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Intensive Fashion Design consists of three mini-courses. The eight-week format, with three to four instructors, and several weekly meetings for each mini-course, integrates the courses’ diverse objectives and encourages a special synergy. The goal is to equip the student with the variety of the real skills needed to produce professional work through hands-on experience.

A) Fashion Illustration: Beginning Figure Drawing Through the study of the human figure, the student is encouraged to develop a personal definition of fashion illustration. This introduction to the basics of fashion drawing serves to develop individual creative capabilities, to help students realize their expressive potential, and to enable them to illustrate actual clothing projects.
Topics covered include: human anatomy; proportional canons of limbs, trunk, and facial features; sexual/gender differentiations; bodily movement and positions (torso, head, limbs, hands and feet); graphic representation of clothing articles and accessories (bags, shoes, etc.) as applied to the human figure.

B) Fashion Illustration: Color Techniques Students are encouraged to develop their own personal style through the use of various color techniques (including charcoal, tempera, airbrush, mixed techniques), each of which will be closely examined. Classes combine demonstrations, student exercises, and work on ongoing projects. The student will acquire a range of skills, and on the theoretical level will be able to distinguish between fashion illustration as technical illustration of a product, and fashion illustration as a vehicle for artistic style. Topics covered include: Basic principles of color theory (color scales, tints and hues, complementary and contrasting colors); the depiction of fabric types; varieties of illustration and their applications (catalogues, advertisement, etc.). The themes illustrated include the projects of mini-course C.

C) Introduction to Collection Theory This course introduces the student to the profession of fashion designer. It provides the practical information and skills necessary develop individual creativity in the production of articles of clothing, and further to design a stylistically consistent collection. Many disciplines meet in this course: fashion history (in the search for inspiration in different ages, artistic and cultural movements, populations and cultures); fashion illustration (in the practice of drawing fashion collections); pattern design (in the practical production of articles of clothing by students); and the study of fabrics and prints.

Topics covered include: introduction to the profession; trade fairs for textiles and other raw materials, and fashion shows; basic collections criteria: sex, season, age, economic range, and geography; the choice of materials, of sources of reference, and of illustration types in the process of elaborating articles. Students produce two projects (with the possibility of a third): beachwear (sport and elegant), and sportswear. The course includes visits to two of the most important trade fairs of the season for menswear and textiles, Pitti Uomo and Pitti Filati, and to museums including the Costume Gallery of Palazzo Pitti and the Museo Ferragamo.
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Beginning with the study of the human figure and its proportions, the student will be encouraged to develop a personal definition of fashion illustration.

The student will begin with the basic woman's figure, the male figure and the child (various ages), then move on to the positions and eventually the clothing. Particular attention will be given to a possible industrial production of clothing proposed by the student.

This course aims to introduce the student to the basics of fashion drawing, to develop individual creative capabilities, to aid the student in finding the most congenial form of expression for his or her inclinations and to enable the student to illustrate practical projects of clothing.
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