Textile design has been taught and researched at The Glasgow
School of Art since it was founded in 1845 and today, the
Department of Textiles enjoys a global reputation for cultivating
assured graduates.
Our fashion and textile graduates have clear and individual
creativity identities. They are able to position themselves and
their ideas with knowledgeable authority in the fields of not only
textiles and fashion but a range of other industries such as
interior design, automotive industry and retail.
Students acquire a thorough understanding of the design process.
They develop in-depth drawing and colour expertise alongside
traditional craft skills, CAD and high end technologic equipment
such as digital jacquard looms.
The resulting design work produced by our students is both
seductive and unpredictable - diverse sources of starting and
finishing points are always in evidence and the traditional craft
skills and new technologies jostle with each other, sometimes
embraced or rejected simultaneously, creating the most fascinating
and exquisite hybrids.
With an international community of over 150 students at
undergraduate and postgraduate level, the Department is a vibrant,
lively and exciting place to study.
Forum for Critical
Inquiry
A element of the programme is delivered by the Forum for
Critical Inquiry (FoCI) The Forum is an essential component of the
programme. For most of the four years of undergraduate programmes
in design and fine art, one day per week of the student timetable
is allocated to the Forum. It is a cross-school and
externally linked critical mass of diverse research expertise in
broad-based critical studies for contemporary creative practices in
design, art and architecture.
The range of teaching styles varies from traditional keynote
lectures to interactive discussion groups and experiential
learning. Courses are constructed in order to both underpin studio
practice and to open out and extend the range of student
research.
All students are required to attend lectures and discussion
groups, to make oral presentations, to write essays and in the
final year, to present a piece of personal research in the form of
an Extended Essay (20% of the final degree mark) or a Dissertation
(30% of the final degree mark).
Students requiring learning support are provided with additional
teaching tailored to individual needs. Each student also has a
departmental contact tutor who acts in an advisory and pastoral
capacity in relation to progress in Forum for Critical Inquiry.
