How to create leading runway designs with a fashion course

Fashion designers are ambitious, creative, and innovative. Holmesglen’s Bachelor of Fashion Design cultivates these traits by building the strong design and technical skills needed for a successful global fashion career.

Our students benefit from small class sizes, industry-experienced teachers and the latest design equipment to bring their creativity to life.

Alexandria Mitchell, Calypso Brown, Melissa Anjanette and Yoshie Beetham are four fashion design degree students this year who have prepared collections for Melbourne Fashion Week’s Student Runway.

They are using the degree’s four main study opportunities – design innovation, pattern engineering, manufacturing, and pre-production and professional practice – to gain industry experience and develop their careers while they study.

Fashion designers need strong design and technical skills, plus good communication, leadership, and time management. Professionals also need to collaborate with stylists, models, stockists and fell

Our fashion design students believe a combination of skills is required to create a leading runway collection.

“My Melbourne Fashion Week collection is not so much about the conceptual design, or about the finished product of the art, it’s about the process. I’m interested in pattern engineering and tailoring techniques. That's where I find a lot of my art forms. The reason I started this Holmesglen course is because I wanted to learn pattern making.

“In fashion, there can be self-doubt, but you learn you can do this, and you have that ability to create amazing things. Believing that you can do it is important.”

*Alexandria is an Australian Wool Education Trust grant recipient. The grant helped her buy the wool fabric for her collection.

“The most interesting aspects of preparing for Melbourne Fashion Week have been working to the brief we were given and emphasising those elements within my collection.

“I have learned how to manage my time more efficiently and work to deadlines. I think these skills will be valuable when going into the industry.”

“Creating fashion in the industry is a collaboration. It must be well-communicated, from annotations to specification sheets, so that other people in the production chain can understand it.

“Working with a stylist has been an interesting aspect of preparing for Melbourne Fashion Week. It’s interesting to see how the design is viewed from the eyes of people in the industry.”

“It's interesting to think of the most efficient and effective way to discuss your design with a stylist or friends with whom you collaborate.

“The importance of resilience and attentive project management, as well as accurate pattern engineering, creative design thinking, and innovative construction techniques, are my best gains from this course.”

If you are interested in working in fashion, find out more about our certificate and degree options.