Program Overview

BA (Hons) Fashion Marketing with Foundation

Overview

The BA (Hons) Fashion Marketing with Foundation is a four-year program designed to introduce students to the structure of the fashion industry and teach them how marketing teams build strategies to ensure a seamless transition from concept to customer. The program focuses on creative ways to tell stories, keep track of trends, monitor brand reputations, influence customers, and generate sales.

Foundation Year

The Foundation year provides a solid grounding in academic skills and principles, as well as an introduction to the chosen subject area. Modules include:

• The Creative Designer: Introduces the design cycle, exploring concepts such as idea generation, research principles, and production practices.
• Writing for Success at University: Develops writing skills and knowledge to prepare students for success at university.
• Critical Thinking: Improves critical thinking and reflecting skills, teaching students to evaluate information, investigate what is true, and determine strong arguments from weak.
• Cultural Understanding: Studies a range of cultural industries, tracing how ideas develop from inception to materialization and explaining the values that underpin cultural output.
• Politics, Society and Citizenship: Introduces the basic principles of politics, society, and citizenship, exploring how political engagement works within and across societies.
• The Creative in Context: Develops understanding of the scale and breadth of contemporary forms and practices within the broader design environment.
• Communications: Enables students to improve their own communication and evaluate the way communication works to convey ideas.
• Creativity and Entrepreneurship: Critically evaluates how creativity contributes to successful entrepreneurship practice, covering topics such as innovative organizations, entrepreneurial creativity, and decision-making.
• Cultural Industries: Studies a range of cultural industries, whether contemporary or historical, local or global, to explain the values that underpin cultural output.
• Making Use of Data: Provides a conceptual appreciation of the nature of data and its use in enhancing daily working processes, including data analysis and visualization.

Year 1

• Fashion Marketing Principles and Practice: Introduces the principles of fashion marketing, including the marketing planning process, external and internal marketing environment, segmentation, targeting, positioning, and the marketing mix.
• Fashion Images: Explores how images are used as a means of communication in fashion and how the fashion industry promotes its products.
• Fashion Society and Culture: Introduces fundamental developments in European fashion from the 18th Century to contemporary times, building skills in evaluation and critical analysis.
• The Fashion Consumer and Trends: Studies the fashion consumer and trends in consumer markets and products, analyzing consumer motivations and the trends that influence fashion.
• Exploring Industry and Entrepreneurship: Provides an introduction to the changes being experienced in the world of work and the scope of real-world professional activities in relation to the course.
• Learning Perspectives: Encourages students to become collaborative, critical, and reflective learners, examining core questions about how and why we learn.

Year 2

• Fashion Marketing Communications: Studies the planning and strategy development process in relation to fashion marketing, promotion, and communication.
• Innovation in the Fashion Environment: Extends knowledge and skills of fashion marketing and promotion, focusing on the challenges of the contemporary retail environment.
• Fashion Branding: Explores contemporary fashion brands and examines strategies used to create strong brand equity, developing understanding of the brand building and brand management process.
• Entrepreneurial Challenge: Develops entrepreneurial thinking about how to grow one's own or others' entrepreneurial ideas, exploring enterprise opportunities and creating an entrepreneurial plan.
• Placement: Provides the opportunity to experience industry and entrepreneurship in an external organization, applying knowledge and skills to real-life challenges.
• Industry Challenge: Experiences the challenge and pace of the world of work through a real-world or live project, chosen from a menu of industry scenarios.

Year 3

• Fashion Futures: Challenges established norms and ways of working, exploring ethical, environmental, and commercial dilemmas facing the fashion industry currently and in the future.
• Professional Practice and Portfolio: Helps students consider their future, plan, and prepare to achieve their goals, analyzing skills, strengths, and interests.
• Major Project I and II: The culmination of studies, where students design a self-directed project that reflects their interests and career aspirations, applying discipline-specific and interdisciplinary learning.

Careers

Graduates work in renowned brands in a range of roles, including buyers, digital marketers/PRs, stylists, trend forecasters, virtual merchandisers, and brand managers. The program also prepares students to launch their own start-ups, expand family businesses, or deepen their knowledge through further study.

Fees

• Tuition fee: £23,000 per year (fixed for the duration of the course for September 2025 or January 2026 start)
• Non-refundable advance deposit: £1,000 for UK students, £4,000 for non-UK students (September 2025 or January 2026 start)

Entry Requirements

• Academic requirements: Foundation entry requires 5 GCSEs at grade A-C or equivalent, while Year 1 entry requires two GCE A-levels at grade A-C or equivalent.
• English language requirements: Minimum English proficiency requirement through one of the recognized qualifications, such as IELTS Academic with 6.0 overall and 5.5 in each component.