School of Apparel Design & Development

Part of learning how to make patterns and design choices for your garments is learning how to interpret and communicate techniques. Our first year students are given an assignment to pick a collar and bodice photo, then as a group recreate their inspiration as accurately as possible.
This is a challenging multi-week process with multiple muslin trials. A toolbox of techniques learned through quarter one and two are applied to make adjustments and instructors meet with each group to help refine the process.
Pictured are our two sections of final garments as well as muslin pattern alterations as a process, determining proportionality, and student presentations.

Would you like to know the stories behind the photos? How many snaps til you get to the center of the garment? What do you think the dress forms have to say about their designers? Can you ever really have too many supplies? (The answer is no.) What happened to set the scene for this Renaissance painting styled grouping? Us looking at you!

You are invited!!

Everyone is welcome to our 2026 Fashion Portfolio Showcase happening Wednesday, June 17th from 2-8pm. Happy Hour will be 5:30-6:30 and our departmental graduation ceremony will happen at 6:45.
Please come celebrate our graduates’ hard work and creative success! Each graduate will have their own space to display three complete looks for their collection. You can meet the designers, ask them questions, and check out their portfolios! We look forward to seeing you there!

One of the major tenets of our Apparel Design & Development program is introducing and leveling up student’s skills in CAD. We currently feature the use of the Microsoft suite, multiple Adobe programs, Optitex 3D (patternmaking and grading), and Browzwear (additional patternmaking and model renders). Adobe illustrator is featured heavily throughout the program with two quarters of focused education devoted to teaching techniques, building libraries, and refining drawing accuracy.
Exhibited here are the presentation boards from our current first year students’ final presentations for our Computer Apps II course, completed last quarter. Students choose a fashion garment that exists anywhere in the world and are asked to recreate it as a technical drawing with Adobe illustrator. Details of the garments such as seams, sewing finishes, findings, closures, fabric volume, and shadows are meant to be conveyed with the sketch. Strong design layout choices and inclusion of artistic principles leaned in first quarter are also features of the assignment.
We think they did a pretty good job, don’t you?

We are extremely grateful to be able to visit the today. It’s such a beautiful space! Special thanks to Dave for being gracious about letting me invite myself on his tour. We were lucky to be able to leave some of our excess duplicate tools and pick up some used, but extremely useful items for the lab. (Is it just me or does the second slide antique tool display have a lounging dog doppelgänger?)

The Drop! This Wednesday and Thursday were the drop due dates for Final Line collection look one and the lab has been buckled down to finish everything on time. The basement floor’s vending machine Celsius supply is long sold out and the sleep schedules are hanging on for dear life. Please enjoy this brief behind the scenes of the first of three drops this quarter for the capstone project. Find out who scales the highest table, how many pleats is enough pleats, what makes that toast so happy (it’s full of money), and enjoy the workspaces of our talented second year class. Congratulations you on your first deadline! Now back to work. 🧵

Spring quarter brings the Final Line sprint for second year students. They have one quarter to complete their capsule collection of at least three full looks. They must design, pattern, and construct the looks with fittings and prototyping included in the process. This is a peek behind the scenes at the first week in the lab.