Fashion Industry: Buying and Management with Foundation Year BA (Hons)

Students will explore fashion history, design and contemporary culture (including cultural theory, music, and key art movements) from a social, political and economic perspective and interpret key factors that impact fashion forecasting and contemporary culture. Students will present their research in innovative written, digital, visual and verbal formats.

This module introduces students to the critical path management of own brand or independent merchandise. Students will explore steps taken to measure the quality process of a fashion product with a key understanding of communication with the supply chain. They will learn about the ethical and code of responsibility for fashion product management. With strong analysis of target consumers’ attitude for fashion, students will understand how informed decisions are made for future ranges about colour, shape, style, ratios tops to bottoms.

Customer loyalty, the customer/user experience and customer insight are the core of achieving optimum satisfaction and retention. This module gives students an understanding of the contemporary fashion customer’s complex needs and wants, their behaviour as consumers and how this sets their expectations. They will learn how to gain the insight required to understand those needs and map the journey to ultimately improve their experience.

In this module, students will learn about the role of marketing for fashion brands and the key theoretical concepts that underpin the activities of the fashion marketer. They will explore the fashion marketing environment, fashion customer behaviour in the digital age, market research and the strategic marketing planning process. This will include the marketing mix and a tactical planning framework to aid marketing effectiveness.

The module aims to develop work-related knowledge, skills and capabilities necessary to complete an internship and to pursue further work opportunities in fields relating to students’ degree programme. The short internship allows students to put into practice, in a professional environment, the skills and knowledge gained through the first two years of their study. They may opt for a mentored industry project instead of an internship.

This module will introduce students to the personal and professional development of their career choices in the fashion industry. By understanding the different requirements and task of job descriptions, students will look to decipher the terminology and develop confidence in applying for appropriate positions for the preparation for internships in semester two.

This module aims to help students develop the ability to perform strategic creative business research by learning to be critical about other researchers’ as well as one’s own work. From there, one will be able to identify a research “gap” and determine the next steps to be taken, which then leads towards a more specific research plan. More than ever, it is essential to then be able to effectively communicate these research outcomes to the research community and the larger community to ensure the appropriate impact.

Upon completion of this module, students will be able to develop a personal career plan and design innovative solutions for a professional portfolio presentation and communication. They will be able to engage effectively with the fashion industry and to develop concise and coherent promotional approaches. Students will also be able to critically and reflectively evaluate their own practice and provide evidence, validity and significance to support conclusions. The module culminates in digital portfolio where students will present their best practice from 3 years of undergraduate study.

MNP is the culmination of the undergraduate experience at UWL. The module provides an exciting opportunity to put classroom learning into practice and allows students to make a lasting contribution to their field of study. Students will work with an assigned supervisor on an individual industry project or dissertation on a topic of their choice.