Fashion Studies

The Fashion Studies major enables students to gain deep insights into fashion as a global cultural phenomenon and a vast professional field and industry. AUP provides a unique setting to study fashion academically and experientially in a multi-disciplinary liberal arts environment, in Paris – a city that remains one of the focal points in today’s global fashion system. As a Fashion Studies student at AUP you will be able to explore fashion as objects and idea, craft and process, place and space, image, film and text. While Paris provides a rich point of departure, the program is focused on the de-centralization and de-hierarchization of Fashion Studies. You will develop in-depth knowledge of fashion histories and -sociology, -communications, and sustainability. The program provides a holistic path of studies and applied collaborations that will lead students to combine entrepreneurial, creative, and academic skills while cultivating open-mindedness, innovative spirit and an acute sense of ethics. You will graduate as a critical and creative thinker, knowledgeable of the diverse histories and cultures of fashion – an effective fashion communicator with purpose. 

Upon successful completion of the program students will be able to:

• Demonstrate a comprehensive working knowledge of key concepts and thinkers, diverse de-hierarchized practices, histories, and current discourses in the study of fashion.
• Show a critical understanding of the multiple aspects of fashion, as idea, object, image and process in relation to the realms of global cultural phenomenon, professional field, and industry.
• Demonstrate extensive transferable skills in a range of research methods; textual, material, and visual analysis; critical and creative thinking; and effective and ethical communication.

Fashion Studies at AUP is a diverse, strong and supportive community of undergraduate and graduates with a very lively and globally connected culture inside and outside the classroom: Fashion Talks at AUP, Fashion Industry Talk: Professional Perspectives, a conference series on fashion education (The Digital Multilogue on Fashion Education 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023), and a research seminar in collaboration with the IHTP/CNRS.

Fashion Studies at AUP is housed in the Department of Communication, Media and Culture – a very diverse, energetic and close-knit community of students and faculty. As a multi-disciplinary department, it provides rich array of perspectives and progressive research in film, anthropology, journalism, cultural studies, communication and media studies, branding and marketing.

AUP provides a unique destination to study fashion in a multidisciplinary, academic setting in Paris, drawing on its privileged position to provide on-location experiential learning opportunities. You will benefit from a holistic path of studies and applied collaborations that will lead to combine entrepreneurial, creative and academic skills while cultivating open-mindedness, innovative spirit and an acute sense of ethics.

With every single one of our majors, you’ll find a carefully curated medley of core courses and electives, which will provide you with the tools you need to establish an unshakeable foundation in the principles and concepts fundamental to your growth within your disciplines of choice. Many majors also enable you to specialize further within the broader area of study.

The Fashion Studies core courses, which you must take as part of the major requirements, will provide you with the tools you’ll need to ground your present and future studies. Your introduction to the fundamentals of Fashion Studies will help pave the way for your successful completion of other Fashion Studies courses.