Understanding Fashion: From Business to Culture Course - Institut Français de la Mode (IFM)

Discover the business of fashion and understand the cultural impact of the fashion industry with Institut Français de la Mode.

Step into the fashion world and study fashion and culture with Chanel and YSL

Curious about how the fashion industry has transformed and shaped Western culture over the last 150 years?

This 4-week course delves into the fashion world and investigates fashion as both a cultural phenomenon and a creative industry.

You’ll explore the interaction between fashion, society and business with top fashion designers and professors from Institut Français de la Mode.

Explore the emergence of fashion trends

Where does fashion actually come from? You’ll start the course by answering this question and learning about modern fashion and its contemporary relevance.

You’ll explore the rise of the fashion industry during the industrial revolution and evaluate how brands inject modernity into their designs. The course features case studies from top fashion designers such as Chanel and Gucci.

Investigate the role of fashion designers and brands

You’ll be thinking about the relationship between fashion and politics, and asking whether fashion designers and brands have the power to be social actors.

You’ll also explore fashion code and the language of fashion, considering whether fashion brands are creative languages.

Understand consumption in the fashion industry

In your final week, you’ll investigate fashion consumption and develop your understanding of how it works as a social marker and identity construct.

You’ll evaluate what it takes to create and develop a fashion collection, and you’ll look at the intersections between trends, seasonality and innovation.

When would you like to start?

Most FutureLearn courses run multiple times. Every run of a course has a set start date but you can join it and work through it after it starts.

• Available now

Who will you learn with?

Benjamin Simmenauer

I am a permanent professor at Institut Français de la Mode, where I teach fashion theory and fashion brands strategy. My background is in analytic philosophy and social sciences.

Who developed the course?

Institut Français de la Mode (IFM)

IFM (Institut Français de la Mode) is a higher education institution specialising in the textile, fashion, luxury and design industries, based in Paris, France.