The BFA in Fashion Design is one of the most highly regarded fashion programs in the U.S. Located in San Francisco, the country’s West Coast technology hub, and with a long-time focus on sustainability, CCA Fashion Design exposes students to thought leaders and professionals who are working on the forefront of fashion, clothing, and material innovation.

Through small class sizes and individual mentorship, faculty are committed to helping you develop your own point of view formed by craft, sustainability, new technologies, and cross-­disciplinary collaboration. You’ll have access to analog, mechanical, and digital tools, both within the program and across the college, so you can build a range of skill sets for a fast-changing world.

Inspiration from the Bay Area

The fashion industry is experiencing immense disruption, in part because of new technologies that originated right here in the San Francisco Bay Area. Home to iconic brands, cutting-edge design firms, and cultural leaders, our city serves as a constant inspiration for students. From gallery openings and public film screenings to performance art, lecture series, and hackathons, myriad events take place around our community each week that challenge old ways of thinking and inspire new ideas.

Master traditional techniques

We develop fashion designers with strong conceptual capabilities and distinct points of view. As you begin mastering traditional techniques in tailoring and pattern drafting and construction, you’ll also take courses in critical studies, fashion history, and sustainability, which provide context for lively design classes. By being immersed in intensive studio making and critical thinking, you’ll develop core skills toward becoming a visionary thinker and doer who is ready to influence the fashion sector for good.

Combine the traditional with cross-disciplinary methods

In addition to traditional fashion design, our program encourages cross-disciplinary methods and experimentation in development and making. You will have the opportunity to take a range of studio courses in bio-design, industrial design, interaction design, social practice, and textiles. These courses will help broaden your perspective, enhance your visual design vocabulary, and build your teamwork skills—all of which are critical for success in contemporary professional practice.

Collaborate and intern with major brands

Regular guest speakers, workshops, and collaborations will expose you to a range of professionals and internship opportunities. In recent years, students have interned for Nike Innovation, Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute, Erica Tanov, TROVE, Gap, Banana Republic, Re/Make, Levi Strauss & Co., Libertine, N.I.C.E. Collective, Amour Vert, and Tea Collection.

Many of the companies and organizations in the Bay Area that are part of the CCA community are leading the way in new business models, radical transparency, social justice, and sustainability. For example, we’re one of three U.S. colleges partnering with Re/Make, a nonprofit developing worker-centric terms of business engagement, to bring students into supply chains to meet with workers directly at their homes and workplaces. Recent experiences include:

• Meeting the women behind fast fashion labels for the film Re/make: Made in Mexico
• Uncovering the human cost of mass production for Re/make: Made in Sri Lanka
• Learning from Design Lecture Series presenter Dominique Drakeford about decolonizing the sustainable fashion agenda
• Talking with Re/Make Founder Ayesha Barenblat on the Conscious Chatter podcast about the Made in Mexico journey and movie

Receive feedback from visiting designers and innovators

Practicing designers and industry professionals, including founders of innovative companies, regularly attend our fashion critiques. Students have a chance to learn from their direct experience on a range of topics, including:

• Bio-fabrication
• Brand resale
• Social innovation
• Zero waste
• Design for carbon-negative products

Debut your collection at our annual fashion show

Every spring, all fashion design seniors present their thesis collections to a professional jury of design directors, industry insiders, innovators, and recruiters. This culminates in an end-of-year Fashion Experience that often includes a performance walkway, tactile portfolios, experimental videos, and installations.

Meet the program chair

Chair Gregory Climer is an independent designer and artist who has been working at the intersection of design and craft for over 20 years. His design practice has evolved into textile-centered art with a focus on queer identity. He is actively involved in researching alternative ways of making clothing with a focus on creative pattern cutting.

Climer began his career working on Broadway and then started his own menswear label while also working for Karl Lagerfeld, Imitation of Christ, John Bartlett, and others. His work is in the permanent collection of The Leslie Lohman Museum of Art in New York and has been shown at the de Young Museum in San Francisco, The Mint Museum in Charlotte, North Carolina, and many galleries. He was a 2016 artist in residence at the Museum of Art and Design in New York. Climer has lectured on creative cutting around the world and is spotlighted in Timo Rissanen and Holly McQuillan’s book Zero Waste Fashion Design.

MFA, Parsons School of Design, New York