Why study for a master’s degree in such a hands-on industry as fashion and textiles? It may very well give you that added edge, as Ragtrader discovers.
The reputation of Australia’s technological universities seems to have a wide reach if the student mix in two of our master’s degree courses are anything to go by. Both the Master of Fashion and Textiles degree at RMIT in Melbourne and the Master of Design at UTS in Sydney have a very strong international complement, attracting graduate students from around the world as well as local students eager to increase their knowledge.
Some are from a design background who want to learn more about fashion management, some are in management but want to explore their creative potential. Either way, masters’ degrees are becoming increasingly prevalent and attractive, particularly for those who want to work in the fashion business on a global scale.
RMIT is in the second year of its master's degree, which was established in 2008 due to a perceived need for higher education in fashion and textiles, not just Australia-wide but globally. Program director Dr Olga Troynikov says her course focuses on the business aspect of the fashion industry, drawing candidates from India, Mexico, the US and Germany as well as local students.
“These are people who have an undergraduate education but they want to broaden their horizons. I have one student who works for a very well-known brand, but she is an accountant. She has been working there for years but came to me and said she didn’t want to be an accountant any more. There are others who have come from design and who know all the design techniques but now want to move into the business side of fashion. They are very determined and they know what they want to do.”
George Verghese, the associate head of the School of Design at UTS, says his course also concentrates on the business of fashion but is currently under review to assess whether a more creative, studio-based course is required.
The UTS course is unusual in that it is multi-disciplinary – fashion design students mix with others from the school’s visual communications, interior design and industrial design programs. His students, like Troynikov’s, are those interested not only in deepening their understanding of their chosen field but in changing their career direction.
“Some of them are at a point of changing their career,” he says. “We have students who are architects who are moving towards branding, or textile designers moving towards product management. There are different ways of finding a niche.”
For Verghese, one of the main attractions of a postgraduate degree is the edge it gives to students in a highly competitive field.
“I think it gives you an edge when you are sitting in an interview panel and you have a master’s. It shows that you have gone beyond your base degree and you have explored your subject at a deeper level. What industry needs is a point of difference and they’ll have someone who may be able to leverage that point of difference because they will be able to look deeper and wider and have the research skills to support it.”
Industry focus
What both courses have in common is very strong links to industry. RMIT masters’ students complete advanced, real-life case studies of management and organisational change with a series of industry partners, including fashion retailers, manufacturers and wholesalers.
The last semester of the three-semester course is dedicated to a major project, with students concentrating on their particular industry and working on-site with industry partners such as Charles Parsons, Review, LM Australia, Bellview Hosiery, Country Road, Fields Knitwear, Textor Textiles Technology and Anthea Crawford.
“We supervise [the students] but they do work on-site,” Troynikov says. “If they need to do market research or look at the competitor’s brand or they need to find statistics, they’ll do it in the field.”
UTS students also work closely with industry and complete a major project in their area of interest, Verghese says. One of his students is focusing on the issue of sustainability in fashion; another is looking at sustainability and textiles.
“Another is doing the whole concept of presentation and catwalks and alternative ways of presenting work,” he says. “She is doing a capstone project at the moment with Professor Marie O’Mahony, who is an advanced textiles expert.”
Verghese says that besides the point of difference a master’s offers, it is also becoming a requirement at the higher end of the global fashion and textiles industry. “I know that in North America the entry level into some disciplines is a master’s,” he says. “You need to have one to get anywhere in the industry.”
Both RMIT and UTS call on a band of current practitioners to lecture the students on the intricacies of the industry as well as regular academic staff. “[The guest lecturers] are industry people who have years of industry experience and are still practising,” Troynikov says. “That is the philosophy of the program – we employ hands-on, experienced people who know what are the problems in the industry and who know what skills are required.”