March 26, 2026 |
There’s no shortage of creative talent spilling out of fashion studios around the world. Most of it comes from a handful of fashion schools whose professors and practitioners are responsible for hand-picking and nurturing the graduates who will help to shape an industry equipped for an increasingly uncertain future. It’s challenging. The professors we talked to for this feature – from Antwerp to Johannesburg – share similar concerns, such as fashion degrees not being sufficiently funded or taken seriously, despite the industry’s importance both culturally and economically. They worry about students losing the ability to touch, in a literal sense, having information overload and not having spaces to express their creativity after they graduate. And there is also the issue of finance.
A master’s in London costs between £30-40,000 per year once you factor in the fees, living costs and materials. That’s why the Royal College of Art introduced a one-year master’s course in 2023. Some academic institutions in Europe are more accessible. The University of Vienna, the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp and the Berlin University of Applied Sciences, aka HTW (Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft), are all free or you’ll pay minimal fees to attend, with extraordinary educators and practitioners at the helm. Imagine! At HTW, you could be taught by Professor Hussein Chalayan. At the University of Vienna, Prof Craig Green will be guiding you through your fashion design tutorials.
“My area of specialty is innovation, sustainability and cultural identity,” says Chalayan, who has been at HTW Berlin since 2019 teaching across its BA and MA courses. “Right now, there are great state universities in Europe,” he says. “Lots of students who don’t have money deserve a place but can’t afford to study. The best art, music and fashion never came from money.” In London, the course leader for MA Fashion at Central Saint Martins, Fabio Piras, says: “The struggle is part of artistic practice.” But he questions why the industry isn’t more supportive of the education of the talent it ultimately benefits from. CSM’s MA course currently has just five scholarships, down from 12 pre-Covid.
As an academic myself, responsible for the BA Fashion Communication Journalism pathway at Central Saint Martins, I can vouch for the fact that working in creative education is an education in itself. Despite the 16 years that Liliana Sanguino, of the Parsons School of Design, has spent at the forefront of fashion education, she is still learning. As a Colombian who has built a career in London and now New York, and who collaborates with Indigenous trans communities in Colombia, she says she needs “a definition of fashion that is wide enough to hold all these worlds. I encourage students to do the same: to question, to expand and to define fashion through their own perspective, culture and lived experience. Without that, creative education risks producing designers who can replicate existing systems but not imagine new ones.” Here, Chalayan, who’s an educator on fashion’s creative front line, has his say.
“Fashion is multi-faceted, multicultural, about thinking in a more fluid way. If students develop that, it will open doors for them” – Hussein Chalayan
Hussein Chalayan, professor of fashion design, Berlin University of Applied Sciences (HTW)
Hussein Chalayan is a British-Cypriot designer who graduated from CSM in 1993 with his collection The Tangent Flows. He received BFC Designer of the Year awards in 1999 and 2000, then an MBE in 2006. He has been creative director for Puma, TSE and Vionnet. His work spans art, dance and technology, and his short film Absent Presence represented Turkey at the Venice Biennale. He taught at the University of Applied Arts Vienna before becoming a tenured professor at HTW.
What is the aim of your course?
It has a very big technical emphasis as well as a creative one. We have amazing knitwear, pattern-cutting and lab facilities, which means there’s an emphasis on being able to realise your ideas. I was very interested in technology and ideas, but the clothes had to be beautifully made.
How many students on average are in a cohort?
Ten to 12 [doing fashion]. It varies. Three [on the master’s course] this year. They approach me, and then I have to decide if I’m the right person for them.
What are the qualities/skills you look for in your students?
Interviewing for the BA, I don’t look for skills yet, because they come to the course to develop that. I’m looking at a way of thinking and looking at the world. But then I have to see potential in developing skills. If I don’t see anything to do with the hand [like drawing, sewing and cutting], I can’t completely go for it. I have to see something.
While on the course, do your students develop an aesthetic, style or way of designing or thinking?
I always want there to be an innovative dimension. It’s important for me that they don’t become mini Hussein Chalayans – I don’t find that interesting – but that they’re strong in their own way. It’s about analysing the skills of the students and helping them within those parameters, rather than trying to completely shift them.
What are the key challenges facing creative education?
How do you equip your students for the rapidly changing world we live in? We live in worrying times, but life goes on and we have to be practical. A lot of companies have sustainability officers and are trying to use environmental fabrics. In some cases, there’s upcycling going on, but it’s difficult for the industry too, because even if you want to be sustainable, the system is not made for it yet. You’ve got to change the system. Get governments involved and make it part of early education. There’s a lot of groundwork to be done. There are so many ways to be sustainable, but the one that interests me the most is where creativity and sustainability are inseparable.
What are your hopes for your students as they graduate?
It’s about personal development and confidence. Fashion is multi-faceted, multicultural, about thinking in a more fluid way. If students develop that while studying, it will open doors for them. I find the idea of having your own brand old-fashioned. That model has changed since I was educated. I don’t think having a brand is the only way. It’s also about enjoying what you are doing, being open, trying different roles. If you’re not looking forward to going to work each day, you’ve made the wrong choice. I hope they find solace and happiness in what they’re doing. You’ve got to be humble and allow yourself to be noticed and move up that way. On social media, it can look like things happen overnight but realistically, you get there step by step.
Photography by Bastian Thiery and production by Sonya Mazuryk. Taken from 10 Magazine Issue 76 – CREATIVITY, CHANGE, FREEDOM – out NOW. Order your copy here.
