told about any new developments through Student View.

 Chelsea, 2019 graduate, talks about studying Textiles at Brighton.

Year 2

In year 2, design projects look at different fashion textiles market sectors. The projects are diverse, include a live brief and will test your developing design skills. You will also build a body of design work and fabric samples to add to your portfolio.

You will also produce a professional portfolio of design work, an essay and prepare for your placement in business studies.

Modules

• Preparing for and Engaging with Business
• Technical Design, Process and Market Awareness
• Ethical Considerations in Relation to Industry
• Collaborative Experience and Portfolio Presentation
• Creative Collaboration in the Fashion Industry
• The Clothes and Fabrics of Society

Placement year 

You have the opportunity to spend your third year working in industry. The placement year in industry is academically assessed and your degree award will reflect your industry experience.  The placement is for a minimum of 20 weeks.

There is a compulsory professional practice module in the second year which will help you prepare for your placement. There's also a dedicated placement team to help you apply for a position. 

Students work for companies in the UK and overseas, particularly in Europe and the US, and there are opportunities to work for high profile designers and brands, trend and prediction agencies, textile design studios and fashion and textile manufacturers. 

It’s a great way to build on the skills you have developed on your course and to gain new ones

Final year

Modules

• Design Management and Business Plan
• Textiles Design Research
• Fashion Textiles Design Collection

Facilities

• Domestic, semi-industrial and industrial knitting machines
• Industrial linkers and embellishers
• Table looms, floor looms and 16-shaft power loom
• Screen printing and digital printing
• CAD CAM digital technology
• Dye lab
• Access to laser cutters
• Access to Mac suites
• Adobe Suite Photoshop, Illustrator, In Design and Premiere

Meet the team 

The teaching staff are all experienced fashion and textiles professionals and academics. Tutors and technical staff will build your skills and confidence as an artist and designer, while also ensuring your work considers realistic commercial potential.

Sarah Elwick, course leader

Sarah is a practising textile designer/maker specialising in knitwear. Her research interests focus on driving sustainable practises with the fashion and textiles industry, primarily focusing on new ways to use/reuse/recycle/repurpose/remake and manufacture using ‘waste’ textiles and yarn. This research feeds directly into her teaching with students, as she believes an understanding of these big issues are key for students looking to work within the industry, and will give them the know-how and the tools to find creative and modern solutions on a global and local scale.

Sarah graduated from Winchester School of Art in 2003 with a first class honours degree in Textile Design, and then went straight on to complete her masters at the RCA in 2005 with an MA in Menswear Knitwear. Since then she has worked in both commercial and high-end design studios as a freelance knitwear designer, including Michiko Koshino, River Island and Sid Bryan Knitwear consultancy. In 2010 she set up her own knitwear accessory label, focusing on working with small-scale specialist UK-based knitwear producers to allow her to produce a high-end and sustainable product, promoting British knitwear manufacturing.
  
She has taught knitwear design in HE institutions for 12 years, and is working at Brighton as a Senior Lecturer in Professional Practice for Fashion and Textiles, alongside her role as Course Leader for Textiles.

Other staff who teach on the course include: Dr Patrick Dyer, Phil Tyler, Leo Santos-Shaw, Dr Vikki Haffenden, Teresa Georgallis, Dr Caterina Radvan and
Charlotte Medin.

International requirements and visas

We can help you meet our English language or academic entry requirements.

Visas and immigration advice

Portfolio and interview advice 

Due to COVID-19, we expect interviews to be online and the processes may change slightly – check back here for updates. If you've already applied, we will tell you about any changes.

Portfolio


Applicants who meet the minimum entry requirements will be asked to submit a portfolio via a link to the work or pdf.

This portfolio should include 20 pages or images showing an informed awareness of textiles and fashion, a good understanding of drawing, composition, form, proportion and colour, as well as three to five pages that show an understanding of visual research and the design process.

In usual circumstances, when you come for interview in person, you will be asked to bring an edited portfolio to show your work. We would like to see:

• 15–20 drawings and ideas on A1 or A2 sheets, not mounted onto heavy card or in plastic sheets
• your ability to develop an idea from concept through a wide variety of drawing and artwork
• your potential to experiment and explore ideas and techniques through a variety of media
• examples of life drawing
• two working sketchbooks
• awareness of contemporary fashion and textiles
• consideration of colour, pattern and texture.

Course fees

If you choose to take the professional placement (sandwich) year offered on this course you will pay a reduced fee during this year. Our fee for the professional placement year is £1,290 for home students and £2,076 for international students. This fee may be subject to small increases, in line with inflation.

What's included

You may have to pay additional costs during your studies. The cost of optional activities is not included in your tuition fee and you will need to meet this cost in addition to your fees. A summary of the costs that you may be expected to pay, and what is included, whilst studying a course in the School of Art are listed here.

• For most courses you will need to budget for the cost of specialist materials, equipment and printing and are likely to spend between £50–£300 per year.
• Costs in your final year of study are very likely to be higher than in earlier years as you bring together your final body of work and portfolio, and you may need to budget between £200 and £1,000.
• For some courses you may also need to budget up to £100 for specialist personal protective clothing which, with care, will last for the whole of your course and beyond.
• For most courses you will have the opportunity to attend field trips and off-site visits, for example to galleries, exhibitions and studios both in the UK and overseas. These are optional and are not required to pass your course. The amount spent would be based on location and number of trips taken, and typically range between £100 and £700 across the duration of your course.
• You will have access to computers and necessary software at City campus and at other locations across the university. However, many students choose to buy their own hardware – usually a laptop, software and accessories. The amount spent will depend on your individual choices but this expenditure is not essential to pass any of our courses.
• Course books and a wide range of magazines and journals are available in the university libraries. You do not need to have your own copies, but if you wish to, you should budget up to £200 over your course to buy them.
• For courses in which there is an optional placement year, you will need to budget for living costs (rent, food, travel etc) in that city/country, as if you were on site at the university.

You can chat with our enquiries team through the Stay in touch panel at the end of this page if you require further information. Or check our finance pages for advice about funding and scholarships, as well as more information about fees and advice on international and island fee-paying status.

Info

The fees listed here are for full-time courses beginning in the academic year 2020–21.

Further tuition fees are payable for each subsequent year of study and are subject to an annual increase of no more than 5% or RPI (whichever is the greater). The annual increase for UK/EU students, who are subject to regulated fees, will increase no more than the statutory maximum fee.

You can find out more about our fees in the university's student contract and tuition fee policy (pdf).

The tuition fee you have to pay depends on a number of factors including the kind of course you take, and whether you study full-time or part-time. If you are studying part-time you will normally be charged on a pro rata basis depending on the number of modules you take.

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