Master's Program in Fashion Management
IED – Istituto Europeo di Design Barcelona
Key Information
Campus location
Barcelona, Spain
Languages
English
Study format
On-Campus
Duration
11 months
Pace
Full time
Tuition fees
EUR 24,700 *
Application deadline
Request info
Earliest start date
18 Jan 2025
* Enrolment fee 4.000€ + tuition fee 20.700€.
Introduction
The Master's Program in Fashion Management teaches experts all about innovation in the world of fashion including project management, strategy planning, and the basic principles of business management.
This course provides the theoretical and practical know-how to overcome today’s fashion market challenges and efficiently manage the full cycle – from the product’s conceptualization to the shelf and into the customer’s shopping bag. As well as talks, conferences, and workshops, the course includes two trips to cities around Europe such as Florence or Paris, ending with a final personal research project.
Fashion is a complex system and clothing is just a part of it. In this context, the role of a fashion manager is to identify the target’s needs and turn them into opportunities bearing in mind production, distribution, branding, marketing, communication, and service.
Coordinator
Teresa Buhigas
Degree in Business Administration with an MBA from the prestigious ESADE business school. Since 1990 she has been involved in strategic consulting projects for various areas of the fashion industry with private companies and public associations. Ms. Buhigas has been a member of the ESADE Marketing and Management Department education committee. Since 1998, as a founding member of FACTO Estrategia, she has continued to work with the professional sector as a strategic consultant, as well as cooperating with IED Barcelona on various educational projects.
Gallery
Ideal Students
The master recognizes and welcomes students from a range of backgrounds:
graduates in disciplines of business areas, commercial, marketing and communication, fashion design and mass distribution; or professionals in the field of business management, the retail or fashion industry in general, and theoretical fields, interested in implementing and leading innovative projects in the context of the fashion market.
IED Barcelona structures the program in a flexible way to attract students with different specialties and various backgrounds. This creates a multidisciplinary environment for the students during the course, to development of a complete vision through fashion management.
Admissions
Curriculum
At IED Barcelona Fashion Management is taught by a faculty body of practitioners from Fashion & Business, through the analysis of case studies and the execution of real industry projects commissioned either by multinational companies competing in the global economy, or local companies competing in the international markets. All the contents, methodologies, and tools are taught from the specificity of the fashion industry. This approach facilitates the training in decision-making, placing the students in a real context for innovation and experimentation.
To give a broad and complete preparation to develop their professional careers in the fashion market, students are trained in different and complementary fields. The complexity of managing a fashion business requires proper knowledge of diverse tools, and the ability to apply critical analysis to quickly react to a changing landscape.
Fashion Managers should manage the complete cycle of fashion, from product conceptualization until the product is set in the store and packed in a consumer’s shopping bag. The expertise in the fashion market is approached from the key disciplines involved in the fashion system. Experts in these fields will transmit to students their experience on fashion trends, the process of product design and production, branding, retail, and visual merchandising. The awareness of Fashion Culture complemented with Semiotics, Market Research and Trends will give proper awareness to understand the target.
Business skills are taught from the perspective of the fashion business. Marketing, sales, finances, distribution, and supply chain are tackled from the fashion business specificity, from the big company’s perspective, but also giving them tools to undertake start-up projects as entrepreneurs.
Following the learning-by-doing methodology, students are constantly developing projects in teams. The Fashion Management Master students are hosted in a dedicated classroom, a space that is transformed into an innovative design studio where students experiment with new tools and knowledge, with the guidance of the faculty. Small groups of students in the class facilitate the application of this hands-on methodology.
Leading managers need to have strong personal skills, to head projects involving heterogeneous teams of people. They should be capable of being the reference for the working team but also transmit confidence to senior positions and investors. Personal branding, people management, and creative leadership will be then integrated during the development of classes.
Fashion leaders must be able to communicate very clearly their concepts, either to the business staff or to the working team to achieve the desired results. Therefore the students are taught a very diverse set of tools, to train their skills to a level where they can communicate well.
To create synergies between future professionals, some transversal activities will be held for exchanging knowledge with students of different programs is part of IED philosophy.
Personal Research Project
The Personal Research Project is the single most important piece of written work that students undertake during their RSP Research Study Program. PRP is the culmination Master's and should demonstrate that the student has acquired skills, knowledge, and analytical capabilities.
The project is an original piece of research involving primary data collection that aims to undertake individual work that meets the requirements outlined in these guidelines to achieve a passing grade.
The objectives of the thesis process are the following:
- To identify a feasible project in the student’s area of study;
- To establish clearly defined objectives and/or questions to be investigated;
- To design and implement an appropriate (design research/process) methodology;
- To understand the adding value proposition (concept);
- To create a business development plan based on the previous concept;
- To create feasible and concrete design proposals;
- To demonstrate analytical skills and produce valid findings;
- To apply theory to practical reality;
- To draw appropriate conclusions and recommendations where necessary;
- To produce a well-organized and well-written final document and an effective oral presentation of the thesis.
Internship
After finishing classes and presenting the two real industries projects, students have the opportunity to implement and prove all the knowledge acquired and skills developed in a three-month internship.
In the same period, students are working on their PRP so that they can choose to focus their investigation on a personal project or to connect it with the internship.
Field Trips
To give students a wider understanding of the market state-of-the-art, 2 field trips are scheduled in the course curriculum, one to Milano and the other to Paris.
With the guidance of professors and coordination, students will explore different markets and professional contexts in Europe.
Field trips take students for 4 days to European Fashion Capitals to exchange knowledge in different environments. After these days devoted to academic activities, students have the opportunity to discover the city on their own.
Program Outcome
The yearlong intensive program aims to provide students with the necessary theoretical and practical knowledge tools and experience to become Fashion Management professionals.
- Enable Fashion Design, Marketing, Product, and Business Management professionals to overcome disciplinary boundaries to grow into key drivers of organizational success.
- Develop students’ understanding of the complete ecosystem behind the fashion business, to make them capable of facing the actual fashion market challenges, adding value to their previously acquired professional knowledge and skills.
- Help Fashion designers, communicators, managers & marketing professionals interested in Fashion, become Fashion managers, Fashion managers become fashion leaders, and Fashion leaders become organization leaders of the future.
- Develop into leaders capable of combining creativity, managerial skills, and entrepreneurial mindsets within the constraints of Fashion Business realities.
- Make future Fashion managers understand the power of developing strategies, creating brands, and delivering products and services successfully centered on the consumer.
- Provide students with Fashion and Business Management tools that will enable them to become powerful key contributors in the Value Creation Chain, within the corporate environment, or as independent professionals, who can adapt perfectly to the business environment through a deeper understanding of its reality and culture.
- Develop proficiency in using the tools provided. Students will be able to identify the appropriate use of these tools to balance academic and practical knowledge, efficiency in communication, and ability to evaluate necessary trade-offs when faced with real business challenges.
- Expand the students’ roles and capabilities in working with innovation teams.
- Encourage critical thinking to allow students to be active citizens of our global society.