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Key takeaways:
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Fashion schools are being forced to teach from home, leading to significant adaptations to course materials and assessments.
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Some have been able to expedite experiments in digital learning, reporting positive student feedback on some online elements.
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But not everything can be handled online, and educators are looking forward to getting back into the classroom and reviving the collaborative campus environment.
For students at Central Saint Martins (CSM) in London, the decision by the school to close its academic buildings on 23 March came at a fraught time. Easter break is typically characterised by frenzied preparation for the summer graduation shows. Due to forces well beyond the universities’ control, students are now reckoning with the fact that their three years of work may not get the amplification it usually does.
“It takes a while for people to digest that information,” says Hywel Davies, the programme director for BA Fashion at the college. The summer shows are postponed until further notice (they hope to do something later in the year), but Davies will lean on CSM’s extensive alumni network and media connections to make sure that the students’ work gets seen in some form. It is one of the many challenges that the world’s leading fashion schools are facing as they, like much of the wider industry, work out how to function remotely.
These schools — including CSM, the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), Polimoda and Istituto Marangoni — have had to make significant changes in a matter of weeks as the Covid-19 outbreak spread globally. Chief among the issues is that fashion instruction is so typically hands-on, with many of these institutions boasting small class sizes and access to top quality equipment as part of their offer to woo students. Failing to get it right has the potential to lead to student backlash, which is already happening to other creative colleges.
In some cases, institutions have rapidly accelerated planned developments, like rolling out online courses. In others, adaptation has boiled down to creative solutions for how students can complete their education during citywide lockdowns.
Expensive equipment, rendered inaccessible
Some aspects of a fashion programme just cannot be taught remotely. A majority of students are now deprived of the knitting machines, looms, weaves and other specialist equipment they would typically be learning and practicing on at campus. “If I am requiring you to use our knitting machines that we have, if I’m requiring you to learn how to weave, that’s going to be very difficult to do,” says Shawn Grain Carter, a professor at FIT in New York. “It’s not like students have a blowtorch in their own mini lab at home.”
FIT suspended classes between 16 and 22 March so faculty could adjust their syllabuses and work out what parts could feasibly be taught online. While Grain Carter says that instruction in practical skills will take considerably longer and may require, for example, sending videos back and forth to correct a student’s technique, she thinks that creative solutions are possible. “You can teach draping online. No, you will not have a mannequin to use to drape your clothes. But you might have another person that you’re at home with.”
Other schools around the world have taken differing approaches to the problem. Institut Français de la Mode (IFM) in Paris allowed all fashion and design students to take equipment like sewing machines and mannequins home with them, though some had already left the country by the time the decision was made. Professors will continue to offer remote coaching in these skills and are attempting to help students that did not manage to get the equipment required, such as by posting fabrics and materials to the students’ home addresses.
Polimoda in Florence explored taking a similar tack, but found it impractical. Instead, they are moving all of their courses online, but fashion design students will be allowed to use workshops in the Summer to make up for the time they missed. Istituto Marangoni’s colleges around the world were able to take lessons from its Chinese and Italian schools, which were the first to switch to online, on what courses work remotely and move their syllabus around to hopefully minimise the impact.
Central Saint Martins meanwhile are reducing the requirements to pass this year, with an emphasis placed on what the ideas are in a creative’s work rather than the execution. “It’s very clear that they’re not going to be marked on what they have access to. So it’s going to be completely fair,” says Davies, who notes that students have already submitted a considerable amount of work up until now upon which their final grade can be based.
What works remotely
Theoretical courses are considerably easier to operate digitally, with the schools making full use of educational or business conferencing platforms like Moodle, Blackboard and Zoom to offer lectures in subjects including fashion business and communication.
Danilo Venturi, director of Polimoda, says that this has sped up the move to increase the number of online tutorials, and that the school hopes to deliver 20 per cent of its courses via Blackboard in future academic years. He anticipates this will likely lead to better attendance over the year, particularly when students are approaching their exam period and may not want to travel into campus. It also allows schools to utilise lecturers and professors based abroad, without requiring them to fly in to teach.
Indeed, every single one of Istituto Marangoni’s colleges across the world has reported a slight increased attendance since they switched to online working, says Mevin Murden, director of education at their London school. “For some lessons, like software demonstrations, students are finding the online lessons are better than the actual face-to-face lessons and we might keep this in the future.”
Polimoda also held an online open day earlier in March, where potential attendees could hear from different course leaders about why they should come and study in Florence. Venturi says that the attendance was “massive” and that they are likely to use the format again in the future. IFM are also somewhat versed in digital education, having run an open online course last September that drew 10,000 subscribers. They announced last week that their second iteration will begin today, with the CEOs of Chanel, LVMH, Saint Laurent and Hermès all making contributions via video interview.
Others are more cautious about going too far in endorsing online education. Grain Carter says that it is difficult to know if students have digested the points of lessons when a lecturer is not physically there with them. She is confident that FIT’s teaching standards can be upheld remotely, but that it definitely is not the preference for the college. “We’re about total engagement in the classroom with small student class sizes to really customise the learning experience,” she says. Practical challenges still remain in this format, like ensuring that all students have internet access and necessary programmes, like Adobe Creative Suite.
Providing support
Further challenges are likely to arise as the year goes on in these newly minted virtual fashion schools. Faculty have to adjust their teaching methods and their personal routines, while students who are so used to bouncing ideas off their peer groups will in many cases have to get used to working in isolation.
The collaborative culture that exists in a university is something that Davies does not want to be a casualty of the Covid-19 epic. To that end, his team meets regularly via online conference calls to check in on what one another is doing. For students though, who may make use of the multidisciplinary nature of their school and seek help from fellow students on different courses, they may find that harder to carry out in a typical fashion.
“It’s a whole different set of challenges and hopefully opportunities, because it makes people have to reach wider in some ways,” he says. “They can’t actually physically do the shoot so what can they do digitally?”
As the end of the term nears, Davies says CSM will ask students to create a 90-second film showcasing the story of their collection as a partial substitution for the end-of-year event. Nevertheless, he thinks the creativity of the students will shine through however the work is showcased. “That’s what they do on a daily basis.”
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