Introduction

History

Established in 1961, the Department of Fashion Design is the first higher education institution in Taiwan has a fashion design program for the purpose of cultivating professional skills with humanistic qualities and fashion design abilities. Through developing and adapting the quality of education, the department has built a unique, experimental and creative teaching system in order to achieve the aim of establish the relationship between design academic and fashion industry. To advance the national education level of fashion design, we established the Institute of Fashion Design in 1999 and began to provide an on-the-job graduate program in fashion design. In 2004, in line with the guidelines of the national integrated development of the “Cultural and Creative industry”, the institute was renamed as the “Institute of Fashion and Communications Design” with the hope of integrating the concepts of fashion and communications design and setting up a knowledge exchange and learning platform across disciplines in fashion, communications, product design, architecture and marketing.

Later in 2011, was reorganized into the “Master’s Program in Fashion Design” and the “On-the-job Graduate Program”.

With a focus on creation and design, SCFD aims to cultivate the student‘s ability to explore and design with independent thinking whilst developing professional fashion design skills. Combining theoretical learning with important practical skills and design development, they aim to widen the students horizons by giving them broad knowledge of the many fashion disciplines.

In 2013, SCFD started the practical platform “PRAXES” combining a regular curriculum with links to the fashion industry. The program provides students with real world experience in practical design, production and marketing whilst learning how to bring a concept to market in a realistic way. The program provides with the students more design thinking and industrial practical design ability which learn the know how of transforming concepts into products with marketing potential as well as growing into mess production and promote the designs into international fashion market and by creating the platform, the department also incubates professionals from the program for the students to connect with the industry. The concept of the platform aimed to build an international MIT creative label and through the program , the students can extend their career views in the future, so the motto of the aim is to achieve “incubate professionals, practical design, marketing PRAXES”. Concentrating on fashion design, we offer advanced research and practical courses and promote cross-disciplinary studies on both theory and practice in order to nurture diverse professional skills for the fashion industry in Taiwan, thus increasing our competitiveness in both the domestic and international markets.

Program Structure

Based on a concept of integrating the fashion profession and cross-disciplinary design, the programs of this department incorporate cultural and creative industry into research and development; meanwhile, through empirical studies, theoretical inferences, verifications and exhibitions, we reinforce the students’ abilities to think, create, manage and execute. Further, to expand teachers and students’ international vision and build up an international academic exchange platform for design, we have been dedicated to planning international design workshops. Over the last ten years we have been offering intensive summer programs with the renowned Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London, UK. In the recent years, we also collaborated with DOMUS in Milan and IED in Florance, Italy, and IFM in Paris, France. in intensive summer programs. Since 2005, the international design workshops have been included in our official curriculum. Foreign professors are invited to teach in these intensive programs and lead students to work on cross-disciplinary and cross-field projects. The final results are published for comparative learning of diverse professional cultures and cooperative techniques and spirit so that the teaching and learning, the research of design and creation as well as the international vision can be expanded.

Faculty

The department is composed of full-time and part-time faculty members with abundant practical experience in fashion design. Taking teaching practicality, professional variety and cross-field integrative ability into consideration, our teachers from various fields instruct students on design practice, artistic creation, theory, management, and cultural creative industry. Thus they may be exposed to every design practice, and develop integrative professional skills with macro vision and executive abilities. Presently, we have a total of 19 full-time faculty members including 2 professors, 5 associate professors, 9 assistant professors,3 lecturers and more than 40 part-time faculty members. For the faculty of the graduate institute, we have invited professionals from various fields as well as members of the social elite such as Michael Nils Kampe asHugo Boss Head of creative management,Professors Kirsten Marie Raahauge and Ann Merete Ohrt from The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Schools of Design, Architecture and Conservation in Copenhagen, Professor Serena Lindeman from Millinery & Design Tutor Kangan Institute, Embroidery & Professor Élisabeth Roulleau from Esmod Lyon et Paris, Application Engineering Manager Paul Arthur Gough) from U-BLOX Unique Capture and Process GPS Technology, Professor Leigh Bagley from The Glasgow School of Art Fashion and Textiles Department, Founder Harm Rensink & Niek Pulles from Studio Harm Rensink Dutch, the

Chief Pattern Maker Kanamori Akira of Issey Miyake Japan, Former Chief Designer Dai Fujiwara of Issey Miyake Japan, Hiroko Koshino the well-known international fashion designer, Morinaga Kunihiko the well-known international fashion designer, Professor Babazono Shoji from Bunka Fashion Graduate University, Professor Kao Toshiko from Bunka Fashion Graduate University.

Vision

In response to the keen competition in the international fashion design industy our department focuses not only on training students to think, create and execute in the field of professional fashion design, but also on integrating contemporary cross- disciplinary knowledge, and thus preparing` students for top positions in design, creation and management in the fashion design industry. Meanwhile, we actively present our research results in domestic and international periodicals, forums, exhibitions and contests and exchange with domestic and international academic institutes in the hope of expanding research results and enhancing students’ international vision and competitiveness.

Development of Alumni

This department aims to cultivate skills combining theory and creative ability that meet the fashion industry’s needs and professionals demonstrating humanistic qualities, cross-field thinking and international vision. Our alumni are locally and internationally placed throughout diverse fields in cultural and creative industries such as fashion design, production, manufacturing, corporate planning, operations and management, education, and so forth.

International Exchange

Our Department has frequent contact with many overseas schools. Apart from being sister schools with the Bunka Gakuen University in Japan, the Kwantlen Polytechnic University in Canada, the RMIT University in Australia and the Northumbria University in the UK, we also have an active student exchange program. Moreover, we invite top international designers as visiting professors, host international design workshops, summer courses, (e.g. the Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design,UK; the Royal College of Arts, UK; Hochschule Pforzheim University, London college of fashion, Fashion Institute of Technology, Parsons School of Design,Institut Français de la Mode , Mod’Art Paris , Bunka Fashion Graduate University…) as well as take part in the international competitions and performances. Students are encouraged to network with the international design communities to broaden their horizons and vision. Creativity and diversity is particularly emphasized to improve the students’ standard of work and international competitiveness.

For entrance examinations and registration, please refer to the school recruitment information and the prospectus at http://recruit.usc.edu.tw/