Fashion at the centre of life

TEXT BY Prof. Dirk Wolfes Head of Department

For many parts of the population, fashion is predominantly experienced only in the consumption of media and products. However, fashion is much more and is at the centre of everyday life. The fashion industry is one of the largest industries in the world. The rapid and fundamental changes in society are seismographically reflected by fashion.

The Fashion Design Department, which emerged from the fashion class of the Werkkunstschule Trier founded in 1922, has since 1971 aligned and adapted its content and personnel structure with a far-reaching view to the requirements of the German fashion and clothing industry.In the process, the balance of practice through craftsmanship and technology on the one hand and theory based on artistic design and science on the other hand has been the focus of teaching, thus following a guiding principle of Walter Gropius' ideas from the development of the Werkkunstschule.

This successful balance has ensured a broad and well-founded education for most graduates and is the reason for a degree that is one of the most renowned in the field of fashion design in Germany and Europe. The career fields of the graduates are exceptionally diverse and range from fashion design, company start-ups, fashion distribution and fashion journalism to artist personalities, gallery owners and agency owners.

In the coming years, digitalisation and profound technological changes in production, construction and distribution will fundamentally change the direction of the fashion industry and its subsequent professions. At the same time, the nature and extent of the change is not yet fully foreseeable. Nevertheless, it is important for the discipline of fashion design to face up to these fundamental changes and to adapt the degree programme to these new challenges without ignoring its tradition. From a professional point of view, the faculty is unanimous in maintaining the previously practised balance of well-founded technical expertise and theoretical artistic knowledge while also adapting to new requirements. The further development of the subject area is oriented towards the changes in professional profiles in the fashion industry, especially with regard to the topics of digitalisation, sustainability and management.

In den kommenden Jahren liegt durch die Digitalisierung und tiefgreifenden technologischen Veränderungen in Produktion, Konstruktion und Distribution ein grundlegender Wandel in der Neuausrichtung vor der Modebranche und den anschließenden Berufsfeldern. Dabei ist Art und Umfang des Wandels im Moment noch gar nicht vollständig abzusehen. Dennoch gilt es für die Fachrichtung Modedesign, sich diesen grundlegenden Veränderungen zu stellen und den Studiengang in seiner Tradition diesen neuen Herausforderungen anzupassen. Aus der fachlichen Sicht ist das Kollegium sich einig, dass die bisher praktizierte Balance aus fundiert handwerklichem Fachwissen und theoretischem künstlerischen Wissen dezidiert aufrechterhalten und den Anforderungen angepasst werden muss. Die Weiterentwicklung der Fachrichtung orientiert sich an den Veränderungen der Berufsbilder in der Modebranche besonders im Hinblick auf die Themen Digitalisierung, Nachhaltigkeit und des Managements.

Die Fachrichtung Modedesign sieht darüber hinaus eine internationale Ausrichtung des Ausbildungsangebotes in der Zusammenarbeit mit Partnerhochschulen als maßgeblich entscheidend für die Lebenswege der Studierenden an. Es gilt die enge Vernetzung mit, internationalen Hochschulen, der internationalen Modebranche und die weitreichenden fachlichen Verbindungen durch das Netzwerk vieler erfolgreicher Alumni verstärkt zu nutzen.

The Fashion Design Department also sees an international orientation in the training offered through collaboration with partner universities as decisive for the students' life paths. The close networking with international universities, the international fashion industry and the far-reaching professional connections through the network of many successful alumni must be used intensively.