May 15, 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, Chauhan, who’s an educator on fashion’s creative front line, has her say.
“We strive for challenges and alternative approaches, as well as social design and innovation” – Sonal Chauhan
Sonal Chauhan, associate senior professor and discipline lead of Apparel Design, National Institute of Design, India
Sonal Chauhan has been at India’s National Institute of Design since 2009. In her own practice, she has focused on uniform design, craft-based skills and workshops encouraging slow consumption, slow fashion and co-design.
What is the aim of your course?
To provide inputs and a holistic approach towards the clothing and wearability needs. The programme aims to address the existing and emerging concerns of the textile and apparel industries, users, the environment and the planet.
How many students on average are in a cohort?
Each batch has about 15-20 students with diverse academic backgrounds based on their bachelor’s degrees.
While on the course, do your students develop an aesthetic, style or way of designing or thinking?
Critical thinking, the importance of peer review and co-design in consultation with the market, makers and end users are all emphasised. The students are encouraged to build their own design language, their style, aesthetics and innate approach, all besides following the typical design process.
What are the key challenges facing creative education?
The social media overdose, saturation of self-expression and peer pressure to look and act a certain way has left little space for creative and unique expressions and explorations. The learner wants clear, brief deliverables and prefers no ambiguity, which design is full of.
How do you equip your students for the rapidly changing world we live in today in terms of economic, climate and political uncertainty?
At our institute, we strive for challenges and alternative approaches, as well as social design and innovation. Our programme consciously incorporates live projects in the curriculum with industries, government and non-government organisations. There are courses like craft documentation or the study of traditional practice, which offer enriching and grounding experiences in the field for the students. The faculty often engage in consultancy projects through the institute, bringing new learning and experiences, and sharing in their classroom.
What are your hopes for your students as they graduate?
To be design thinkers and leaders making way for a holistic and mindful approach with the elements of creativity, innovation and social development at the centre of their practice.
Photography by Ronak Ranpura and production by Sonya Mazuryk. Taken from 10 Magazine Issue 76 – CREATIVITY, CHANGE, FREEDOM – out NOW. Order your copy here.
