MA Fashion Storytelling: Fashion Curation University of the Arts London (UAL)

Overview

Course overview

MA Fashion Storytelling, a new collaboration between London College of Fashion and the V&A, brings together two world-leading institutions for the research, study and curation of fashion. 

Through specialist teaching and sustained access to the V&A’s collections, this course will provide an intellectual framework to consider the active role played by museum professionals researchers and audiences in the shaping of fashion narratives, and the centrality of storytelling to cultures of fashion and dress. 

The course has two pathways: Fashion Cultures and Histories will equip you with high-level theoretical analysis and research skills for a diverse range of professional and academic contexts. Fashion Curation will provide you with the practical skills and knowledge to thrive as a curator and cultural producer within the museum, cultural and commercial sectors. 

MA Fashion Storytelling: Fashion Curation offers a critical approach to storytelling as an inclusive methodology for contemporary fashion curation. This specialist pathway is delivered across the V&A and London College of Fashion sites, immersing you in the cutting-edge research and diverse practices of both institutions.  

As a student on this pathway, you will learn how to build, care for, and manage fashion collections within a museum context. You will gain practical skills in museum acquisition, cataloguing, handling, display and access as well as the ethics of conservation and interpretation of objects’ stories for different audiences.  

With expert guidance from the V&A and researchers at London College of Fashion, you’ll develop collaborative, public-facing interventions, generating critical debate and engaging new audiences. You will learn how to plan and deliver innovative curatorial projects, from concept development through to production and, through a grounding in both historical and contemporary perspectives, you’ll be encouraged to develop your own critical positionality within the discipline.  

As a student on MA Fashion Storytelling, you’ll join a vibrant, collaborative research community of practicing museum professionals, scholars and students. A key part of your experience will be studying alongside students on the Fashion Cultures and Histories pathway, gaining a rich understanding of global fashion histories as well as contemporary issues in fashion research. The course fosters high-level research and analytical skills, enabling you to shape how fashion is interpreted, narrated, and understood. 

We promote interdisciplinary, inclusive and ethical approaches to fashion curation and storytelling, and we are actively working to embed UAL’s Principles for Climate, Social and Racial Justice into the course.

This course prepares you for future facing careers in the cultural and heritage sector, as well as the fashion industry more broadly. It also equips you for further study in a fashion or museum-related subject.