Fashion Design

At our Fashion Design department you will learn how to apply your knowledge and artisanship in order to forecast fashion trends and to push boundaries.

We aim to prepare our fashion design students for a future in the continuously changing professional field of fashion.

Students are trained to be able to work in the existing fashion system but are also encouraged to adjust and bring change to this system through practice and knowledge. We offer the hardware (design methods and technology) and the software (skills and attitude) to do this.

Fashion designers work from the perspective of a creative and critical vision on contemporary developments in fashion and society. Topics like new ethics, virtual fashion, sustainability, collaborative working, all named as most urgent by both our students as well as our professionally active team of tutors, are all addressed in WdKA’s project-based education.

Professional diversity is key: we stimulate students in giving a new meaning to the profession, encourage independence in self-initiated projects and electives, and facilitate collaborations in interdisciplinary practices. We offer courses in both traditional and future fashion skills.

Education in virtual prototyping, 3D creation and -visualization and presenting in the virtual realm, is embedded in the curriculum from year 1 onward. As are introductions to interactive- and bio design, all aimed to facilitate our students with the necessary skills and knowledge to engage in a changing fashion industry.

Traditional ways of presentation (like yearly catwalk shows) have made room for alternative ways of presenting, allowing students to opt for a complete virtual graduation project, to installations, to film and many more.

The student is the future!

Cover project: Nap by Hilde Strijdveen

 

Open Days & Recruitment activities

Want to know more about life at the Willem de Kooning Academy?

Check out our extended programme, full of (online) activities and interaction with student ambassadors and tutors via this link.

 

Knowledge & skills

  • Working in interdisciplinary teams
  • Technical skills
  • Drawing and sketching from live models
  • Fashion drawing
  • (Digital) technical drawing
  • Textile crafts
  • 2D and 3D (digital) design techniques
  • Research
  • Presenting your work on a variety of platforms
  • Business start-up basics
  • Photography
  • Forecasting
  • ...and more

Fashion is such an octopus. You're connected to so many people: suppliers, pattern makers, production teams, marketing teams, vendors.

Raf Simons

Career opportunities

  • Fashion designer
  • Pattern designer
  • Concept designer
  • Brand visualiser
  • ...and more

Next to 13 majors and three Practices WdKA offers its students high-tech meeting interdisciplinary spaces - Stations.

Stations are the place for creating prototypes, experimenting, remixing and improving your ideas. All of the Willem de Kooning Academy’s students and staff members are welcome to work in our Stations, regardless of their major specialisation, minor, elective module or study year. The Stations are where you can explore the viability of your ideas and find out how to turn them into fully-functioning creations.

Dual Degree programme

Do you have an artistic or a musical talent, as well as a hunger for academic knowledge? You can now mix arts and academia in metropolitan Rotterdam. Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR), Willem de Kooning Academy (WdKA) and Codarts offer you the possibility to combine theory and practice in a five-year Dual Degree programme.

Want to study at Willem de Kooning Academy?

Apply now

Experience 4 years at WdKA

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Student Work

Virtual Fashion and Immersive Technologies - Student Work

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