91快活林

International requirements and visas

We can help you meet our English language or academic entry requirements.

Visas and immigration advice

Portfolio advice 

Admission to this course includes a review of your portfolio. This helps us to see your potential and understand how you think, create and explore ideas. We want to see your passion and curiosity – not just your finished work.

Creating your portfolio

Find out what to include in your portfolio and how to present it by reading our portfolio requirements.

Sharing your portfolio

Once you have applied and received details on how to activate your University of 91快活林 username and password, you can log on to and share your portfolio link. Please make sure we can access this link without a password or login.

Support and advice

Take a look at our advice and guidance on creating a portfolio. If you need help, please contact our Admissions Team. We also run regular online portfolio advice sessions where you can get support from our expert team.

Top reasons to choose this course

• Excellent reputation in industry for producing creative, innovative and hard-working graduates – our alumni have worked at organisations including Max Mara, HBO, Burberry, Victoria Beckham, River Island and Calvin Klein.
• Industry-standard technologies and practices enable you to master software such as Adobe Creative Suite, C4D and Blender, and work with specialist facilities including photography studios with camera loan services and support.
• Graduate with a professional portfolio tailored to your own strengths and skills, ready for the fashion industry.
• Talks from industry professionals throughout your studies will give you both business insight and creative inspiration. 
• The Summer Graduate Show marks the end of your degree, where you can exhibit and celebrate an in-depth, personal body of work, bringing together all the skills you have learnt throughout the course.

• Excellent technical facilities and spacious studios with expert technicians on-hand to help you develop practical skills.
• Business studies are integrated throughout the degree, meaning you will leave ready to enter the business of fashion, whether to start your own company or work as part of a team within international brands and design houses.
• An optional placement year gives you the chance to put your learning into practice in a professional environment, strengthening your portfolio and industry contacts.
• A vibrant and supportive community in an art school in the centre of 91快活林.
• Lecturers with years of fashion and business industry experience will be guiding and supporting you.

Year 1

Modules

• Introduction to Fashion Photography and Styling

  This module introduces you to fashion styling and photography by exploring subcultures and tribes and will equip you to experiment and test ideas. By looking at key stylists and photographers from recent history you will explore issues in identity, political and social change. You will also examine  photographic studios, the camera, key principles of styling and the roles of the fashion photographer and the fashion stylist.

• Study Skills in the Creative Industries

  This module is an introduction to study skills in HE practice-based courses at undergraduate level. You will be introduced to fashion communication through object and image analysis and to skills ranging from research to presentation.

• Design and Culture Under Scrutiny

  This module introduces key debates relevant to the analysis of the past and present in fashion, textiles and fashion communication. Through lectures, seminars and exhibition visits, you will explore critical ideas and academic approaches relevant to your field of study. The module is designed to support your studio work through the development of critical thinking and formal written skills.

• Introduction to Fashion Illustration and Imaging

  This module introduces you to fashion illustration and imaging, and visual research and processes –from the hand-drawn sketch to the digital image. You will learn to experiment and test ideas in fashion drawing, visual research and processes, and explore fashion and identity through outputs such as magazines, fanzines and interactive imaging.

• Introduction to Visual Promotion

  This module introduces you to visual promotion and how it is shaped by social and cultural influences. You’ll look at why fashion trends matter, how fashion forecasting works, and how new and emerging technologies are changing the way fashion is promoted. You will also get to explore shops in London and 91快活林, research current fashion trends and understand the importance of being a zeitgeist in fashion communication.

• Market Research and Business in the Creative Industries

  This module introduces you to and equips you with a range of transferable skills, qualities and attitudes that will prepare you for professional career paths in the creative industries. Through investigation and critical reflection, you will have the opportunity to develop your knowledge and appreciation of the scale and scope of the creative industries and begin to locate yourself, your interests and your practice within a vocational context.

Our priority is to make sure what you learn with us is relevant, up to date and what employers are looking for, so courses are reviewed and enhanced on an ongoing basis. When you have applied to us, you’ll be told about any new developments through .

Year 2

In year 2 you will specialise in one of three areas.

• Fashion photography and styling
• Fashion imaging, film and interaction
• Visual promotion

You will also choose whether to undertake a third year placement or progress straight to your final year.

Modules

• Editorial Brief

  You will work as part of a team in this module to create a magazine exploring and introducing new ideas to fashion editorial. The module focuses on developing techniques within photography, styling, visual promotion or fashion imaging, and will enable you to create industry-focused work that explores contemporary methods and roles within fashion communication.

• Creative Enterprise in the Community

  Through this module, you will learn and develop a broad range of skills that are required in a variety of business contexts within creative industries. The aim is to develop your understanding of a variety of contemporary business models, with an emphasis on sustainable, responsible and ethical practice.

• Fashion Futures Pathways: Experiences and Spaces

  This module explores forward-thinking approaches to fashion communication through speculative design and fashion communication. You will use imaginative and critical design methods to question and rethink fashion systems, stories and consumer behaviour. Through studio practice and research, you’ll develop conceptual and narrative skills within your chosen specialism. You will create a professional online portfolio showcasing your speculative work, creative process and industry readiness.

• Design and Culture: Critical Studies and Research Skills

  In this module you will build upon the theoretical and historical studies and research skills from year 1. You will be encouraged to critically investigate fashion design and communication as cultural, social and material practices. You’ll further develop your knowledge of theoretical and historical studies, research knowledge and methods. Topics include embodied making, the body and identity, community, digital culture, sustainability and ethics.

For a year 2 group project, students produce magazines over three months, each taking an individual role such as photographer, stylist, designer, art director or writer. The 91快活林 shop Magazine then gives the publications a pop-up window display for a weekend, with students keeping the profits.

Placement year

After your second year you will have the opportunity to complete a year in industry with a dedicated placement team to support you in your research, preparation and application, as well as during your placement.

This process begins in the second year when you will complete a compulsory professional practice module which will support you to develop skills and promotional material to make applications for placements.

The placement year in industry is academically assessed and your degree award will reflect your industry experience. The placement is for a minimum of 20 weeks.

You may find placements across a broad range of areas including: fashion forecasting, fashion photography and styling, features editing, picture editing, fashion buying, fashion PR, fashion event planning, fashion merchandising and visual merchandising.

Taking a placement enables you to:

• apply your learning to real-life situations and challenges
• get an insight into how businesses and organisations function
• develop existing skills and discover new ones
• explore career options
• make professional contacts
• build confidence and organisational skills.

Many students find that the placement informs as well as enhances their employment after graduating.

Our students have completed placements at organisations including:

• Dazed & Confused
• Harper’s Bazaar
• The Vampire’s Wife
• Selfridges
• Moseley Road
• Big Sky Studios.

Samruddhi Karandikar’s turned her placement in logistics and operations at Italian luxury brand Max Mara in London into a full-time job on graduation.

Final year

In your final year you will choose and research an area of study and develop this into your final project. You’ll also complete a business plan. 

You will participate in a final exhibition where industry contacts are invited to see your work.

Modules

• Fashion Communication Research, Investigation and Proposal

  This module encourages you to focus on your creative goals in fashion communication. You will research, develop, test and contextualise a concept for your final portfolio and major project. This will take the form of interrelated visual and material-based research, market research, costings and contextual critical, cultural or historical research. The module is self-directed, but you will be supported with academic, technical and specialist guidance.

• Design Management and Business Plan

  In this module you will write and present a three-year business plan, strategic marketing plan or social media campaign to help you develop new skills in relation to your degree and career goals. The project requires you to research and evaluate the management of your future practice and is intended to be an important part of your professional portfolio, helping you to assess work options and enhance your employability.

• Historical and Critical Studies Research Project

  During this module you will undertake a self-initiated, independent written research project (maximum 3,500 words) related to your area of practice. The module will help you consolidate your research methods, demonstrate critical thinking, and define, organise, analyse and integrate theoretical and visual study drawn from contemporary and/or historical evidence. During the module, you will be guided by regular supervision sessions with a specialist tutor.

• Fashion Communication Final Major Project

  This module marks the culmination of your studies and as such is self-initiated and self-directed; however, you will be supported throughout by academic and technical teams. You will develop and complete a final major project within your specialism, with the result being suitable for exhibition in a public arena. Your project and outcomes should be based on thorough experimentation and solid research.

• Professional Portfolio

  This module marks the culmination of your studies and as such is self-initiated and self-directed. You will be supported throughout by academic and technical teams to produce a professional, industry-ready portfolio in both analogue and digital formats. The portfolio outcomes should be informed and underpinned by extensive experimentation and consolidated research.

Start of Spring by Feiyi Hung, winner of the 2019 Photography Award at Graduate Fashion Week.

Facilities

• Media Centre with specialist equipment including materials for sound, film and photography available for short-term loan, computer rooms with contemporary software for digital image processing and manipulation, graphic layout and typography, animation, film and sound production and editing
• Mac suites, Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Premiere
• Photographic Services Unit including well-equipped dark room, studio and camera loan facilities
• The TECH HUB – a team of technical demonstrators based in Grand Parade who provide specialist creative software support including Adobe CC (Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere, After Effects etc), Rhino, Blender and C4D, as well as web and blog-related software. They manage digital manufacturing services within the School of Art and Media, including laser cutting, 3D printing, CNC routing, plasma cutting and 3-axis CNC milling. They also have VR headsets and 3D scanners. The TECH HUB has its own dedicated PC suite with all of the software they support as well as standard university programmes
• Department print bureau
• One of the country’s best-stocked specialist art and design libraries
• Internationally important Design Archives
• On-site supplies shop.

Click image above to take a virtual tour of our facilities.

Meet the team

Rachael Taylor, course leader
Rachael is a fashion artist whose work looks into practical and interventional experiences that engage a wider audience in the fashion and socio-economic debates. Her recent work explores the value systems between wellness and fashion consumption.

Other staff on the course include:

• Mark Wells – senior lecturer and a practising interaction designer. His research interests explore the intersectionality of the digital and analogue spaces
• Chris Arran – fashion Imaging, illustration and graphic design, specialising in multimedia illustration
• Eloise Calandre – photography and moving image, with specialist knowledge in contemporary digital practice
• Emma Collins – visual promotion, specialising in social media and maker spaces
• Jules Findley – specialising in fashion communication, fashion illustration, postproduction in film, fashion imaging, catwalk photography, embodied materiality and material knowledge
• Chris Hagan – technical demonstrator
• Daniela Hatfield – visual promotion, specialising in trend forecasting and project development.

Summer shows

Course fees

This course offers a professional placement (sandwich) year in year 3. If you choose to take this placement you will pay a reduced fee during this year. For students starting their undergraduate degree in the 2026–27 academic year, the fee for the professional placement year is £1,958. This fee may be subject to small increases in line with inflation.

The course fees shown here are what you will pay for the first year of your course if you start in the academic year 2026–27 and you are studying full-time (fee amount is subject to parliamentary approval). You pay fees in each year of your course. The fees you pay may increase each year.

Regulated fees

Fees for UK students on undergraduate and some postgraduate courses are set by the UK government. These are known as regulated fees. From academic year 2026–27, regulated fees will increase annually in line with forecast inflation.

Student Finance England loans for tuition fees and maintenance will also rise in line with inflation.

If you are studying part-time your fee will usually be calculated based on the number of modules that you take.

Unregulated fees

Course fees for international students taking undergraduate courses and for most postgraduate courses are not regulated by the UK government. Unregulated fees may increase each year by up to 5% or the forecast Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation (whichever is higher).

Find out more

• Fees, bursaries, scholarships and government funding info for UK and international undergraduate students
• Student finance and budgeting while studying
• Read our student contract and (pdf) for more on University of 91快活林 tuition fees.
• 91快活林 Boost – cost of living help for our new undergrad students. Find out about how we can help with your study, accommodation or travel costs and more.

Campus where this course is taught

Accommodation

Local area

Maps

Support and wellbeing

Sport at 91快活林