A Collaborative Study Project (CSP) allows two students to work collaboratively to complete a faculty supervised project of independent study. Usually, a CSP is supervised by two faculty members, but with approval it may be supervised by one faculty member. Its purpose is to meet individual student needs by providing an alternative to regularly offered courses, though it is not a substitute for a course if that course is regularly offered.

Permission of Instructor required and GPA of 3.0 or higher.

Register by completing the Collaborative Study Registration Form available on the Registrar's website.

This class examines fashion in Europe and America from the eighteenth century to the present, covering the industrial revolution through the development of couture and postmodern fashion. It analyzes clothing as a social and cultural artifact, central to the construction of group and individual identity. Lectures and readings explore the production, consumption, use and meanings of dress, and will be supplemented by visits to the RISD museum. Course work will be comprised of group and independent research, written papers, and oral presentations.

Major requirement; Apparel Design sophomores

Art History credit for Apparel Design majors

Liberal Arts elective credit for non-majors pending seat availability and permission of Instructor.

Registration by Apparel Design Department, course not available via web registration.

The Independent Study Project (ISP) allows students to supplement the established curriculum by completing a faculty supervised project for credit in a specific area of interest. Its purpose is to meet individual student needs by providing an alternative to regularly offered courses.

Permission of Instructor and GPA of 3.0 or higher is required.

Register by completing the Independent Study Application available on the Registrar's website; the course is not available via web registration.

The Independent Study Project (ISP) allows students to supplement the established curriculum by completing a faculty supervised project for credit in a specific area of interest. Its purpose is to meet individual student needs by providing an alternative to regularly offered courses.

Permission of Instructor and GPA of 3.0 or higher is required.

Register by completing the Independent Study Application available on the Registrar's website; the course is not available via web registration.

Shoes are an everyday commodity; but do you know how many steps are involved? In this course, students will handcraft a basic pair of cemented construction shoes from start to finish. This includes beginning by creating a basic pattern, draping the last, cutting (clicking) the leather, sewing (closing) the upper, building a stacked leather heel, and finishing the sole. We will approach the requirements of constructing a shoe through choice of material, characteristics of leather, and how to utilize them in laying out the pattern. In the process of the construction from pattern to shoe, we will work with basic tools for handcrafted shoemaking including a shoemaker's knife, closers hammer, buff stick, lasting pincers to name a few. Students are expected to complete one pair of shoes and begin work on a second pair, applying and expanding upon the techniques learned in the class.

Restricted to Apparel Design juniors and above

Also offered as ID-2494 for ID majors.

Students concentrate on designing with 'cut and sew' knit fabric. Through draping with knit fabrics on the form, students learn to utilize the inherent properties of knits. Instruction in 'cut and sew' construction is combined with pattern making techniques, enabling students to execute their concepts as finished garments.

Estimated Materials Cost: $250.00

Major requirement; Apparel Design majors only

Registration by Apparel Design Department, course not available via web registration.

This course is an introduction to the creative and technical possibilities of the knitting machine. Through the development of knit swatches, the course will cover the following essentials of sweater knit design including graphing, calculating gauge and tension, shaping of a knit body, exploration of a diverse range of knit stitches, professional finishing of a knit garment, and how to select the best yarn to execute your final garment. Students will also develop unique trims and finishes to enhance their designs.

Estimated Materials Cost: $250.00

Major requirement; Apparel Design majors only

Registration by Apparel Design Department, course not available via web registration.

Must also plan and register for: APPAR-3130 and APPAR-3132

In Design/Drawing II, Junior students focus on designing for knitwear, experimenting three dimensionally as they explore the unique properties of knit fabrics. Color, texture, yarn and stitch variations are examined as students also design using the diverse properties of machine knitwear. Student build on self expression and visual communication to place their creative voices firmly at the center of their design.

Estimated Materials Cost: $200.00

Major requirement; Apparel Design majors only

Registration by Apparel Design Department, course not available via web registration.

This internship will provide apparel students an opportunity to experience the apparel industry for a minimum of five weeks of professional practice. At the completion of the work experience, interns are required to writie a report about their experience and sponsors are required to complete a student evaluation. Student can earn a maximum of 6 internship credits.

Estimated cost of living expenses: $2,000.00

Permission of Instructor required.

***Off-Campus Study***

During three integrated studios, students learn professional collections from concept to presentation. Portfolio assignments are aimed at strengthening students' established styles and experimentation in new areas. Studios build on their draping, drafting and construction skills through individual instruction as they complete a collection for final presentation to the visiting critics. During studio, students explore varied means of presentation and capturing of their process.

Estimated Materials Cost: $1,000.00

Major requirement; Apparel Design majors only

Registration by Apparel Design Department, course not available via web registration.

This course introduces technical and conceptual grounding in the aesthetics of identity projection through apparel and personal ornamentation. In addition to offering an intersectional lens through which to investigate both individual and social identity, students will learn foundational and interdisciplinary skills for design and construction: from presentation plates to effectively communicate the visual language of their design intentions to digital embroidery, laser cutting, UV printing, etc. to explore novel material and construction strategies. Research, discussions, and collaborative activities investigate how clothing might assume responses for both the wearer and the audience in the context of identity informed by gender, race and ethnicity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic background, religion, and more; both classic and experimental production techniques empower students to more fully realize their concepts of identity representation and projection.

Estimated Materials Cost: $250.00

Major requirement; Apparel Design majors. only

Registration by Apparel Design Department, course not available via web registration.

This introductory course lays the foundation for the design process through draping, pattern drafting and construction. Students make basic patterns and proceed with variations to develop pattern making skills and design concepts. Weekly textile seminars introduce students to fibers and yarns, fabric types, properties and uses.

Estimated Materials Cost: $100.00

Major requirement; Apparel Design majors only

Registration by Apparel Design Department, course not available via web registration.

This hybrid studio-elective course will follow a series of twelve lectures given at the South Kensington Museum as published in P.L. Simmonds, Animal Products. This seminal work served as a compilation of the trade exhibition collections from the 1851 Crystal Palace exposition that eventually served as the seed for the collections of the South Kensington Museum and finally the Branch Museum of the Department at Bethnal Green. These collections laid the foundation for much of the Victoria and Albert Museum collections (V&A) that in turn influenced the creation of RISD and the RISD Museum in 1877.

This course will examine design and fashion, naturalist journals, and literature as a means to develop the students design vocabulary and materials palate. Students will compare the tastes and techniques of the Victorian era to contemporary design practices, with case studies of designers utilizing the natural world as a resource and source for design. Weekly lectures will introduce students to artists and designers of the 19th century and compare them to contemporary artists and designers. These introductory lectures will be paired each week with a specific material examination and hand-on exploration via materials demonstrations and a sample notebook. We will engage in readings, group discussions, critique of student "Naturalist Journals," materials demonstrations, and examine historic and contemporary Museum objects within each theme material.

Field trips to the RISD Museum will be augmented by visits to the Edna W. Lawrence Nature Lab, RISD Materials library, The Providence Athenaeum, The Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology at Brown University, The New Bedford Whaling Museum, and The Museum of Natural History, Roger Williams Park.

Estimated Materials Cost: $20.00

Open to Apparel Design majors only; sophomore and above

Open to non-majors pending seat availability and permission of Instructor.

"Topics in Fashion Theory" complements the design history survey, "History of Dress." ("History of Dress" is not a prerequisite). This seminar will introduce students to theoretical debates in fashion theory, responding to scholars who define fashion as the cultural construction of embodied identity. Through the manipulation of the visual and tactile symbols of clothing (cut, cloth, texture and color) fashion expresses, however imprecisely, a configuration of individual attributes and attitudes that persons seek to communicate. But fashion most likely productively draws upon "recurrent instabilities" in collective social identities, argues Fred Davis, including masculinity versus femininity, androgyny versus singularity, license versus restraint and conformity versus rebellion. Fashion can do so because social identities are rarely the stable amalgams we take them to be: they shift over the course of a lifetime and are prodded by social and technological change. Drawing on scholarship in a range of disciplines, including sociology, cultural studies, gender studies and queer theory, we will explore clothing's role in marking, or alternately containing, deflecting or sublimating, those aspects of identity linked to gender, sexuality, class, race, religion and nation. Noting that leading designers use the catwalk to present experimental clothes that often communicate brand values and the designer's identity, we will explore the extent to which fashion is currently formulating effective social commentary.

The class integrates reading and reading responses with discussion and visual analysis of clothing and fashion across the twentieth- and twenty-first centuries. Reading responses will help students develop four short written projects that assess and analyze debates encountered in class discussion and readings. Class time will include in-class writing and peer review.

Open to Apparel majors only; sophomore and above

Open to non-majors by permission of Instructor.

Dressed bodies, is a course conceived to expose students from external departments across RISD campus to a variety of making practices stemming from traditional apparel design practices. Students are expected to bring their current skill set and their apparel related curiosity with the aims of developing a personal project or enhancing apparel related skills. Clothing development, brand, soft-goods development, principles for creating 3 dimensional works around the body from 2 dimensional sketches and patterns as well as basic sewing skills will be covered throughout the body of this course. Principles learned here may be applied to a variety of fine arts processes as well as product design. Students will be encouraged to develop a better understanding of materials and construction techniques while exploring deeper relationships between 2D shape and 3D form. This dynamic, technical and creative class; supports students further understanding of sewing construction and how it directly relates to- and impacts any creative or technical project, ultimately broadening the students understanding of both material properties and essential technical components of fabric construction.

*Components of this class are seminar and self-directed.

The Independent Study Project (ISP) allows students to supplement the established curriculum by completing a faculty supervised project for credit in a specific area of interest. Its purpose is to meet individual student needs by providing an alternative to regularly offered courses.

Permission of Instructor and GPA of 3.0 or higher is required.

Register by completing the Independent Study Application available on the Registrar's website; the course is not available via web registration.

This Apparel course has an interdisciplinary approach and is a fusion of fashion, art and interactive design, imagining future wearables with a focus on integrating digital and physical realities. Students will explore and imagine innovative user experiences and connectivity through the investigation and development of hybrid materials and wearable prototypes that are seamlessly integrated on, in, around and between the body.

Students will be exposed to current market wearable trends and artists whose work provokes and embraces emerging technologies through a series of lectures, investigative research assignments, material and three- dimensional explorations to inform the making of a final project. Workshops are designed to expose students to basic apparel techniques and provide a fundamental working knowledge of this process as well as explore wearable electronic components with a hands-on approach.

In tandem with workshops, students will individually or collaboratively work on a narrative/ concept through continued research and design methodologies that will inform their final project thereby creating a fully realized working "artifact" executed by the end of the semester.

Students are required to document their entire design process on-line or in a sketchbook. All homework assignments, photographs of three-dimensional exploration, design sketches, illustrations, concept images, research, and a written narrative/concept statement will be documented for weekly review. Apparel design processes and professional practices, such as work room specification sheets and muslin development will be taught, implemented and are mandatory as students move from concept/sketch to prototypes for evaluation.

Estimated Materials Cost: $200.00

This internship will provide apparel students an opportunity to experience the apparel industry for a minimum of five weeks of professional practice. At the completion of the work experience, interns are required to writie a report about their experience and sponsors are required to complete a student evaluation. Student can earn a maximum of 6 internship credits.

Estimated cost of living expenses: $2,000.00

Permission of Instructor required.

***Off-Campus Study***

The Independent Study Project (ISP) allows students to supplement the established curriculum by completing a faculty supervised project for credit in a specific area of interest. Its purpose is to meet individual student needs by providing an alternative to regularly offered courses.

Permission of Instructor and GPA of 3.0 or higher is required.

Register by completing the Independent Study Application available on the Registrar's website; the course is not available via web registration.

Shoes are an everyday commodity; but do you know how many steps are involved? In this course, students will handcraft a basic pair of cemented construction shoes from start to finish. This includes beginning by creating a basic pattern, draping the last, cutting (clicking) the leather, sewing (closing) the upper, building a stacked leather heel, and finishing the sole. We will approach the requirements of constructing a shoe through choice of material, characteristics of leather, and how to utilize them in laying out the pattern. In the process of the construction from pattern to shoe, we will work with basic tools for handcrafted shoemaking including a shoemaker's knife, closers hammer, buff stick, lasting pincers to name a few. Students are expected to complete one pair of shoes and begin work on a second pair, applying and expanding upon the techniques learned in the class.

Restricted to Apparel Design juniors and above

Also offered as ID-2494 for ID majors.

Students focus on tailoring techniques and the design of tailored apparel. Drafting and classic tailoring techniques are taught and students explore shape and structure through experimentation on the form and creative pattern making. During this process, students use these technical skills to design and execute a jacket and companion piece.

Estimated Materials Cost: $400.00

Major requirement; Apparel Design majors only

Registration by Apparel Design Department, course not available via web registration.

During the Fall semester, Junior students focus on form and proportion as they explore the structural possibilities inherent in the art of tailoring. Students design multiple collections, examining the properties of cohesiveness and conceptual expansion. Exploration in modes of designing and examining varied design challenges allows for varying perspectives and creative responses.

Estimated Materials Cost: $200.00

Major requirement; Apparel Design majors only

Registration by Apparel Design Department, course not available via web registration.

This senior level course focuses on the design of unique interpretation of apparel design. The senior collections are a culmination of their skills and an exploration of their design vision. Originality, problem solving, and an organized design process are defined as essential elements of a successful degree project collection. Seniors refine and build their portfolios. Projects are aimed at enabling students to express a diverse but cohesive design vision.

Estimated Materials Cost: $1,000.00

Major requirement; Apparel Design majors only

Registration by Apparel Design Department, course not available via web registration.

Building on basic techniques taught first semester, students proceed to more complex cuts for bodices, sleeves, skirts and pants through techniques of draping, drafting and construction. One finished garment is required

Estimated Materials Cost: $125.00

Major requirement; Apparel Design majors only

Registration by Apparel Design Department, course not available via web registration.

The design course builds on design process skills from the first semester through assignments that focus on research and its application, conceptual development, and team dynamics. Varied facets of apparel design are explored through lectures, museum research, classroom discussion, and creative exploration. The drawing component of the class focuses on print and texture rendering, drawing the fashion figure, layout design, and use of varied rendering media.

Estimated Materials Cost: $150.00

Major requirement; Apparel Design majors only

Registration by Apparel Design Department, course not available via web registration.