Introduction to Fashion Design is a one-semester course intended to introduce you to the basics of fashion design. This course is designed to provide you insight on the history of fashion and its place in the modern world and to help you understand terms and concepts related to fashion. From the inspiration for a garment to creating sketches until the final product takes shape is a long process that involves various activities such as fashion forecasting, predicting consumer demand, drafting the designer’s worksheet, pricing, etc.

Students will be able to do the following:

• Evaluate the meaning of fashion, its key influences, and its place in the modern world.
• Analyze the key components of fashion: the elements of design and the principles of design.
• Compare the two basic fashion categories and identify common fashion lines.
• Evaluate the relevance and state the contributions of key fashion capitals around the world.
• Evaluate the history of fashion from the seventeenth century to the early nineteenth century.
• Evaluate fashion in the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
• Explore the growth of fashion in the United States in the mid-twentieth century.
• Evaluate fashion in the United States in the mid-twentieth century.
• Analyze the stages in a fashion life cycle and identify the key factors that influence it.
• Identify the different fashion life cycles.
• Evaluate how fashion is perceived and accepted by a consumer.
• Identify and evaluate the predominant factors that influence consumer demand.
• Analyze the process of fashion forecasting and list the sources that fashion forecasters use.
• Evaluate the preliminary steps for line and product development.
• Compare natural and man-made fibers and describe the process of textile production.
• Evaluate the process of garment development.
• Examine the steps in garment production, starting from a garment sample.