Portsmouth is the only University in the UK with the flexibility to choose when to do an optional paid placement or self-employed year. Either take a placement in your third year, or finish your studies first and complete a placement in your fourth year. You can decide if and when to take a placement after you've started your course.

Bring your creative and original ideas to life on our multi-award-winning Fashion Design degree course. You'll develop your innovation, self-awareness, and critical thinking via our teaching approach – which integrates sustainable and ethical design principles, focuses on your unique strengths, and shapes you into a confident and cultured professional. You'll also develop communication, leadership, and collaboration skills through exchange and enterprise projects, and you’ll build a deep knowledge of traditional and digital making skills using industry-level facilities.Using innovative research methods, you’ll be able to deliver authentic, imaginative work that pushes the boundaries of what fashion and textile design means now and in the future.

- Master traditional and modern fashion design methods including drawing techniques, pattern-cutting, fashion illustration, silkscreen and digital printing, embroidery and constructed textiles- Further your creativity, research, practice and environmental specialism by taking part in our sustainable fashion research project PO1- Bolster your entrepreneurship by setting up your own label or fashion company as part of your studies- Gain valuable industry experience by taking an optional placement – either with a company or as self-employed- Enhance your collaboration and team-working skills by working with other students on other courses in the Faculty of Creative and Cultural Industries- Get insight into the fashion industry by attending guest lectures by visiting international professionals – previous visitors include Julian Roberts, Niccolo Casas and Shingo Sato- Impress potential employers by exhibiting your work at the University’s annual graduate shows and Graduate Fashion Week showcases in London

Our collaborative and project-orientated course will give you the skills to become highly employable.Graduate areasOur graduates have worked across design, marketing, communications and commerce in areas such as:- fashion, textile or accessories design- trend prediction- buying- visual merchandising- teaching or lecturing- journalism or writingGraduate destinationsOur graduates have worked with some of the biggest names in fashion and major retailers, including:- Ralph Lauren- Hugo Boss- Matthew Williamson- River Island- Fat Face- Marks and SpencerAfter you leave the University, you can get help, advice and support for up to 5 years from our Careers and Employability service as you advance in your career.Graduate startupsPrevious students on this course have also set up their own fashion and textile labels. For example:- Sunny Williams set up his label, House of Sunny, in 2011 and has developed minimal, androgynous aesthetic womenswear, which sells internationally and is stocked by ASOS- Nikki Strange created her own-name line for Marks and Spencer in 2015 and also works as a freelance textile designer and visiting lecturer.