Content

• Students design a fashion collection based on their own fashion concept.
• Students strengthen their skills in creative fashion collection design through their personal design processes and workshops. They design and execute conceptual presentation material for the concept and collection.
• Students adopt the professional goals of a designer and improve their project management and teamwork skills within a scheduled project.
• An excursion to Premier Vision Fair in Paris is essential and highly recommended as a part of the course.
• After this course, students can continue to the Fashion Collection Project to realize their collection.

Learning Outcomes

Students learn to deepen their skills in creating fashion concepts and collections, developing their personal creative vision and critical thinking. They are familiar with the different aspects and methods of concept design and understand what makes a strong and sustainable fashion concept. Students deepen their creative and professional skills in fashion collection design. Students learn to manage the different phases of a collection design process with an account for professional working methods as well as industrial production procedures.

Students understand the design development process for different types of fashion collections, the different target groups, importance of branding and the meaning of the conceptual  promotional material.

Students are able to work in professional teams, according scheduled project plan.

Creating working interactive prototypes, through identifying situations suitable for concepts. Design process and prototyping using algorithm generation tools and electronics.

Learning Outcomes

Wearable Technology and eTextiles gives the students an understanding of how to approach prototyping in the eTextiles and wearables. It emphasizes the interactive qualities specifically in textile materials and aims to develop skills in identifying problems and their causes in eTextiles and wearables. Students learn how to build eTextile and wearable prototypes with electronic functionality and how to evaluate and explore the problems related to the building process. Students have a basic understanding of algorithm generation and electronics. After the course, the student is capable of creating simple prototypes on their own.

Long running master level student project Pattern Lab lead by adjunct professor Maarit Salolainen presented their surface design collection at the world’s biggest interior textile fair, Heimtextil in Frankfurt, Germany 12.1.-15.1.2016. Some of the student’s outstanding work has also been chosen to the Heimtextil Theme Park, the fair’s influential trend exhibition.

Source: Aalto News

Aalto University collaborates with H&M and sends three students to Stockholm.

One of this autumn’s projects culminated in three textile and fashion design students being selected for internship at H&M’s design office.

Textile design students were invited to join a project this autumn that challenged them to design textile collections with six different suggestions surface designs for a H&M customer group of their choice, for the 2016 autumn/winter collection.

Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture textile design students Miisa Lehto, Sandra Wirtanen and Terhi Laine were awarded with H&M gift cards and internship periods in Stockholm at the end of the project. The three winners’ collections were well executed concepts that showed  exemplary understanding of textile techniques, creative use of colour and patterns and great customer focus. According to the fashion house’s representatives, all participating students showed a high degree of skill in their work.

The goal is to find talented surface designers

H&M provided the students with guidance during the project to help them create a successful commercial collection. There were 18 participating students in the project, of whom in addition to the three winners, nine further students were selected for three-month paid internship periods at the company.

“The project’s goal was to build a deeper relationship with Aalto University. H&M wants to use collaboration to support upcoming young textile design students as well as to ensure the quality of the H&M prints and surface designs in the future,” says H&M representative Maria Olofsgård.

“It’s important for us to find talented surface designers, because we create the designs for our collection in-house,” says Olofsgård and continues: “We thank Aalto University for carrying out this project together with us this autumn, it has been such a great experience. We are very impressed by the high quality of the Aalto students’ work and their enthusiastic engagement and hard work, as we know they also had other assignments in addition to this. They are all very talented and the general level of quality is of high international standard.”

“The project gave students a unique opportunity to learn the basics of commercial surface design and collection design from leading professionals in the field,” says Maarit Salolainen, Aalto University’s professor for textile design, who was in charge of the project.

H&M has collaborated with Aalto University for a few years now within the scope of the Design Award project, and many Aalto alumnis have been recruited by the company. The H&M fashion house has engaged in similar collaborative projects with other leading design schools in Europe, Asia and the USA, such as a denim workwear project with London’s Central Saint Martins and a children’s clothing project with Polimoda in Florence.

Source: Aalto News

PHOTO CREDITS: EEva suorlahti

Learn new opportunities to use textile materials and techniques.

Content

Students explore traditional and/or experimental methods and manufacturing processes of textile materials and use them as a starting point for their individual projects. The approach is experimental and practice-led and based on literature and own research. Some techniques experimented during the course are experimental embroidery, 3D-printing and laser cutting. Elective basic textile courses and the experimental ADDlab workshop can be integrated to this module according to the personal study plan. The student applies to the Basic printing, Basic Knitting or Woven Fabrics — material and structure — courses separately and the credits are integrated to Experimental Textile Design.

“It’s Alive” by Outi Mustonen

Learning Outcomes

Students are familiar with traditional, new and experimental textile materials and production methods. They understand how to use textile materials and techniques as a form of expression. Students learn how to manage creative processes resulting in innovative products and collections. Students recognize the new opportunities in the field of textiles related to neighboring disciplines. Students without knowledge of textile techniques learn the basics of knitted, printed and/or woven textiles in basic courses integrated to this module.

Project by Suzanne Oude Hengel

PROJECT by Maija Jarviniemi

Learn skills and strategies within the fashion communication and study basics e.g. in fashion journalism and fashion photography for different audiences, media and markets.

Learning Outcomes

Student understand the role of international fashion communication and challenges of visual communication in fashion business, fashion journalism and media. Knowledge and improved skills in writing, visual communication and digital media.

Photo credit: Mikko Raskinen

Organised on May 21st 2015, Designing Soul Event showcased recent colour and material design explorations and masterpieces by Aalto’s Design students and celebrates the new focus in Colours and Materials at the Department of Design in Aalto University’s School of Arts, Design and Architecture.