Dual City Couses - London Milan

Tutors: Daniela Bomba (London) and Liuba Popova (Milan)

London (9  day course)

Monday 25 June to Thursday 5 July

London - the Capital of Fashion Innovation

During this course you will experience London’s fashion and culture of London. You will develop observational and visual research skills and confidence when expressing ideas and concepts. The course will inspire and encourage you to develop your awareness of current trends and popular culture and document your findings.

London's instinct for innovative fashion springs from its rich history of street style, from 1970s punks, through to the East London club-kid scene today. World renowned institutions, like Central Saint Martins, breed creativity and this is explored in the alternative publications like Dazed and Confused and I-D magazine, available to buy from vintage street sellers like Portobello Road or Brick Lane, and represented in high end boutiques and concept stores like Dover Street Market. Even the British high street has the most original offering of affordable fashion in the world.

Key research skills and an open mind are needed to unlock a city this vast and varied. Over nine days, through group discussion and exploration you will be guided through the city's hidden fashion secrets from underground galleries, new designers studios, cutting edge PR showrooms and all the while gathering a personal portfolio of sketchbooks, mood boards and pictures, to motivate further projects, or simply as a documentation of a week spent in an inspirational city.

You will be set research projects and you will be involved in group discussions supported by visits and field trips that will allow you to experience the contemporary fashion world. You will explore the influences that fashion creatives take from the visual world around them.

Lateral thinking and personal development is addressed through research and discussion. At the end of this project you will have a deeper understanding of how to express your ideas through a variety of media and how to structure a research project, and articulate your ideas through visual presentation.

Themes to be explored during the week and overall structure will include:

• Introducing London History of London fashion, including street style, current trends from designers to the high street
• From Inspiration to Research to Presentation: how to articulate creative ideas to a client using London the city as a subject
• Field Trips, visits and research building including; gallery trips, visits to contemporary PR agency, festivals
• Final presentation of ideas

This course is open to anyone with an interest in fashion who wants to understand how to research and define trends in Fashion, street trends and develop visual research skills. No prior experience is required.

> > > > > > > > > > > > > > >

Independent Travel (4 days)

Friday 6 July to Monday 9 July

> > > > > > >  > > > > > > > >

Milan (9 day course)

Tuesday 10 July to Friday 20 July

MILAN - the Economic Capital of Luxury Fashion

The most famous Italian fashion brands are based in Milan: Prada, Armani, Marni, Dolce&Gabbana, Trussardi, Ferrè, and many others, have their headquarters here. In Milan there is a large number of fashion fairs specialising in textiles, shoes, leather accessories, womenswear and menswear, attended by thousands of international buyers and journalists.

The course in Milan focuses on site visits and lectures giving you an understanding of the history of Italian style and Italian fashion industry, from small-scale artisan ateliers in the Forties and Fifties to the contemporary expansion of numerous Italian companies on the worldwide luxury goods market. The lessons will offer a social and cultural analysis of the Italian fashion phenomenon and will illustrate the philosophy, the style and the economic structure of the most important Italian fashion brands.

The fashion phenomenon in Milan is related to the structure of the city, to its lifestyle and way of shopping. The Quadrilateral area is representative of Milanese fashion - an “open-air department store” with the best designer boutiques concentrated within short walking distance of one another. It houses designer labels, excellent in prêt-à-porter outlets and accessories. Some of the most famous fashion designers have their cafés and restaurants there, such as “Armani/Privè”, an exclusive lounge bar, popular among young Milanese professionals, where you might run into Giorgio Armani, or a modern Emporio Armani Caffè, where the Armani's staff go for lunch. Nearby is the internationally renowned opera house “Teatro alla Scala” the “Trussardi Palace” with boutiques, an art gallery, a café and a restaurant illustrating the importance of high quality food to the “Italian style”.

As well as the Fashion Quadrilatero, there are also the commercial areas of mass consumption, and entirely new areas of the city “colonised” by fashion boutiques, showrooms and locations. The area called “Isola” with numerous “al fresco” cafés became popular among international fashion people since the trendiest concept store “Corso Como 10” opened here 20 years ago.

During the first week you will explore the city, guided by your tutor, visiting fashion areas, shops, exhibitions and showrooms, collecting pictures, sketches, written notes and documentation for your personal portfolio. This cultural research on Italian Style and the Italian fashion system will be useful for further cultural and fashion studies.

The second week will be dedicated to group discussions and the development of an individual research project and a final presentation.

The program will include:

• Lectures on the Italian fashion system and its history with projection of images and videos, comments and discussions with students
• Lectures on the Milanese style and historical fashion brands
• Field trips, external visits to fashion areas, shops, exhibitions, showrooms
• Lessons on how to organise and present research and creative ideas inspired by the city
• Final presentation

Course Dates

London: Monday 25 June to Thursday 5 July

Independent Travel: Friday 6 July to Monday 9 July

Milan: Tuesday 10 July to Friday 20 July

Course Fee: £1975

Tutor (London) Daniela Bomba

Daniela Bomba graduated from the MA in Womenswear from Central Saint Martins in 2010. She has worked for fashion labels including Luella and Maria Francesca Pepe and international clients including LPP in Poland. She is currently a freelance design consultant for LPP and a freelance Windows creative stylist for Selfridges.

Tutor (Milan) Liuba Popova

Liuba Popova is a costume and theatre designer, fashion journalist and professor of History of Fashion, born in Moscow, living in Milan.
She graduated from Moscow University of Technology and Design (Bachelor in Fashion - Textile Technology and Design) and at the Academy of Fine Arts Brera in Milan (Bachelor in Theatre Design), she took a Master course in Scenography and Costume Design at Teatro Alla Scala in Milan and studied under Prof. Tito Varisco. Costume designer at Costume Dept. of Teatro Alla Scala in Milan in 1976-78, costume designer and scenographer at RAI - Italian National Broadcasting Corporation - in Milan from 1978 till 1987. From 1980 till now: professor of History of Fashion at NABA in Milan. Head of School of Fashion and Textiles of NABA from 1993 till 2002. From 2000 till 2007: journalist - correspondent from Italy of “M-Collection” International Fashion Magazine in Russian and German editions. Collaboration with various fashion magazines, such as “Fashion Theory”, “Arround the World”, “Discovery”.
Author and coordinator of various international projects, such as “Narcissism in Oscar Wilde and in Present-day Fashion”, with the support of the British Council and the European Commission in 1996. Board member of the ELIA (European League of Institutes of the Arts) in Amsterdam from 1998 till 2002. Author of various conferences on “Sociological and Economical Aspects of the Italian Fashion System” at S. Petersburg International Fashion Industry Fair from 2004 till now.
Publications: “Narcissism in Oscar Wilde and in the Present-day Fashion” (Milan 2000), “Maschile, femminile e altro - Le mutazioni dell'identità nella moda dal 1900 ad oggi” (Milan 2005), “La Moda e la Cultura del Buon Vivere” (Cosenza 2011).

Book Now

London and Milan accommodation

Travel information

Frequently asked questions

Location maps

The fee is inclusive of the cost of tuition.  Please note that accommodation, travel, insurance and living expenses are not included.