Program type:
Major
Format:
On Campus
Est. time to complete:
3 years
Credit Hours:
60
Advance your career and prepare for a potential career in teaching.
UNT has the only M.F.A. program for Fashion Design in the region. This program prepares you to be an effective design educator, manager and professional in the field of fashion design. As a fashion design graduate student, you'll focus on creative fashion based on design principles, design research and sustainable fashion production while preparing for a career in the fashion design industry or fashion design education.
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Why Earn a Master's in Fashion Design?

In the fashion design concentration, you learn the pedagogy of teaching and conduct focused research and design within the academy that supports the burgeoning needs of the fashion design profession.

The program does not assist students who wish to build a portfolio or enhance their skills; its mission is to prepare graduates to be effective industry leaders or design educators, helping them to expand their ability to build and apply knowledge in the field of fashion design.

Marketable Skills
  • Collection and analysis of research data
  • Investigative research
  • Pedagogical practices
  • Oral and written communication
  • Technical design knowledge

Fashion Design Master's Highlights

Students learn from faculty members who have experience as fashion designers and researchers.
The four-story, 238,000-square-foot Art Building that opened in 2019 houses state-of-the-art fabrication labs and studios with an ample classroom for Fashion Design students.
Fashion Design students have access to the Texas Fashion Collection, which contains nearly 20,000 garments and accessories from the 19th and 20th centuries and is directed by a nationally recognized expert on fashion design and history.
UNT is an accredited institutional member of the National Association of Schools of Art and Design.
Ranked 10th in the nation for visual and performing arts programs by Hispanic Outlook on Education Magazine.
The College of Visual Arts and Design is considered one of the best and most comprehensive visual arts and design schools in the nation.

What Can You Do With a Fashion Design Master's?

Many M.F.A. graduates mention that the time commitment for the program is minimal when one considers the long-term benefits such as higher earnings, advancement opportunities, and better employment options.

Fashion industry employers range from top designers in well-established studios to retail outlets, supermarket clothing labels and manufacturing operations. Each one offers a range of employment opportunities in areas such as design work, creation, buying, marketing and public relations.

With an M.F.A. concentration in Fashion Design, graduates are prepared for advanced work as:

  • educators at the college- and university-levels
  • clothing designers
  • costume designers
  • apparel wholesaling
  • retail buyers
  • retail merchandisers
  • stylists
  • visual merchandisers
  • clothing & textile technologists
  • fashion event managers
  • fashion writers
  • self-employment

Our graduates work as Fashion Design educators in universities throughout the U.S., as independent design consultants and in design director positions including the following at JCPenney, Lane Bryant, C.I.D., Anchor Blue, Calvin Klein, and Nigel Curtiss.

Fashion Design Master's Courses You Could Take

Brand and Brand Experience (3 hrs)
Seminar-based course. Nature of brands and brand experiences are analyzed through a variety of economic, social and cultural lenses. Students are expected to comprehend and articulate, in writing and oral presentations, knowledge they gain regarding the essential nature of brands as they influence and are influenced by business and marketing trends, globalization, modern social psychology and cultural dynamics.
Design and Its Social Ramifications (3 hrs)
Seminar-based course. Design process, its artifacts and their agency are examined from a broad array of socio-cultural perspectives.
Parallels in Art, Culture and Fashion (3 hrs)
Concentrated overview of developments in 20th-century fashion and the relationships between movements in art, design and popular culture.
Fashion Design Studio (3 hrs)
For students qualified to develop professional competence in special areas of studio work.
Fashion Design Topics Seminar (3 hrs)
Research and study in selected topical areas of fashion design.
Processes and Methodology for Innovation (3 hrs)
Students explore and utilize a variety of processes and visual techniques that inform and guide ideation as a means to create a common language that allows them to communicate effectively across disciplinary backgrounds. The knowledge they gain from these experiences allows them to develop and actualize the kinds of visual solutions necessary for future programmatic and career-based success.

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College of Visual Arts and Design
Department of Design
940-565-3621
Chanjuan.Chen@unt.edu
Art Building, Room 247