Lesson Plans
Lesson plans are structured thematically and provide teachers with ideas for assignments, discussion topics, readings, and enrichment materials which can be included in a multitude of classes relating to fashion. Including links to essential articles, images, and eBook chapters within Bloomsbury Fashion Central, the following lesson plans have been prepared to help educators plan their teaching more effectively.
Lesson plans are provided free of charge, but to access linked content within Bloomsbury Fashion Central your institution will need to subscribe. For more details please contact us.
We will be adding new lesson plans each year. If you would like to write or request a new lesson plan, please contact Selina Mahar
Jump to:
- NEW: Queer Style
- Music and Sound in Fashion Shows
- Fashion and the Body
- African Dress
- Aesthetics
- Knitwear: Casting On Around the World
- Fashion and Art
- Dress and Religion
- Fashion and Politics
- Fashion, Race and Representation
- How to Analyze a Fashion Collection
- Fashion and Celebrity
- Women’s Fashion and Dress Reform in North America and West Europe in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries
- African American Dress and Fashion
- Historical Costume Design
- Cultures and Subcultures in a Global Context
- Post-Mao Chinese Fashion
- Fashion Museology
- Diversification in Fashion Markets, Street Styles and Cultural Change
- Bridal Fashions across the Globe
- The Study of Dress and Fashion
- Dress and Teens: A Brief Study of Influences
- Costume and Costuming: A Brief View
- Fashion and National Identity: An Intercultural Overview
- The Cultural Elements of Men’s Fashion and Style: Race, Ethnicity, Sex, and Class
- Gender and the Fashion Media
- The History of the Paper Pattern Industry
- Fashion and Gender
- Dress, Culture, and Society
- Dress and the Arts
- Nineteenth-Century Western Silhouettes and Color
- Victorian Fashion
- Sustainability and the Fashion Industry
- Fashion in the Museum
- Western Subcultural Dress
NEW: Queer Style
“Queer Style” can be taken as a portmaneteau term for all signifiers of body and dress related to LGBTQIA communities, but also to mark out form of identity signification that diverges from heteronormative values of image creation. Contemporary fashion is heavily reliant on the history and tropes of queer style, especially with the growing presence of gender-fluidity and cyborg identities.
Music and Sound in Fashion Shows
Music and sound are essential, and often thrilling, elements of most fashion shows. In elaborate fashion show productions, music and sound can add to the theatricality and spectacle of the catwalk presentation. In formal runway shows, the music is often a defining element for the theme of the collection and the general atmosphere for the show.
Fashion and the Body
Our body is central to our experience of the world, and to our relationship with fashion; because “human bodies are dressed bodies” (Entwistle, 2001) it is therefore necessary to foreground the body in fashion studies. This five-lesson unit will examine the design, lived practice, and mediation of the dressed body in Western culture. It centers themes of structure, agency, identity, and resistance to position the dressed body as a meaningful site of socialization and subversion.
Among scholars who study dress and fashion, the rich diversity of African dress (along with the tremendous creativity of the people who make and wear it) is not well known. This lesson plan on African dress is designed for advanced undergraduates, postgraduate students, and scholars in fashion studies—to broaden the reader’s knowledge of non-Western dress, but also to explore how African dress has influenced and been affected by Western fashion.
“Aesthetics” is about sensory experiences: how we see, hear, feel, smell, and taste. It’s also about how we make personal and social meanings out of those experiences, and (sometimes) how we use them as a social or political tool. Aesthetics matter. This lesson plan is designed to engage critically with the concept of beauty … what is beauty and why do we care about it? Why do beautiful people often earn more money and enjoy better health? Why do we pay a premium for sleek cars, well-designed shoes, trendy colors, and real estate with a spectacular view? Some of our responses to things are shaped by evolution and human biology, but there is also a great deal of diversity among individuals and various cultures.
Knitwear: Casting On Around the World
This course will provide insights and understanding into knitwear through the lenses of sociology, cultural studies, and visual and material cultures. It consists of ten lessons that highlight knitwear in various parts of the world, in order to understand the global impact of knits within visual and material cultures. Students will learn about knitwear technology and production, explore knitted textile traditions and gain an understanding of comfort and the body, sustainability, and the designers who transformed knit fashions.
Fashion and Art
The objectives of this course are to examine with precision the relationship between visual arts and fashion from an interdisciplinary perspective, combining the history of ideas and representations, material culture, and the history of modern and contemporary art. The issues surrounding the relationship between art and fashion are studied from sociological, historical, anthropological and technical perspectives. This five-module course is designed for second and third year undergraduate level students of fashion and art.
Dress and Religion
This semester-length class is designed as an introduction to the major religions in the world as well as numerous smaller religions. Most, but not all, engage the body as a site for experiencing and expressing faith. Understanding the basics and being able to make comparisons between religions is important for being an effective global citizen. This unit of ten modules is intended for advanced undergraduate students and graduate students in a range of fields including fashion studies, anthropology, and religious studies.
Fashion and Politics
From sumptuary laws and punk safety pins to sports uniforms and garment supply chains, fashion is uniquely political. This four-lesson unit explores key concepts regarding fashion history and theory to better understand how clothing serves as a means of communicating—and subverting—social identities and political ideologies. It will also explore the politics behind the creation and globalization of the fashion industry. This unit of four lessons is designed for second- and third-year undergraduate students of fashion and related studies.
Fashion, Race and Representation
The conversation on fashion and race is a complicated one as people who study race and representation in academia are discovering new ways to locate fashion within their respective courses and research and people within the fashion industry are seeking to address how they can be more ethical, equitable and responsible pertaining to people of color. This unit of four lessons provides an introduction for thinking through the intersection of these two topics that once seemed disparate but are now more present than ever before.
Fashion and Celebrity
This unit explores the development and gradual fusion of fashion and celebrity culture over the past century. It draws upon multiple theoretical and methodological approaches from the fields of fashion, media, and celebrity studies to better understand the role of celebrity culture in the production and consumption of fashion. It is designed for second and third year undergraduate students of fashion and related studies.
Women’s Fashion and Dress Reform in North America and West Europe in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries
This lesson plan explores 19th and early 20th century fashion history in North America and Western Europe, looking specifically at women’s fashion and the development of women’s dress reform. This unit consists of five lessons and is intended for students at first year undergraduate level and above. The first part of this unit introduces students to fashion history and the changing fashionable silhouettes for women during the time. The second part focusses on women’s dress reform, related to health concerns from wearing tight, body confining garments and the emergence of the fight for women’s rights.
African American Dress and Fashion
This unit will cover a historical overview of the fashion and hairstyles of African Americans from slavery times and through the twenty-first century. The social and political influences of the times will be discussed in relation to the way of dress, in addition to the effects of cultural appropriation of African American dress. This unit consists of five lessons and is intended for students in their third year undergraduate and above.
Cultures and Subcultures in a Global Context
Cultures and Subcultures in Global Context examines the intersections of dress and human behaviors in connection with cultures and subcultures throughout the world. Drawing on Dress Studies theories and methods of analysis, this course explores the ways that cultures and subcultures impact dress and fashion systems, and in turn the interplay between dress and human behaviors. This course has six modules, covering topics such as Dress Theory and Classification, Street Styles and Antifashion, Cultural Body Modifications and Subcultural Body Modification.
As the influx of Western brands has continued to change fashion consumption in China, the rise of the country as a production powerhouse has also been changing the landscape of world fashion. Consisting of four lessons designed for college students at first year undergraduate level and above, this unit covers topics relating to the global fashion world, fashion revival and identity, and fashion designers and models in the context of China’s post-Mao era.
For decades the museum has been the center of fashion heritage management, as well as a significant platform for fashion history to be communicated. Consisting of four lessons designed for graduate students enrolled in courses such as Fashion History or Museum Studies, this unit covers topics relating to: what is fashion museology?, the power of fashion museums, controversies surrounding fashion museums, and how fashion heritage is practiced in the museum.
Many believe that the creative process of everyday fashion begins with design genius. In truth, this is the realm of couture fashion, an area which few will have the experience of buying or working with. Understanding street style, and how mass culture influences it, is therefore important. This unit encourages students to use textbooks alongside articles from Bloomsbury Fashion Central to shape a modular programme based on the multidisciplinary influences affecting fashion and style.
Traditional wedding attire and its provenance varies significantly across the globe. Historically, brides wore their ‘best’ dress on their wedding day. With the number of wedding-based reality television shows on the rise, brides today are ever more focused on attaining the ‘perfect’ dress. Consisting of eight lessons, this unit explores the wedding dress industries of countries across Europe, Africa, and Asia, as well as broader psychological themes that are intertwined.
Truly understanding an individual often involves understanding their dress. Dress, costume, and fashion have often been used interchangeably in writings about what individuals wear, or how they have covered or modified their bodies. Consisting of three lessons designed for students at first year undergraduate level and above, this unit covers topics relating to clothing, costume and dress; fashion and technology; and ethnic and national dress and world fashion.
The teenage fashion market is ever-expanding and highly valuable; teenagers have never before been so conscious of personal style. Consisting of six lessons designed for students at first year undergraduate level and above, this course investigates the many and varied influences on teenagers as expressed in their choice of style and dress. Students are encouraged to compare these influences across continents, such as between the US and Asia.
Costume Design
This course provides students with an introduction to the creative practice of costume design, with a focus on research methods, character analysis, and the clear rendering of ideas. It is targeted toward undergraduate fashion students and is divided into four two-part modules. In addition to learning the difference between fashion and costumes, students will develop methods of creative thinking relative to solving design problems and will demonstrate the ability to present ideas clearly, both visually and orally.
When costume is taken to mean attire that is worn in theater, film, or dance, costumed individuals project the identity of fictional or fantasy characters. The study of costume has a long history across many cultures. Consisting of three lessons designed for students at first year undergraduate level and above, this unit explores the definitions of ‘clothing’, ‘costume’, and ‘dress’, distinguishing features of global costumes, and the costumer profession.
How to Analyze a Fashion Collection
This unit explores the development and gradual fusion of fashion and celebrity culture over the past century. It draws upon multiple theoretical and methodological approaches from the fields of fashion, media, and celebrity studies to better understand the role of celebrity culture in the production and consumption of fashion. It is designed for second and third year undergraduate students of fashion and related studies.
Politics and country status are strong influencers on fashion; not only does each society have its own ‘appropriate dress’, but fashion has also been used to maintain or create social power. Consisting of six lessons designed for students at second year undergraduate level and above, this unit explores how politics and social power have influenced fashion across various global contexts, and examines political influencers such as colonization and socialism.
Men’s fashion styles are influenced by, and have inspired, global culture. The global shifts in the diversified and multicultural men’s fashion markets have created questions about what is masculine, and what is appropriate attire for a man to wear. Consisting of four lessons designed for students at first year undergraduate level and above, this unit presents an introduction to men’s fashion from the 1700s to the present day.
Fashion magazines are frequently referred to as the taste makers or “opinion leaders” in the field of fashion. The visual representations of fashion in the media contribute to the fashioning of gender identities. Consisting of five lessons intended for first or second year undergraduate students, this unit evaluates the construction of gender difference in the fashion media, in addition to: fashion photography; femininities and masculinities within fashion magazines; and fashion blogs, gender, and the gaze.
Creating the tailored designs of Western clothing required the specific cutting of fabric to fit the shape of the body. During the 19th Century, guides were created and the paper pattern evolved. Consisting of six lessons designed for first and second year undergraduate students, this unit explores the paper pattern industry from its earliest emergences to today, placing focus on periodicals, technological developments, and how the industry fared in periods of economic difficulty.
Fashion can be used to affirm and subvert gender stereotypes. Gendered selves are fashioned in dialogue with visual culture, consumer culture, and fashion history. Consisting of ten lessons designed for second or third year undergraduate students, this unit evaluates the role fashion has played in the construction of gendered identities by focusing on theoretical approaches, such as performativity, myth, the gaze, symbolic resistance, technologies of the self, and gender parody.
Dress is an assemblage of supplements and modifications to the body, behaviours, or acts. It communicates information about individuals to others, such as their place within society. Consisting of six lessons designed for students at first year undergraduate level and above, this unit examines the relationship of dress with culture and society, and the meaning of dress across locations and time periods.
Dress can constitute as art. Taken together, art, identity, performance, and fashion create a pattern of expression of the human condition. For this reason, dress is also frequently utilised within the arts to communicate character. Constituting of four modules designed for students at first year undergraduate level and above, this unit explores how dress and art interact globally and includes how costume represents character in the visual arts.
It is vital for students of both historical and contemporary fashion to be able to identify an era through clothing and to place dress within context. Consisting of ten modules, this unit encourages the use of selected images and texts to create an overview of the significant cultural and political events and attitudes that contributed to the changing shape of clothing throughout the 19th Century across Europe and the USA.
The massive social, technological, and industrial changes that defined 19th-century England under Queen Victoria were reflected in the century’s changing fashions. Consisting of eight lessons designed for first or second year undergraduate students, this unit explores these changing fashions alongside the sociocultural context that both shaped sartorial trends and were shaped by them. Lessons follow both themes and decades within the era, such as the corset, menswear, and weddings.
In recent years there has been an ever-increasing drive for fashion to become sustainable; the popularity of ethical methods of production, the vintage fashion show, slow fashion, and upcycling, has likewise increased in response. Consisting of five lessons designed for second year undergraduate students and above, this unit explains the various definitions of sustainability within the fashion industry. Ecological issues, second-hand clothing, the retail market, and apparel design are explored.
The Fashion Museum is a fairly recent phenomenon. Founded in 1969, the Museum at FIT contains over 50,000 international dress objects from the 18th Century to the present day and has a program of critically acclaimed fashion exhibitions. Consisting of three lessons designed for first and second year undergraduate students, this unit introduces museum and curatorial studies for students of fashion by examining the Museum at FIT.
Dress is a visible symbol of subcultural affiliation and allows the wearer to make strong statements about standards of beauty, gender, sexuality, social mores, and values. The study of subcultural dress is valuable in gaining an understanding of how alternative lifestyles develop. Consisting of ten lessons designed for upper-level undergraduates or graduate students, this unit evaluates the social relevance of subcultural dress by examining its aesthetics, impact, interpretations, and evolution.
Images: Niall McInerney, Photographer © Bloomsbury Publishing Plc