The textiles industry is continually evolving. Developing new products that meet the needs of a changing market demands a combination of technology and design technology. This programme will give you access to the latest developments across the textile industry to equip you for these challenges.
You’ll receive training in key skills including laboratory practice, problem solving, and reasoning, and you’ll undertake a substantial research dissertation. In addition, you’ll have the chance to specialise in either textile technology or textile design technology, depending on your own interests and career plans. A variety of optional modules will also give you the chance to learn about topics such as medical textiles, or fashion and sustainability.
Taught by experts in one of the UK’s major hubs for textile research, this programme will help you gain the specialist knowledge and skills to build a career in a fast-paced and challenging industry.
We have plenty of facilities to help you make the most of your time at Leeds, including well-equipped laboratories and purpose-built computer clusters so you can build your skills on both PC and Mac.
The course is accredited by the Society of Dyers and Colourists as being equivalent to its ASDC examinations leading to Chartered Colourist (CCol) status. It is also accredited by The Textile Institute at Associate level (CText ATI), this demonstrates a good broad knowledge of textiles and its application, and allows you to apply for Licentiateship (LTI) upon graduation, and Associateship (CText ATI) after one year in industry.
Everyone studies the same compulsory modules throughout the programme, which allow you to become a confident researcher and give you experience of practical lab work in Semester 2. You’ll apply the knowledge and skills that you have gained throughout the course to a substantial piece of independent research, which you’ll submit by the end of the programme in September.
You’ll also have the chance to specialise in the aspects of textiles that interest you by selecting the appropriate pathway.
Textile Design Technology pathway
In the modules on this pathway you’ll learn how to view technology through the eyes of both the designer and the technologist. You’ll gain understanding of how to manipulate technology to design and produce new products and how to maintain and/or improve the desirability of current products.
Textile Technology pathway
You will gain in-depth knowledge of advanced textile technology, textile processes and quality management together with the science, technology and testing of functional textile materials, product development, coloration and finishing processes, medical textiles, nonwovens and performance clothing.
If you choose to study part-time, you’ll study over a longer period and take fewer modules in each year.
Compulsory modules
Optional modules
For more information on typical modules, read Textiles MSc Full Time in the course catalogue
For more information on typical modules, read Textiles MSc Part Time in the course catalogue
We use various teaching and learning methods, including practicals, lectures, seminars and tutorials. Independent study is also vital to this degree, allowing you to develop your skills and prepare for taught sessions so you can make the most of them.
You’ll be assessed by a range of methods including essays and exams as well as practical and project work, reports, literature reviews and presentations.
This degree is designed to equip you with a wide range of knowledge and skills to succeed in careers such as textile management, technical consultancy, and education and training. You’ll also be well prepared to continue with academic research in textiles at PhD level.
If you take the Textile Design Technology pathway, you could work in the industry as designers or in areas, which need an understanding of technology and design e.g. buying, textile product development for apparel, and in various third party testing houses. Moreover, you could work in various textile industries in managerial positions including the retail and supply chain management with major clothing companies and their suppliers.
The Textile Technology pathway will allow you to gain the skills to pursue a career in any of the following fields: technical consultancy; education and training; and academic research in technical textiles. You may also be employed as a product development technologist in specialist fields such as medical textiles, geotextiles and civil engineering materials, aerospace and transport engineering materials, and sport and performance clothing.
We encourage you to prepare for your career from day one. That’s one of the reasons Leeds graduates are so sought after by employers.
The Careers Centre and staff in your faculty provide a range of help and advice to help you plan your career and make well-informed decisions along the way, even after you graduate. Find out more at the Careers website.
MA Printed Textiles for Fashion & Interiors offers a practice based, design led experience, which develops your creative vision and redefines your professional practice. You’ll be encouraged to push boundaries and challenge yourself; we provide you with a stimulating and supportive environment in which to do this. You’ll have the freedom to explore and combine traditional, handcrafted design and production techniques with the latest innovations in digital technology, while researching constantly evolving materials and new technologies. You can create diverse design solutions that span a variety of outcomes.
Print for fashion covers: printed textiles collections for fashion, printed samples, experimental print pieces, printed garment prototypes, print design concepts or range plans, and printed fashion related products or accessories.
Print for interiors covers: printed furnishings, fashion led interior print concepts, one off printed textiles, installation or site specific works, printed product prototypes, floor and wall coverings as well as exterior print applications.
Situated within the internationally recognised School of Fashion at UCA Rochester, the MA Printed Textiles for Fashion & Interiors course offers you the opportunity for in-depth exploration and creative idea development in the specialist subject area of printed textiles for contemporary creative and fashion related industries.
This unique course offers you an exciting opportunity to make your creative vision a reality, master your skills, and develop new research methods, exploring innovative, relevant and sustainable solutions for fashion and textiles. Practice based research and theoretical research are integrated throughout the course. This course will help you to develop an individual design philosophy and the research methodology, visual, creative and practical skills you need to work in contemporary practice.
You’ll be challenged to exceed your personal best, gaining in confidence and professionalism throughout the programme through critical debate, seminars, lectures, tutorials, visiting speakers, group critiques, market research and personal research.
A vibrant creative studio culture with your own individual workspace combined with a programme of tutorials, lecturers, seminars and critiques is designed to support the development of your research and practice. As part of this course you will be involved in professional practice, such as a live industry project brief, competition work, industry sponsorship or industry engagement activities.
Working in our extensive, well-equipped fashion and textiles workshops, print rooms and studios, you’ll be supported by a team of expert academic and technical staff, who have a wide range industry experience. The facilities at UCA Rochester are second to none. As well as specialist studios, equipment and software it boasts a wide range of industry-standard facilities including state-of-the-art fashion technology.
As part of this course you will have access to well-established industry connections. These include:
-Alexander McQueen
-Peter Pilotto
-Jonathan Saundrers
-The Victoria & Albert Museum in London
-WGSN
-Erdem
-Preen
-Keeler Gordon
From day one on the course you start to build a professional portfolio, exploring ways to externalise your practice and create an online presence and ways to present your work to industry. This can evolve through first-hand experience, industry engagement activities and internships, or through working with fashion studios and agents, buyers, shops, galleries and interior designers as well as exhibition, national competitions and online selling platforms. Fashion Textiles graduates from UCA Rochester have secured positions in many fashion and textiles companies including:
-Jimmy Choo
-Debenhams
-Skinny Dip
-Eyefix International
-House of Fraser
The wide range of career opportunities open to our graduates include:
-Print design for clothes, fashion accessories and interiors
-CAD design for printed textiles, fabrics and print products
-Textile designers
-Self-employed designer/makers
-Public art practitioners
-Arts educators and teachers
-Fashion buyers and retailers
-Freelance design/research and tend forecasting
-Artist in residence.
Visit our Postgraduate Virtual Media Space to find out more about our courses, see what it's like to study at UCA and gain access to our campus virtual tours.
Textiles offer uniquely fluid, flexible and infinitely adaptable ways of questioning, examining and solving the some of the societal challenges that face us. This powerful agency is more valuable and vital than ever before as these challenges become increasingly complex.
Textiles at the RCA is a multi-faceted discipline and our staff and students work at the creative interface between materials, making and meaning. Our focus is innovation that impacts and spans across many sectors exploring new territories for the twenty-first century Textiles specialist.
New materials, new ways of making and new ways of experiencing our man-made world require us to constantly reconsider and question our activities, generating a culture of creative restlessness throughout the activities of the programme, which include 4* research, a growing PGR community and a dynamic masters course.
We engage with industry at all levels and our graduates’ career profiles match this multi-faceted identity.
This demands a challenging and dynamic approach that frequently employs multidisciplinary and collaborative methods. Our discipline thrives on a spirit of creative flux that encourages stepping away from the status-quo.
The research culture in the Textiles programme has a strong history of creative collaboration between studio, workshop and industry, with material innovations such as Pinatex securing Intellectual Property for researchers and finding applications in manufacture. Textile researchers, both staff and students, work in an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary way with scientists, engineers, ethnographers, anthropologists, designers and artists providing new solutions to social, cultural and material challenges.
Out team of postgraduate MPhil and PhD candidates include candidates funded through the London Doctoral Design Centre and the ArcInTex European Training Network initiative with supervisory support from within the programme and the College.
Our two-year <a href="https://www.rca.ac.uk/schools/school-of-design/textiles/ma-description/" target="_blank">MA programme fosters the development of a personal and unique design philosophy through a combination of individual, personally driven initiatives, collaborative work, industry-orientated and interdisciplinary projects. This enables our students to develop their own multi-faceted response to the challenges of the discipline and are equally adept at working individually and in teams.
We embrace an open-minded, experimental studio culture and our students pursue their ideas through a wide variety of practical work incorporating new and traditional technologies.
Our MA Textiles course is constructed around the development of individual research into textile culture, craft and design. It will enable you to combine previous experience of textiles practice with a personal project.
As a student on our course, you'll be encouraged and supported through the process of exploration, interrogation, transformation and resolution. You'll question your own conventions of making, challenge your own assumptions about your work, innovate with materials, processes, techniques and ideas, and emerge from the postgraduate experience with a renewed sense of personal vision.
Our course team are practising researchers, involved in a range of textile practices, exhibiting and publishing internationally, including Professor Lesley Millar MBE. You'll benefit from our links with established artists and designers drawn from an international cohort, studio-workshops and galleries, as well as with the Craft Study Centre. This is a purpose-built museum, research centre and gallery dedicated to crafts based at our Farnham campus.
On this course you'll be taught through tutorials, lecturers, seminars and critiques support the development of your research and practice. As part of the course you're expected to undertake some form of professional practice, such as a live brief, competition, application for a residency, funding or a work placement.
As part of this course, you'll have access to well-established industry connections. These include:
-The Crafts Council
-Royal School of Needlework
-Farnham Maltings
-Selvedge Magazine
-Nuno Corporation
-The New Ashgate Gallery
-Melin Tregwynt Woollen Mill
Recent guest lecturers include:
-Rachel Kelly, wallpaper designer
-Yosi Anaya, textiles designer
-Dr Jane Harris, textiles designer.
Our course will equip you with a host of valuable and transferable skills. Upon successful completion, you may decide to become self-employed, or forge a career within the craft and design industries. These offer a variety of career opportunities, including:
-Freelance design professionals
-Self-employed designer-makers
-Textile designers
-Public art practitioners
-Textile conservationists and curators
-Arts educators and teachers
-Textile stylists
-Fashion buyers and retailers
-Gallery directors.
Visit our Postgraduate Virtual Media Space to find out more about our courses, see what it's like to study at UCA and gain access to our campus virtual tours.
This programme offers a rich and stimulating exploration of materials and textile processes with applications spanning a broad range of contexts, and challenging any boundaries which may define what textiles can be.
We’ll nurture the development of your interests through focused research. With subjects tailored to your own curiosity in and around textiles, this variety of approaches within each cohort creates a rich environment for innovation. This breadth is also reflected in the range of staff working on the programme, with a stimulating mix of backgrounds from print, embroidery, and woven textiles as well as graphics and jewellery.
While embedding the rudiments of the techniques and facilities of the discipline, we encourage you to embrace the possibilities available and consider the collaborative partnerships and excellent facilities that the wider design school and University can offer to enrich your projects. Through our links with the textiles and fashion industries, you’ll be supported to find a work placement during your studies, gaining valuable industry experience.
*Please note that the one year MA is under review for 2017/18. Applications are currently being accepted for the two year MFA only.
On the one-year MA programme, you will produce a body of work on an agreed proposed topic, culminating in resolved practical solutions. The longer MFA allows you to complete an extended investigation. Both are project-led.
Classes are offered in drawing skills, technical workshops in the dye lab, print room, and in our computer aided design (CAD) suite for digital printing and CAD embroidery. Your study will combine practical studio work closely entwined with theoretical and written studies, including professional practice elements to prepare you for employment in the industry.
A lecture/seminar series will help you examine the wider context for your project, and will help you to articulate your ideas through the written and spoken word.
This programme can offer a route into careers in many areas, including the fashion, textile industries, and beyond. Our graduates have an excellent track record, going on to work directly in design studios in London, Paris and New York, in companies such as Red or Dead, Osborne and Little, Cole & Son, and Diane von Furstenberg. ECA graduates have become stylists, fashion buyers, illustrators or fine artists, while others have pursued careers in related design industries such as automotive interiors and interior design.
