A Level Fashion

Do you have a passion for fashion? Fashion is about telling stories and exploring ideas through clothing, creating spectacle, and meaning through a medium that we all consume daily. Channel your creativity into this course, and express yourself through your designs.

Duration 2 years
Qualification A Level (or equivalent)
Start Date Thursday 3rd September 2026
Course Code ALTXTFN26T
A student is at a table with a pen in hand with a mannequin in the background.

TOP COURSE HIGHLIGHTS

  • Learn visually
  • Work sculpturally
  • Research Skills
  • Think creatively

Explore shape and silhouette

Explore structure and shape in relation to the body, combining exciting fabrics and embellishment techniques

specialist workshops

Specialist Fashion workshops develop skills and knowledge through playful exploration of processes harnessed in relation to your individual creative interests. Research how contemporary and historic designers have communicated their ideas.

A close up of hands cutting fabric on a table.

Friendly and knowledgeable staff

The art and design team are friendly, supportive, ambitious, and hardworking. Achievement relies on your attendance, punctuality, and commitment to learning, both independently and within lectures.

WHY CHOOSE THIS COURSE?

Do you enjoy drawing and designing garments, alongside the challenge of bringing your ideas to life through making? The Fashion course encourages you to develop a creative approach to contemporary fashion and costume design. Learn how to develop innovative solutions to a fashion or costume brief through research, experimentation and sample making. Take your ideas from designs to final concepts, gaining skills in the processes needed to produce garments. You will also broaden your knowledge on various designers, taking inspiration from their work to use in your own creations.

WHAT WILL I LEARN?

Year 1: Varied workshops explore the visual research processes used by fashion designers. Gain skills in fashion drawing and garment rendering, draping and patternmaking, garment construction and embellishment techniques. Research how historic and contemporary fashion designers communicate their ideas and how fashion is influenced by social and political events. Working in sketchbooks, you will evidence your evolving skills and knowledge, textiles samples and ideas, reflecting on your creative practice.

Year 2: Personal Investigation – 60%, personally negotiated coursework project. Externally Set Assignment – 40%, exam.

WHERE WILL IT TAKE ME?

You can progress directly from A Level Fashion to any Art and Design degree, these could include, Fashion Design, Costume Design, Fashion Photography, Contour Design, Fashion Communication, Marketing and Merchandising and Interior Design. Career opportunities in this field are varied depending on your other course choices.

Fashion, Costume or Textile designer are immediately related job roles, however more broadly related careers include Pattern Cutter and Grader, Garment technologist, Visual merchandizer, Fashion Illustrator, Stylist, Retail Buyer, Fashion Journalist, Make-Up Artist, Event Manager, PR, and Marketing.

 

Achievement relies heavily on your attendance, punctuality, and commitment to learning, both independently and within lectures.

You will be encouraged to try a broad range of approaches, which you will then refine into ways of working which suit your individual interests, acquiring and developing specialist skills in your chosen discipline.

Independent work is fundamental to the course; at least 50% of all work assessed should have happened outside the classroom.

Homework is set weekly. Initially it is set by lecturers and will be tightly specified and closely linked to class workshops; it will be monitored regularly. As the course develops you will be required to set your own homework/independent work based on agreed learning needs.

Your ongoing work will be assessed in lessons through focused 1:1 discussion. Sketchbook work will be assessed regularly for reflective, thoughtful, analytical critical evaluation and annotation. Emphasis is upon the development towards a final piece, through observation and technical, aesthetic, and conceptual refinement.

You will also be assessed against how your research of art, craft, design, media and technologies in contemporary and past societies and cultures improves your own understanding and practice.

Discussions and presentations are a vital part of our assessment process and you will be expected to contribute to these during your lessons.

Three girls sit on a picnic bench and are chatting and laughing.
Course code: ALTXTFN26T
Duration 2 years
Qualification A Level (or equivalent)