Bachelor of Design Arts - Major in Fashion and Costume Design

Ignite your design thinking and problem-solving skills through an exploration of form, silhouette, material, and construction.

Master various techniques: hand-drawing, digital illustrations, and garment construction.

Blend traditional foundations with social and environmental insight to acquire essential knowledge in:

• Trend forecasting
• Fabric innovation
• Marketing
• Manufacturing
• Production procedures
• Business knowledge

Note: you need to apply for the Bachelor of Design Arts. You will commence study in your chosen major during your second trimester of the course.

CRICOS Course Code: 058836K

Purpose-built facilities and equipment

Access a range of discipline-specific facilities, such as:

• Industrial machinery
• Private work spaces
• Fashion supplies library
• 360º cameras

Explore different materials, patterns, and designs to effectively harness cutting-edge tools to craft and enhance your creative endeavours.

Acquire practical skills through hands-on experiences with industry-standard equipment, software, and technology.

Exploration, Contextual, and Professional Practice Units

Exploration Units

Discover design fundamentals via workshop-based study that focus on expanding foundational understanding of design

Workshop: Body (WRKB)

Focus on adorning the body. Explore the importance of identity in art and design. Play with the translation of 3D to 2D. Explore soft materials and form.

Workshop: Image (WRKI)

Learn the fundamentals of image capture via photography and film. These translate into contemporary digital display contexts, including popular social media applications.

Workshop: Message (WRKM)

Explore and play with digital software (e.g., Adobe Illustrator). Develop product and brand identity constructs using bold and confident ideas.

Workshop: Space (WRKS)

Focus on the environment and responsible innovation, learning to create and understand 3D spaces that connect, engage, challenge and disrupt.

Future Forward Design (ACC111)

Explore the future of design communication through intelligent systems, automation, and emerging technologies. In this unit, you’ll blend traditional techniques with next-gen tools, building skills in storytelling, technical illustration, and human-centred innovation.

Elective: Brand Strategy (ELE001)

Create a brand strategy for a new product, experience, or retail concept. Develop a Brand Tool Kit and explore promotional aspects that capture branding.

Elective: Design & Wellbeing (ELE002)

Further design and artistic processes. Study and apply wellbeing in creativity through the lens of people, place, and product.

Contextual Units

Explore the impact of context (e.g., historical, trends, visual thinking, technology, culture) on designers' and artists' work and realisation of vision. Experiment in a collaborative learning environment to articulate and understand key influences on art and design.

Design, History & Culture (AXC111)

Explore significant moments from the history of art and design, and interrogate the milestones and foundations that have shaped creative practice.

Social Trend Forecasting (AXC121)

Develop an understanding of how trends are forecast. Analyse, discuss, and develop concepts. Communicate insights by forecasting social and cultural impacts.

Design, Issues & Impact (AXC231)

Explore basic concepts important to critical thought and its visual application. Analyse storytelling and narrative aligned to key themes and concepts.

Global Design Culture (AXE241)

Challenge and reference cultural and sub-cultural shifts. Analyse and respond to social, cultural, and technological changes in modern design, from the industrial revolution to postmodernism.

Professional Practice

Practising artists and designers provide important insights into contemporary practice.

Hear from a range of local and overseas professionals about what is occurring in industry and how they are succeeding in their field. Engage in related personal reflection.

Business Principles (ACC241)

Undertake an entrepreneurial project that engages with the creative industries. Critically analyse business models, supply systems, and production methods. Develop ideas and opportunities to support design business growth.

Professional Practice & Systems (BPC351)

Gain specific insights into selected industry concentrations. Explore systems embedded into the industry relevant to their discipline from concept to consumer.

Professional Placement (APE241)

Further your practical design education in a professional practice placement.

Personal & Professional Practice (BPC361)

Position yourself within your industry, investigate appropriate career pathways, prepare applications for roles in design and art organisations.

Professional Communication (BCC351)

Participate in a capstone project that provides a platform to showcase a final body of work as a major digital or physical project installation.

Design Laboratories

Learn and practise knowledge and skills specific to your major in LCI Design Laboratories, the core of the Bachelor of Design Arts degree.

Engage with the full spectrum of the design and artistic process in studio-based labs. Respond to an industry brief, work on a global project, with a global brand, or generate ideas to solve contemporary issues.

Progress through a series of lab themes (foundational, issues, global and industry) beginning in trimester 2. Put it all together in your final lab: produce and showcase an advanced body of work that expresses your creative ethos.

Design Laboratory: Foundation (LABF101)

Work with different garment types, fabrics, fibres, and material finishes. Explore fundamental patternmaking and apply it through construction techniques. Build a mini collection of garments and visualisation concepts.

Design Technology (APF121)

Develop introductory technical skills required to perform professionally in your major area of study. Engage with interactive design, 2D, and 3D technical design. Create design templates and digital models.

Design Laboratory: Issues (LABF102)

Engage with the implications of issues impacting fashion and costume design. Explore issues around sustainable practice and the application of responsible innovation. Give clothes a new life by repurposing and re-imagining old clothing.

Design Sub Major (ASF111)

Develop foundational knowledge in an alternate discipline. Acquire basic skills and understanding, conceptualise ideas, and contextualise work within an alternate industry practice.

Design Laboratory: Global (LABF203)

Immerse yourself in an innovative and forward-thinking collaborative project where you will gain insights into the global world of design. Global architecture is explored through research scale and proportions which are then applied to fashion techniques and processes.

Design Laboratory: Industry (LABF204)

Evaluate and develop solutions, presentations, and concepts for real-life industry projects. Develop research, analytical, evaluative, and practical skills to understand how to create a design concept through to presentation stage.

Design Laboratory: Capstone (LABF205)

Apply acquired lab concepts to develop major bodies of work for presentation. Emerge as a young professional through exploratory creative development and presentation of original ideas and viable concepts.