MSc Fashion Analytics and Forecasting

Fashion Analytics and Forecasting

The global fashion industry is a highly competitive market in which the consumer now demands sustainable, efficient, and inclusive business operations. External shocks create risk and opportunity within the industry so accelerating the need for digital innovation and e-commerce initiatives. The need to harness data to improve fashion business models is at its peak in an industry that has traditionally relied on intuition and creative direction for setting global trends. Data-driven insights and accurate forecasts are needed to support investment decisions, model demand for new products, technologies and business practices. As such, fashion businesses must develop a strategic response to continual global economic change, sustainability agendas and technological developments to retain their competitive advantage. Accordingly, there is a growing need for graduates who are competent and confident in skills of data analysis.

The course is delivered fully online. It is unique in LCF as the first of our taught Master’s courses to bring together the teaching and research expertise of all three schools. The Fashion Business School (FBS) leads the course with specialist units delivered by staff from School of Media and Communication (SMC) and School of Design and Technology (SDT). As an advanced signatory to the UN Principles of Responsible Management Education (PRME), FBS tailors its curriculum to meet the six principles of responsible management education. The curriculum emphasises the development of an understanding of the contemporary global fashion industry coupled with quantitative data literacy and data analytics in a world where unforeseen events have reinforced the importance of data-driven insights.

The course aims to provide you with a solid grounding in both theoretical and practical approaches to quantitative data analysis and visualisation within the wider disciplines of supply chain management, consumer insights, economics, and research methods as relevant to the contemporary global fashion industry. Our learning approaches encourage you to work autonomously and creatively whilst enabling you to develop confidence in becoming a reflective learner, strategic thinker, and effective decision-maker.

Postgraduate Block 1

Unit Name: Forecasting & the Global Fashion Economy

This unit will introduce you to the economic environment of the global fashion industry via an in-depth foundation in fundamental micro and macroeconomic concepts that lead to sustainable economic growth. You will be introduced to the economics of supply chain management and a wide range of advanced univariate forecasting techniques and their application via R Studio for predicting future economic trends relevant to the global fashion industry. The basic coding skills which you learn in this unit will provide a foundation for future units.

Unit Name: Collaborative Challenge

This unit is your opportunity to innovate and explore developmental processes and engage with collaborative working practices. You will develop your professional negotiation, teamwork and networking skills that are essential in the cultural, entrepreneurial, and creative industries. The emphasis of this unit is on developing and showcasing your consultancy skills. You can engage with industry or college-based briefs.

Unit Name: Connecting with Global Fashion Consumers

This unit is delivered by LCF’s School of Media and Communication. You will be introduced to the principles of communication with diverse consumer audiences and the role of data in fashion communication. The unit also emphasises data protection, privacy, and the ethical use of data in communications. You will develop your skills for storytelling and engaging global fashion consumer audiences through written and visual narratives.

Postgraduate Block 2

Unit Name: Quantitative Research Methods

This unit is designed to support the development of the research design of your MSc Master’s Project and your advanced quantitative research skills for consumer data collection and analysis. You will develop the advanced skills necessary for critically evaluating secondary research, designing reliable and valid quantitative research instruments, and conducting hypothesis tests with parametric and non-parametric statistical tests which will benefit the remainder of this course and your future employability. You will obtain experience in using industry relevant software to design, analyse and evaluate a consumer survey in response to a current fashion business problem of your choice.

Unit Name: Principles of Machine Learning for Fashion Analytics

This unit aims to develop your understanding of e-commerce led fashion business models and introduce the basic theory underpinning key machine learning and data mining techniques for uncovering hidden insights from Big Data in fashion. The unit will focus on the practical application of supervised learning algorithms and data mining techniques on fashion consumer data with a critical appraisal of the associated ethical issues. You will be exposed to a toolbox of automated machine learning algorithms. The skills you develop will enable you to successfully apply a selected machine learning or data mining algorithm on fashion-related Big Data.

Unit Name: Data Driven Fashion Product Innovation

This unit is delivered by LCF’s School of Design and Technology with the aim of challenging traditional assumptions of fashion industry practices by using data in fashion product innovation. Fashion design requires a dynamic supply chain management process to meet contemporary demands for better products. This in turn requires data analytics to inform the development of sustainable business models. The strategic application of complex data from a wide range of sources will validate a concept and situate this in a contemporary context that drives advanced practices in fashion product innovation. You will learn to critically analyse the impact of changing consumer preferences on product life cycles, supply chain strategies, and sustainable business models. The analysis will support you to propose a conceptual framework and/or fashion product innovation idea for a specific market or sector.

Postgraduate Block 3

Unit Name: Master’s Project

The Master’s Project is an important piece of work central to achieving the course aims, which will provide an opportunity for you to demonstrate your knowledge and skills in relation to the course learning outcomes. Throughout the Master’s Project, you are guided and supported by tutorials and peer and staff evaluation at interim stages. You will be allocated a supervisor for your project and will complete a learning contract outlining how you intend to develop and deliver your project.

The credit framework conforms to the University of the Arts London framework in which the unit of credit is 20 credits (equivalent to 200 hours of student study time). All credits on the MSc program are at postgraduate level 7.

The following teaching and learning methods are employed to support the integrated aims of the course outcomes:

• Online asynchronous (pre-recorded) and online synchronous (live) lectures and briefings (large group)
• Online synchronous seminars (small group)
• Online asynchronous and online synchronous practical workshops and demonstrations (small group)
• Online academic skills workshops including library induction (small group)
• Online synchronous tutorials (individual or small group)
• Online asynchronous and online synchronous peer-to-peer and/or tutor feedback sessions (individual or small group)
• Presentations (live or pre-recorded)
• Independent learning (individual or small group)

We are in discussion with several of our current industry partners as collaborators and providers of live industry projects for this course. These partnerships are currently pending validation and legal approval.

"This course is going to provide us with future industry leaders capable of both staying ahead of fashion trends but also anticipating changing customer behaviour and how to react fast.”

Nishi Overton (Head of Marketing and Scaling at Amazon)

“Data analytics is crucial in retail. The technical proficiency this course teaches is a great opportunity for someone that has a retail background and wants to expand their skill set to make better insights with data.”

Rosie Hood (PhD, Senior Data Scientist at EDITED)

"Talented analysts are a sought after resource in retail. One of the main challenges is finding analysts who are skilled at the quantitative elements but are also tuned into the bigger picture of the business needs and the impact their number crunching has as part of a profit making venture. So, the idea of this (course) whereby you’re taking a business student and teaching the ways of data and analytics, I think that would equip your students with quite a valuable skillset to get themselves hired.”

Matthew Walsh (Director of Data and Retail at IMRG)

The course is delivered fully online. It is unique in LCF as the first of our taught Master’s courses to bring together the teaching and research expertise of all three schools. The Fashion Business School (FBS) leads the course with specialist units delivered by staff from School of Media and Communication (SMC) and School of Design and Technology (SDT). As an advanced signatory to the UN Principles of Responsible Management Education (PRME), FBS tailors its curriculum to meet the six principles of responsible management education. The curriculum emphasises the development of an understanding of the contemporary global fashion industry coupled with quantitative data literacy and data analytics in a world where unforeseen events have reinforced the importance of data-driven insights.