Free Online Courses for Learning About Luxury and Fashion

If you are seriously considering pursuing a career within the luxury brand or high-fashion sectors, it might be worth looking into lower-cost (and lower risk) learning options online first in order to build your foundation of knowledge.

Online courses such as the ones listed below will give you the foundational skill base you need if you do decide to pursue a higher-level degree in these fields or even make the jump directly to applying for internships and jobs within the industry.

These high-quality, free (or low-cost), online certificate courses from prestigious institutions such as Bocconi, London College of Fashion, Copenhagen Business School, and The Museum of Modern Art are terrific resources for building your résumé and learning new industry-specific skills (some of these links may contain affiliates). After the successful completion of these courses, you’ll receive an accredited certificate you’ll be able to share on LinkedIn.

Università Bocconi — Management of Fashion and Luxury Companies

Perhaps the most high-profile online course on this list, Università Bocconi has created an in-depth certificate course offered on Coursera for those interested in understanding the intricacies of the codified world of the business and brand management of luxury and fashion brands.

In this course, you’ll learn how fashion and luxury companies work and understand their brands, products, retail, and communication strategies. Travel through business models, international development, and product categories with industry experts.

Adopting a case-study approach, this particular course presents strategic brand management in luxury and fashion companies as a balancing act: tradition vs. innovation, expertise vs. experimentation, casual vs. stylish; in order to increase the brand value by nurturing the brand heritage and at the same time staying fresh, relevant, and contemporary in the global marketplace. Topics such as the impact of new retail channels, new media channels, and new business declinations for the brand and emerging markets will be discussed in the course.

MOMA — Fashion as Design

This course is more for people interested in the understanding of high-fashion from a design and artistic perspective, rather than a business or brand management lens. In this course produced by The Museum of Modern Art on Coursera, learners will develop critical tools to appreciate and contextualize fashion design — from everyday clothing to couture garments — through many different perspectives.

This course aims to:

• Trace the history, development, and impact of garments over time, and explore how they may be reinvented.
• Investigate garments through multiple lenses including politics, identity, and economics.
• Understand more about the lifecycle of clothing, from its design and production to its marketing, distribution, and consumption.
• Better comprehend the choices you make about fashion with respect to the visual language of dress, individual and collective identities, and issues such as labor practices, sustainability, and body politics.

Copenhagen Business School — Sustainable Fashion

In this course, CBS provides an overview of business model theory and discusses business models as essential tools in the transformation toward more sustainable businesses. Throughout the course, the curriculum will use business model theory as a foundation to look at how real-world fashion brands are adopting more sustainable ways of doing business. This course will provide you with a rich opportunity to examine efforts and consider strategies for your own organization. By the end of the course, you have an understanding of the overall challenges and potential solutions for businesses to become more sustainable. You will learn about the challenges and opportunities of implementing circular business models. You will be able to think about business model theory in new ways and apply strategies to manage business model innovation towards sustainable practices.

London College of Fashion en asociación con Kering — Fashion and Sustainability

In this course, the London College of Fashion in partnership with Kering on Futurelearn, learners will get an introduction to issues, agendas, and contexts relating to fashion and sustainability in a changing world.

People enrolled in this course will get an introduction to sustainable fashion design, research, and business practice. Learners will explore key sustainability issues, agendas, and contexts associated with luxury fashion.

• Discuss the complex nature of sustainability through the introduction to materials sourcing for luxury fashion; informed decision making; and the creative realization of ideas.
• Apply understanding of fashion and sustainability knowledge and reflection to your practice through manifesto creation and design thinking processes.
• Demonstrate a critical understanding of key sustainability agendas, issues, and contexts associated with luxury fashion design, production, and consumption.

For more information about this course, watch the video below: