The Future of Fashion Courses is Digital

Over time, digital learning has deeply disrupted the global education sector by improving access to knowledge and competencies. Students are not anymore restricted to their local school anymore — No more borders. Instead, eLearning allows students to be trained, to gain and enhance the experience. Fashion is not an exception. In fact, Fashion schools around the world are concerned by the digital revolution. Since the ‘’new COVID-normal’’, institutions such as Parsons, Central Saint Martins, The Royal College of Art, or Tsinghua had to adapt on a long-term basis and transition from offline to online courses. In 2018, WeDesign is born from digital expansion in the educational field.

Initially, online learning wasn’t well considered due to a lack of quality and legitimacy. However, improving technologies and the industry’s needs facing the pandemic situation has made people think differently. More and more students and employees are becoming aware of the convenience and quality, getting interested in MOOC (Massive Open Online courses), masterclass, and webinars.

It is particularly pertinent for fashion to develop online training. The best education is concentrated around the industry’s design capitals — London, Paris, Tokyo, etc. Digital fashion courses enable students and professionals who want to develop their skills to tap the expertise of institutions.

Because digital learning doesn’t only concern students, but also employees and executives.

Nowadays, we learn throughout our entire career. The Fast-paced environment we know, makes us perpetual learners. Digital learning becomes the easiest, cheapest, and most efficient way to master new skills, bridge a gap of knowledge, or even start a new career.

Online courses positively impact our productivity and retention of knowledge. Studying from home gives you the flexibility to follow your own pace. Also, defining the right time and the right place to learn allows you to save a waste of time in commutation and exhaustion. Learning at your best time naturally increases knowledge retention. Therefore you learn better and faster. Digital learning is also cost-effective. Face-to-face classes require resources when eLearning only requires software. Finally, you reduce your environmental impact. — No transportation, no pollution!

Online courses are a true game-changer for fashion education. Traditional fashion institutions are still there. But eLearning comes to break free of the traditional pedagogy. Students have the opportunity to learn from any schools without geographical concerns. More than Fashion Schools going digital, there is a boom of growing Edtech companies.

But what is Edtech?

Edtech — Educational technology — means introducing IT tools into the process of learning, the acquisition of knowledge and skills. Faculties introduce eLearning since the uncertain future we know. On the contrary, Edtech companies or startups are born with digital at heart. So they directly answer today’s needs — and believe in virtual learning before the ongoing pandemic!

Learning platforms such as Coursera, Domestika, or Fashive (industry focus) are some examples of edtech companies.

Recently, students have needed to go from offline craft courses such as designing, sewing, or pattern-making to online classes. Concerns come out! The transition isn’t easy, neither for the students nor for the trainers. Facing such struggles, we forget that fashion isn’t only about drawing and sewing. Let’s focus on what goes digital and most people don’t know!

Drawings are beautiful but non-artistic colleagues or even factories will never understand your artistic sense as you would expect. Photoshop and Illustrator are two key players in the design process. Digital sketches and technical files are part of the product development process. The digitalization helps to standardize the information. If you dream of creating your clothing line, here again, artistic sensibility won’t be enough. Sourcing fabrics, understanding quality, and cost insurance are precious tools you can greatly learn online. It would bring you the confidence to develop your creative work in a professional and uniform framework.

When schools thrive to provide hight quality online fashion courses, the difficulty comes at different levels. How can trainers effectively provide guidance or correction to their students? How comfortable is the learning journey? Therefore, streamlining the learning experience becomes necessary.

A bright future for the virtual learning experience.

Here are some data showing the massive development of digital learning. According to the latest report from Global Marketing Insights, the eLearning market size will be worth over $375 billion by 2026. The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has positively impacted the market with an increasing number of organizations switching to virtual learning.

How positive is it to go online?

Although digitalization sounds like disconnecting people from reality in the first place. Technology has enabled collaboration with people far from one to another. Elearning is a new way to bring students or professionals from all over the world around similar interests and goals — creating a dynamic synergy and a much richer learning journey. People benefit from each other’s experience and expertise in a collaborative mindset. Real-time collaboration effectively addresses everyone’s strengths and weaknesses to improve their skills and grow.

It is during difficult times that human beings find inner resources to push themselves. Fashion education is digitally growing to foster new skills: 3D virtual prototyping, sustainable development, future skills in the apparel industry… Like any other sector, Fashion Institutions capture the opportunity of digital learning, and edtech companies meet the challenges: increasing resilience, training faster and better, to bridge a gap of knowledge or learning new skills. Today’s innovative fashion journey might be a mix of traditional classes combined with digital learning — to enhance competencies and boost industry growth.