Fashion High School

A fashion education is not all about colleges and universities. Some high schools teach fashion subjects directly, and colleges run pre-college programmes for students still at school — so a serious introduction to fashion design and manufacturing can begin years before a degree. You do not have to go to college to start learning about the fashion industry.

Fashion High Schools in New York

The leading example is the High School of Fashion Industries in Manhattan, New York City: a secondary school serving grades 9 through 12 as part of the New York City Department of Education, with magnet programmes in fashion design, fashion art, textile design, marketing and visual merchandising. Its students study fashion as their specialism through the whole of high school, a model few cities offer at that scale.

New York also has the High School of Art and Design, whose art-focused programmes neighbour fashion closely. The pattern in both cases is a specialist public high school: general education continues, but the timetable bends toward the industry the student already wants. For families outside such cities, the realistic equivalent is a strong high school art department — drawing and sculpture — plus home economics or textiles classes where they exist, and history and English, because fashion is influenced by society and culture and designers need both.

Pre-College Programmes and Preparation

Colleges bridge the gap with pre-college programmes. Kent State's Summer Fashion Academy is a one-week residential programme introducing high school students to fashion design and merchandising, aiming to inspire creative and resourceful fashion leaders. The Fashion Institute of Technology runs pre-college courses — over 130 long and short courses in art, fashion, merchandising, international marketing, photography, interior design, film and media — letting students experience FIT and New York City while still at school. Parsons' Pre-College Academy serves students from grade 3 through grade 12, meeting on Saturday mornings in fall and spring with a two-week session in August.

Recognition exists too: the Cornell Design Award for High School Students, established in 2009, was created to introduce high school students to opportunities in fashion design. The preparation advice from design programmes is consistent — emphasise fine arts, take textiles-related classes, and study the humanities, because a fashion design programme culminates in designed shoes, accessories and costumes and a publicly attended fashion show of student work, and the students who thrive arrive with drawing skill and cultural knowledge already forming.