Course units
Year one
Introduction to Design for Performance aims to introduce you to your course and its subject specialism as well as to effective learning and studentship at undergraduate level. It will orientate you to the practices and knowledge-base needed to understand your discipline and help you to develop your skills for independent & collaborative learning, reflection and your own self development. Students come from many diverse educational backgrounds and a part of this unit will enable to reflect on your own background and how that shapes the way you approach your course.
This Unit has three core purposes:
- to introduce you to your discipline in the context of study at a Higher Education level
- to introduce you to learning skills and the requirements of effective studentship at undergraduate level
- to orientate you within your course, the College and the University
Emphasis is placed on the skills needed to locate, navigate and communicate information and ideas effectively and appropriately. You will be introduced to resources that support your studies. We will also discuss studentship, the importance of being an engaged and participatory member of the group and your own personal and professional development.
The Costume Principles unit will introduce you to some of the fundamental principles and techniques used by costume practitioners. You will be required to research and record processes and the exploration of techniques and approaches in a visually appropriate and informative way.
The unit encourages your development in technical areas underpinned by an understanding of the principles of specialist subject processes as well as exploring creative three-dimensional approaches to modifying, altering or adapting the performing body.
You will develop an understanding of how basic techniques can be used creatively and will be encouraged to develop an enquiring approach to the development of costume for performance.
Fashion Cultures and Histories: introduces the Cultural and Historical Studies approach to fashion and related areas. The unit provides a broad overview of the subject and introduces key concepts and ways of thinking that will form the basis of subsequent study. It will also inform decisions regarding the Cultural and Historical Studies unit that is chosen for future study.
Better Lives: London College of Fashion, UAL (LCF) is a leader in fashion design, media and business education. We have been nurturing creative talent for over a century, offering courses in all things fashion. We encourage students to examine the past and challenge the present. To have inventive, assertive ideas that challenge social and political agendas. We give students the skills, opportunities – and above all, the freedom – to put those ideas into practice. By leading the way in fashion design, business, and the media, we influence culture, economics and our society.
This unit will provide you with a solid understanding of LCF’ core values and how they connect to your practice. As part of this unit, you will explore diversity, social responsibility and sustainability, themes which you will then apply to a selected project. At this stage, the emphasis is on how you apply your thinking across these important themes to your practice. Your thinking is more important than a finished piece of work at this point. Fashion can change lives. Through teaching, specialist research, and collaborative work, this unit will get you thinking differently. We want you to use fashion to examine the past, build a sustainable future and improve the way we live. That’s why we call this unit ‘Better Lives’.
Collaboration One: Design and Production will enable you to integrate the research practices and principles of design, learned in the Introduction to Design for Performance Unit, into a series of collaborative and / or personal projects. It will also extend other areas of design.
You will undertake research, design development and presentation principles within a collaborative project, working with students from across the Performance Programme. Further project work will introduce you to the approaches, terminologies and processes of your specialist subject.
You will be encouraged to take an innovative approach to the design of your work using both experimental and traditional methods within a contemporary performance context.
Year two
The Cultural and Historical Studies Unit Critical Issues in Fashion Research will broaden or deepen your learning of areas relating to your interests in your chosen field. You will have the opportunity to participate in lectures, seminars and workshops with students from other courses within your School, and will read relevant academic texts and complete a formal academic essay for assessment.
Core Skills: Costume Practice Responding to a given text, this unit will develop your awareness of the relationship between research, design and technical processes within your specialist subject area. You will develop an understanding of how techniques can be used creatively and will be encouraged to develop an enquiring approach to technical development and experimentation within your work.
Situating your Practice
Situating your Practice: Industry Project
This unit aims to develop your practitioner identity and consider your personal manifesto for performance, by completing a performance proposal for a performance event around a location, and stimulus of your choosing. This unit brings together the technical skills that you have developed and asks you to now take them further in a performance context. It will allow you to expand your understanding of the work of practitioners who you find useful, inspiring, and interesting, before then applying that knowledge in the creation of your own performance event.
Situating your Practice: Industry Placement
This unit aims to develop your professional skills within an industry environment. On your placement, you will be able to experience the pace, atmosphere and discipline of working in the industry. This will give you practical experience of the roles, functions and operations within the industry. The unit requires a minimum of 60 work placement hours.
LCF Graduate Futures provide career guidance and one to one opportunities starting in your first year at LCF, to help you plan ahead and prepare for your work experience. You will be expected to engage and be proactive in securing your own work experience and one that is suitable to your own personal development, skills, course requirements and career aspirations. This means producing an updated CV and directly applying to companies for work experience using LCF CAREERS LIVE, LCF’s own job board, as well as other resources. You will also be expected to feedback on your work experience after your work experience.
During the Collaboration Two: Interdisciplinary and Experimental unit you will collaborate with other students to design and realise characters for a narrative. Working in a small group you will choose a context for the performance. You are encouraged to look at a context you may not have designed for previously, such as film, television, dance, theatre, opera, music video, advertising or fashion film. You are encouraged to collaborate with performers and students from other disciplines
Optional Diploma Year
CCI Creative Computing
Between years 2 and 3, you can undertake the year-long Diploma in Creative Computing. This will develop your skills in creative computing alongside your degree. After successfully completing the diploma and your undergraduate degree, you’ll graduate with an enhanced degree: BA (Hons) Costume for Performance (with Creative Computing).
CCI Apple Diploma
Between years 2 and 3, you can undertake the year-long Diploma in Apple Development. This will give you an opportunity to become an accredited apple developer alongside your degree. After successfully completing the diploma and your undergraduate degree, you’ll graduate with an enhanced degree: BA (Hons) Costume for Performance (with Apple Development).
Industry DIPS
This optional diploma can be taken between years 2 and 3. With support from your tutors, you’ll undertake an industry placement for a minimum of 100 days/20 weeks. As well as developing industry skills, you’ll gain an additional qualification upon successful completion.
Enterprise DIPS
This optional diploma can be taken between years 2 and 3. With support from your tutors, you’ll undertake an enterprise placement year where you will explore a business idea from proposal to minimal viable product (MVP). As well as developing enterprise skills, you’ll gain an additional qualification upon successful completion.
Year three
Innovation and Design requires you to identify an area of personal interest and to investigate, research and experiment to develop your conceptual design skills. You will demonstrate your skills in the creation of an extensive body of work to show development and experimentation.
You should consider theoretical and professional contexts of your project, and the surrounding industries, to develop your chosen narrative and performance context. You will develop an appropriate methodology, and have the opportunity to explore new ideas, processes, take risks and experiment with design and production values, working to an intended performance location and audience.
The way that you structure your innovation and design work within this unit is up to you; for example, you may choose to focus on one line of enquiry or explore a range of research and design avenues and methods.
Following on you will complete a major piece of written work for the Cultural and Historical Studies Dissertation unit. The overall aim of the dissertation is to provide an opportunity for you to demonstrate your understanding of the critical and analytical perspectives developed within cultural and historical theory and your ability to apply those perspectives in a specific study. You will research a topic of your choice that has relevance to the discipline of cultural and historical studies. This may relate to your course discipline and should elaborate knowledge developed in prior cultural and historical studies units. You will undertake a substantial piece of structured primary and secondary research that critically engages with cultural issues relating to fashion, the body, performance, or the media and communications industries and which reflects on the critical debates and concerns addressed in your course.
Personal Performance Project
Building on your previous design portfolio created for the Innovation and Design unit, you will now realise your ideas. You will test your ability to respond innovatively to the challenges involved in your chosen performance context. This is an opportunity to demonstrate your specialist skills and specific interests through your individual body of work.
This unit will enable you to realise a personal response to your concept. The structure and outcome of your project will be determined by you. You will identify and construct individually negotiated outcomes to communicate your performance concept towards your chosen audience.
The Modelling Your Future unit will prepare you for a number of future employment or postgraduate opportunities. It will expand upon your ability to articulate your practitioner identity. You will reflect upon your professional and/or academic goals after having completed your Personal Performance Project to help you to position yourself creatively and to now construct your industry portfolio accordingly. This unit requires you to evaluate, restructure, and position your work effectively as you create a professional roadmap to your chosen future career.
