Fashion and Apparel Design Major

Find your authentic voice

Fashion and Apparel Design is an exploration of fashion across gender, accessibility, size, trends and the future of the industry itself. In Fashion and Apparel Design, you’ll find your authentic voice through making garments, understanding fabrics, creating patterns and exploring sustainable design. In the spirit of inclusion, you’ll make clothing for everyone, solving garment challenges for a range of demographic needs.

A student holds up a shirt

A group of fashion students sit in front of a panel of windows during class

Fashion and Apparel Design will prepare you to develop an identity as a designer with focus on design, craft, sustainability, diversity and collaboration. Mechanical and digital technologies will support your exploration. Understanding the social, environmental and economic impacts of apparel will empower you to become an agent of change in the fashion industry.

Fashion and Apparel Design Major

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Our Curriculum

With a focus on creating sustainable fashion and apparel for all body types and identities, Fashion and Apparel Design educates you in textile usage, surface treatments and garment recycling with an emphasis on cultural influence in usage and design.

View Program of Study View Courses

A student leans over a dress form to pin floral orange fabric into the waist of a dress

Fashion and Apparel Design in the world. MIAD graduates hold influential positions in design with prominent brands such as Milwaukee Tool, Jockey, Harley-Davidson, Land’s End, Kohl’s and more. The United States fashion industry is valued at approximately $370 billion. Approximately 430 million people work in fashion, clothing, and textile production, meaning that about 13% of people working around the globe are contributing to making the world’s clothes, shoes and accessories. The apparel market in the United States is expected to grow by nearly 3% annually.

Top Employers

Milwaukee Tool, Jockey, Harley-Davidson, Land’s End, Kohl’s and more.

Fashion and Apparel Design News

A knitted blue, green and pink cardigan with a braided button band.

Wool-ful: Senior Exhibition 2024

A green sign with fun font says "Resources!" above a bookshelf with titles like "I'm having top surgery." A paper lion sits on the bookshelf, along with a bucket of pride flags.

WI LGBT Chamber of Commerce names MIAD Nonprofit Business of the Year

Vanessa Andrew helps a student at her store, Madam Chino.

First-Year class takes field trip to visit local textile artist

A quilt made of different squares that have to do with resistance and LGBT+ rights.

Intergenerational sharing as knowledge building at MIAD

Student Work

A person stands in a white shirt under a purple knit dress with a bodice made of rough sackcloth.

Bailey Staerkel, Fashion and Apparel Design, 2023

A person models a brown corduroy jacket with large pink and blue cloth flowers sewn into it.

Chad Alexander Matha, Fine Art + New Studio Practice, 2023

A student sits in an oversized gray shirt wearing a knitted white bonnet, working with green yarn on a knitted garment.

Mary Hoffman, Product Design, 2023

A student models a colorful sweatshirt with orange sleeves, a colorful patterned front, with a large purple patch on the front as a pocket.

Hayden Wendel, Fashion and Apparel Design, 2022

A student models a black shirt and short skirt with a sheer black tulle layer over the skirt against a red background.

Emma Travitz, Product Design, 2023

A person models a velvety long-sleeved shirt earth-toned multicolored shirt in yellow and green. The person wears pearls and pink earrings.

Julianna All, Illustration, 2023

A chocolate-colored strapless dress with puffy golden sleeves and a necklace detail of round brown beads.

Miah Brown, Fashion and Apparel Design, 2022

A student models black pants and a gray shirt with teal details and the number 01 in red on the shirt.

Bailey Staerkel, Fashion and Apparel Design, 2023

A strappy knitted dress made of mainly purple, pink, green and black yarn.

Mary Hoffman, Product Design, 2023

Anna Siemsen, NSP: Fine Arts Senior Exhibition, 2021

Emmy Shearer, NSP: Fine Arts Senior Exhibition, 2018

Wenyuan Chen, Product Design Senior Exhibition, 2020

Analisia Torres, NSP: Fine Arts Senior Exhibition, 2019

Olivia Paul, Product Design Senior Exhibition, 2021

Graciella Delgado, NSP: Fine Arts Senior Exhibition, 2022

Zoya Chicks, Product Design Senior Exhibition, 2020

Wenyuan Chen, Product Design Senior Exhibition, 2020

Marissa Virginia Macias, NSP: Fine Arts Senior Exhibition, 2018

Julianna Frixione Clayton, Product Design, year unknown

Analisia Torres, NSP: Fine Arts Senior Exhibition, 2019

Ayana Perry, Integrated Studio Arts Senior Exhibition, 2017

Marissa Virginia Macias, NSP: Fine Arts Senior Exhibition, 2018

Samantha Villazaez, Illustration Senior Exhibition, 2022

Anna Siemsen, NSP: Fine Arts Senior Exhibition, 2021

Student unknown, NSP: Fine Arts, 2017

What Can I do with my Major?

FASHION AND APPAREL DESIGN

A

Accessory Designer

C

Childrenswear Designer

Concept Developer

Costume Designer

Creative Director

D

Design Director

E

Exhibition Designer

F

Fabric Researcher

Fashion Designer

Fashion Illustrator

Fashion Merchandiser

Fashion Photographer

Fashion Vlogger

Footwear Designer

G

Garment Technologist

H

Handbag Designer

K

Knitwear Designer

P

Pattern Cutter

Pattern Designer

Pattern Grader

Personal Stylist

Print Designer

Product Developer

S

Sportswear Designer

Stylist

Sustainability Officer

T

Technical Designer

Textile Artist/Designer

Trend Forecaster

V

Visual Merchandiser