Fashion students are paving the way for the future of the industry, and a new generation of designers are growing worldwide. By implementing CLO and redefining the traditional fashion supply chain, universities have the opportunity to deliver a real change within the industry. This allows students to learn the needed skills to develop garments in a more efficient, eco-friendly, accurate, and faster way.
Implementing CLO into a university curriculum is essentially a win-win for students and fashion brands alike. Students are able to learn the sought after skills in order to win top jobs in the industry and become prepared to take on future innovations within the garment development world. For fashion brands, having a pool of students who have 3D knowledge and capabilities will aid them in reshaping their supply chain for the better in terms of reducing waste, sample approval time, improving product quality, accelerating time to market, and significantly improving the communication between teams.
It is no secret that the fashion designer of the future will be working in a hybridization between the physical and the digital world. With the industry reaching a tipping point, the need for 3D design experience, such as with CLO, is not just helpful to have on a resume. Instead, it is becoming an increasingly mandatory skill, especially as global brands are understanding the benefits of digitization.
The number of educational institutions who have implemented CLO as a central part of their curriculum is continuously growing. This is helping designers of tomorrow attain the needed technology-based skills. However, many schools still face fears in taking a new approach. For this reason the CLO Academic Month was put in place to offer academics the opportunity to listen, learn, and connect with each other on the basis of how various top universities have successfully implemented CLO into their curriculum.
In line with the first-ever CLO Academic Month, four European universities were asked to present their CLO implementation stories. This included their achievements, struggles, student projects, and tips for a successful CLO execution. The event kicked off with a presentation by Hilal Sevencan and Prof. Dr. Özgür Ceylan from The Eskişehir Technical University, based in Turkey. The following presentation featured Ineke Siersema from the Amsterdam Fashion Institute, continuing with a presentation by Can Turan Sadis from Istituto Marangoni The School of Fashion, in Italy. The final presentation was held by Prof. Dr. Christian Kaiser from the Albstadt Sigmaringen University, based in Germany.
All four universities showcased their study programs, how and when CLO was implemented, their strategy in teaching their students CLO, as well as fascinating student works and projects. Each presentation followed with a Q&A session, which allowed participants to ask any questions they had. As each of the universities implemented CLO into their curriculum during different stages and curated the usage of CLO for their specific areas of focus, these sessions gave audiences the opportunity to see four different success stories and get a detailed explanation of just how they were able to make CLO an integral part of their curriculum. You can watch all of the presentations here.
CLO continuously puts education at the forefront of its efforts, with the aim of educating the next generation of talent to acquire the needed knowledge and skill sets for success in a more sustainable and agile future fashion industry. Therefore, it is more and more important for academics to connect with each other, learn from each other, and to share just how they have successfully implemented CLO into their curriculum. This way, others are also able to give their students the knowledge needed to pave the way for a better future of the fashion industry.