Fashion Sustainability MA

This module aims for you to gain a deep understanding of sustainable supply chains, key stakeholders, and the issues affecting the fashion industry through rigorous and systematic research. You’ll interpret and apply knowledge of complex product development, sourcing, and supply chain issues in relation to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). You’ll also critically analyse the issues related to supply chain development and choose appropriate sourcing options for companies operating within the fashion industry, both locally and globally. Additionally, you’ll learn to create realistic implementation plans for product lifecycle management processes and sustainable supply chain options. The module aims to develop your ability to investigate complex problems, present the background of the problem, consider different perspectives, evaluate alternative solutions, and reflect on the preferred solutions and their implications.

This module investigates and evaluates the approach of the global fashion industry in the attainment of Net Zero, with a specific focus on waste elimination and reuse, using the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a benchmark.  

This module will assess and promote current practices designed to reduce or eliminate waste, in all its forms, from the global fashion industry at the design, production and end-of-life stages. You’ll synthesise their knowledge of upcycling and advanced material recovery to systematically evaluate systems and business models of waste elimination, and which enable design for longevity, repairability, recovery, reuse, and those which may reduce overproduction (and in turn overconsumption). You’ll autonomously design and develop an innovative proposal to explain and promote a strategic specialist approach for waste elimination or reuse in the global fashion industry.

This module challenges conventional thinking in the fashion industry by integrating holistic sustainable design and creating commercial answers to address system change throughout the entire value chain. The module aims to equip you to be change-makers in the industry by combining creativity and critical thinking. You’ll reimagine a future that considers sustainable design, socially, environmentally and economically responsible systems. The module will result in a written or a design outcome which critically engages with the fashion industry. This module will explore the UN Sustainable Development Goal Responsible Consumption and Production.

This module aims to engage you in the realities of fashion entrepreneurship. You’ll apply advanced business concepts, branding theories, competitive analysis, marketing practices and financial principles to create a comprehensive business plan for your fashion business idea. You’ll benefit from the collaborative and interdisciplinary environment of the classroom in creating a viable commercial business concept, demonstrating an understanding of the entrepreneurial process.  
 

In this year-long module, you’ll be encouraged to select topics of professional interest and direct your own research as a process of investigation, both academic and practice-based, enabling new ideas, concepts and knowledge. This module aims to build your confidence and curiosity, encourage critical exploration and creative visualisation and foster original analysis. Its goal is to prepare graduates as future leaders in the fashion industry for successful careers that provide intellectual, professional, and personal fulfilment. You’ll be guided and supported through the research and the writing process through a composition of lectures, seminars, and personal supervision.  

This module will provide you with a comprehensive understanding of the processes and tools fashion businesses use to assess and manage various types of risk in fashion manufacturing and product development. The module will cover topics such as quality assurance standards, the purpose and implementation of a Quality Management System, risk-based thinking and analysis, organisational structures in apparel manufacturing and governance, and KPIs and their impact. Additionally, you’ll learn about the plan-do-check-act (PDCA) cycle and strategies for internal and external auditing in a fashion manufacturing context. The module will also explore the tensions between social and environmental responsibilities and the nature and limits of these in the business environment. It will examine how companies express their responsibilities to stakeholders beyond shareholders and examine how these responsibilities may lead to serious consequences. Ultimately, this module aims to cultivate a strong and critical awareness of how fashion companies address social and environmental responsibilities while also recognising the nature and limitations of such responsibilities. This module will explore the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), Decent Work and Economic Growth, Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure, Responsible Production and Consumption, Climate Action. 

This module has been designed to give you a critical understanding of the theories of consumer behaviour, innovation and trend management within fashion and broader business contexts. The module will introduce the evolution and relationship between trends and consumer behaviour and their impact on the fashion industry. It will examine social, cultural and environmental change and how this impacts shifting consumer values. Lectures will explore consumer behaviour theories related to the fashion business and the important role of data and insights in trend management. Seminars will combine theory and practice to investigate consumer insight into the fields of consumer buying behaviour and motivation linked to product development, store and phygital environment, brand building and marketing communication. This module will explore the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG): Sustainable Cities and Communities and Responsible Consumption and Production.  
 

This module will provide you with an insider view of the key roles of a Fashion Buyer and Fashion Merchandiser operating in a complex, global retail environment. The digital transformation of fashion retail has created intense competition, and fashion retailers need to devise the perfect cross-channel experience for their customers that takes advantage of digitalisation to provide targeted, commercial fashion products, applying relevant trends to retail strategy to maximise sales and KPIs and minimise risk. This module will explore the UN Sustainable Development Goals, Decent Work and Economic Growth, Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure and Responsible Consumption and Production.  
 

The aim of this module is to introduce you to a broad range of activism and social justice practices and allow you to understand how social, political, and philosophical values contribute to current issues in the fashion industry while broadening your skills and knowledge of activism. You’ll be encouraged to explore theories and debates on shared values, social justice, and sustainability benchmarks. You’ll explore systemic change through the lens of the UN SDGs, and social justice concerns. You’ll systematically analyse, evaluate, organise and communicate an advanced awareness of social justice and activism’s ability to utilise fashion and the fashioned body as a tool for communicating and enacting dissent and change.