This week-long workshop is aimed at high school students looking to explore a creative path for their college experience, with a purpose-driven curriculum that leads to a profession in Textile Design. Students will participate in a variety of textile design disciplines that focus on color, texture, materiality, trend, and end-use. Each day will highlight a new technique and be paired with an industry professional's presentation, making a direct connection between design education and a potential career path.

• Day 1: Ideation Exploration: Discover how to develop an idea into a concept used to create a collection. Learn how designers use color and trends to influence their designs. Students will create a mood and trend board to set the tone for the rest of the week.
• Day 2: Print Practices: Take multi-sensory inspiration from the plant world around you and create your own patterns for printed cloth. Drawing, painting, collage, and digital rendering are just a few ways to create exciting patterns.
• Day 3: Knit Wits: Learn how to knit in the modern world; no knitting needles required. Using colorful and textured yarns and the color story from Day 1, students will make knitted fabrics akin to daily wear.
• Day 4: Weaving Wonders:  Create weavings that capture the trend story from Day 1 and complement the prints and knits from earlier in the week. Students will use dynamic color combinations to create geometric patterns in structured fabrics.
• Day 5: Presentation Preparation: Gather all the materials created in the week and learn how to use daylight and cellphones to take high-quality photos of the work for presentation into a portfolio. Students will leave with a tidy package of high-quality work to show in their portfolios.

Explore your future in fashion! Through this program, you will have the opportunity to design in Thomas Jefferson University's 14,000 square-foot Fashion and Textile Futures Center. You will learn about one of the largest industries in the world from Jefferson Fashion Design faculty and industry professionals. 

This workshop invites you to explore the design process from concept research to designing a collection. You will also explore iconic fashion designers that are changing the world in sustainable fashion, ethical fashion, human-centered design, and diversity in design. Our goal is to inspire high school students to pursue fashion design education and careers at Thomas Jefferson University.

No prior sewing, sketching, or computer-aided design experience is required to attend.

At the end of the Fashion Design Summer Workshop, students will:

1. Learn how to conceptualize ideas through research, mood boards, and sketches to design a capsule collection for their brand
2. Learn helpful techniques that allow designers to translate shape, color, pattern, form, fabrication, and movement through sketching & fashion illustration
3. Begin to develop professional critique skills, which allow designers to give and receive valuable feedback in helpful, respectful, and actionable ways

This workshop is open to high school students interested in exploring the business of fashion as a career. This program will allow students to explore marketing and merchandising concepts in a consumer-driven market. Participants will have the opportunity to engage with Jefferson Fashion Merchandising and Management faculty and staff in an intimate setting. Students will learn from leading industry experts in influencer marketing and fashion styling.

Members of the Thomas Jefferson University Fashion Merchandising and Management (FMM) faculty will guide students through an immersive, career-focused curriculum that prepares students to contribute to aspects of the fashion value chain. Ranked in the top-20 fashion schools by Business of Fashion, the program emphasizes active and hands on learning applications. The FMM department hopes to engage with diverse prospective students, making them feel welcomed and safe upon joining our undergraduate community. Our goal is to inspire high school students in their junior or senior year to pursue the business of fashion and gain real, professional experience and connections.

At the end of the workshop, students will:

1. Understand the value and importance of creating, marketing, and merchandising a product in a digital environment with executives from fashion companies 
2. Learn the different career paths that the merchandising industry has to offer