University of Fashion - Online Fashion Design School

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Learn fashion design online from professionals

• The first and largest online fashion design and business video library in the world
• Lesson taught by fashion college professors & industry professionals
• Subscribe and enjoy unlimited access to over 500 video lessons teaching all facets of fashion design
• Visit the University of Fashion website at UniversityofFashion.com to browse through previews available for all lessons, and see the many special features on the site

How it Works

We work by subscription. When you subscribe to the University of Fashion, you get immediate on-demand access to all of our 500+ lessons in 13 different fashion disciplines. You can watch them anytime, from anywhere. Most schools charge a separate tuition fee per course. These fees can add up to several thousand dollars before you graduate. In addition, you need to physically travel to the school's classrooms over the course of several years to learn what you need to know. But, with the University of Fashion, for only USD$189, you can enjoy a full year's access to all our courses (over 500) and be able to learn fashion design from any location as quickly or as slowly as you want.

Professionally Produced Lessons

The University of Fashion’s library contains hundreds of lessons demonstrating every facet of fashion business and fashion design, e.g. draping, pattern making, fashion art, product development, CAD, sewing, fashion business, knits, lectures and much more. Our lessons are organized by Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced to both educate beginning fashion students as well as experienced, professional fashion designers and home sewers looking to expand their skills.

Taught by Professionals, Never Amateurs

Our lessons are taught exclusively by fashion college professors and fashion industry professionals.

Easy-to-Follow Lessons

Our video lessons explain how to do everything yourself, step-by-step. Some of our videos are short, e.g. 10 minutes or so. But, others run for an hour and a half. Most of our lessons run an average of 30-40 minutes.

Ask Us Anything

If you have questions while watching our lessons or if you come upon a problem while working on one of our projects, just write us! Our website provides a simple Contact form. We almost always answer our students questions within 24 hours, even on weekends.

Tools and Supplies

All of our our lessons come with a list of the supplies and tools you’ll need to create that lesson’s featured project. If you're unfamiliar with a required tool or don’t have some or all of the supplies you’ll need, we have a Fashion Design Tools page that explains what every tool looks like and does, and that provides various ways to buy what you need.

Clearly Visible Demonstrations

Our lessons are professionally produced in a large, well-lit studio using professional videographers and sound technicians operating a high-quality camera, lighting and recording equipment. All of our lessons are taught from the designer’s perspective, i.e. looking down at your work as you would when creating something, yourself. This is a much better way to learn than watching a demonstration in front of you, where you can only see what the teacher is doing from a backward or “flipped” perspective.

Closed Captions and Transcripts

All our step-by-step lessons include a full transcript so that you can read exactly what the instructor said in the lesson. All our videos also include optional closed captions to make them more understandable.

Excellent Audio Quality

All of our lessons are produced with a separate voiceover track timed to exactly correspond to a teacher's actions on-screen. You can always hear and understand every single step in a University of Fashion lesson. No long, boring pauses. No mistakes. No do-overs.

Many Useful Fashion Resources

Many of our lessons come with helpful, downloadable files to help you better understand key concepts, make tricky measurement calculations or customize your project for different sized models.

Many of our Subscribers are Currently Enrolled at a Fashion School

We are a big supporter of fashion schools. If you’ve ever missed a key class, then you know it’s nearly impossible to reconstruct that demonstration, even when you borrow a friend's notes. Written words simply can’t describe all the complex physical motions used by an instructor while making a garment. But, the University of Fashion can really help you here! Chances are, we have a lesson that comes pretty close to showing exactly what your professor demonstrated in class.

Our subscribers love the ability to re-play our lessons over and over again, watching what the instructor does and doing then doing those same steps, themselves, using their own fabrics and tools. Our serious students repeat doing what the instructor did in one of our lessons several times until they truly master the skill being taught. This can be the difference between getting an A or a C when the term ends. Many thousands of students from the best fashion schools in the world have viewed our lessons to supplement their formal fashion education and to help them ace their homework and special projects.

Certificates and Degrees

We don’t award certificates or formal degrees. Many of our students are already working or attending a fashion school, full-time. Many of our students subscribe to the University of Fashion so that they can later work for themselves in their own design business. Other University of Fashion students live too far away from a good fashion school to be able to attend it, or have children to take care of and can only learn fashion at night or over the weekend, or just can't afford the cost of going to a regular school. We give these students a much more affordable, flexible way to learn fashion design. Yet, our subscribers can still use our training to get work from traditional emploters. University of Fashion students demonstrate their competency to employers by showing employers the scores of garments they've made by themselves using our lessons. That's a much better proof of competency than a piece of parchment.

Summary of Benefits

• Enjoy unlimited access to a library containing many of hundreds of fashion design video lessons, all taught by professional fashion designers
• Learn any time of day or night, on computers, smartphones or tablets, in any location
• Can further reinforce your learning by reading our full written lesson transcripts
• Get answers to your questions, fast. We have a staff of experienced fashion designers ready to answer your questions and solve your problems.
• Get a list of the tools & supplies required for each lesson and, for many, an easy way to purchase them
• Create visible proof of your newfound skills to show to prospective employers and fashion colleges
• Enjoy numerous fashion lectures, designer interviews, company and museum tours and more with your subscription.
• Take advantage of our many resources for free with your subscription, e.g. use our fashion terminology dictionary, browse our recommended books, magazines, and blogs and download free croquis

Cost

Our yearly subscription costs only US$189 per year. We also offer a recurring monthly subscription rate of US$19.95 per month. In return, you'll get unlimited, on-demand access to all of our resources and video lessons. Everything! Look around on the web. Most other online fashion courses cost many hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars for just one class! You'll never find a better value that the University of Fashion.

Our History

The University of Fashion was founded and developed by Francesca Sterlacci. Francesca graduated from the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in New York. She founded Francesca Sterlacci Ltd, a high-end designer label in New York that sold to Saks, Nordstroms and many other luxury outlets around the world. She then started teaching at FIT and eventually rose to become their chair of fashion design. Francesca has written many writing books on fashion, notably "Fashion Leather Design", "Historical Dictionary of the Fashion Industry", and in 2019, a 3-book series: "Sewing Techniques for Beginners", "Pattern Making Techniques for Beginners" and "Draping Techniques for Beginners".

Click here to learn more about subscribing to the University of Fashion