Fashion Branding & Communication at UCA

Fashion isn’t just about the catwalk – there’s a whole world of marketing, communication, and branding behind it. On our BA (Hons) Fashion Branding & Communication degree course, we’ll help you become an expert in the fashion arena.

As well as teaching you the fundamentals of business, this course, taught at UCA Epsom’s Business School for the Creative Industries, will develop your knowledge of the fashion industry to an expert level, with a particular focus on how brands communicate, operate, and innovate. You’ll use what you learn to develop methods for communicating your own creative ideas to consumers.

You’ll also get the chance to broaden your knowledge by applying these skills in a range of other specific areas of interest within the creative industries. And in your second year you’ll be able to pick from a host of exciting elective units to extend your knowledge.

By the time you graduate, you’ll have gained the experience to build lasting relationships throughout the global fashion industry using communication, promotion, networking, and technology.

And we’re confident you’ll follow in the footsteps of our many successful graduates, who have gone on to work for the likes of ASOS, Celine, L’Oréal, Paul Smith, Farfetch, Burberry, and Chanel.

 

Course entry options

Select from the options below to find out more about the different study options available for this course:

What you'll study

What you'll
study

The content of the course may be subject to change. Curriculum content is provided as a guide.

UCA’s Integrated Foundation Year is designed to give you the skills you’ll need to start your degree in the best possible way – with confidence, solid knowledge of creative practice, study skills and more.

You’ll explore a range of creative techniques and develop your portfolio, with your chosen subject in mind. We’ll work with you throughout the year to ensure you’re on the right track and give you the tools to achieve your highest potential on your degree.

Find out more about the Integrated Foundation Year

For our students coming from a non-UK educational background, UCA has an Integrated International Foundation Year to bring students from around the world to one hub of creativity. 

This year of preparatory study is designed to give you the skills you’ll need to start your degree in the best possible way – with confidence, solid knowledge of creative practice, study skills and the English speaking and writing skills you’ll need to succeed.

You’ll explore a range of creative techniques and develop your portfolio, with your chosen subject in mind. We’ll work with you throughout the year to ensure you’re on the right track and give you the tools to achieve your highest potential on your degree.

Find out more about the Integrated International Foundation Year

Business Bootcamp 1: Design Thinking & Orientation
This introductory unit welcomes you to the Business School for the Creative Industries, its learning community and professional global network and gets you started design thinking.

Fashion: Theories & Histories
This unit will situate advertising in broader economic and political practices, and how audiences and consumers value and engage with creative outputs in the public sphere. This unit will equip you to connect your experiences of desiring brands, buying things you’ll never wear, signing up to apps’ invasive surveillance, with thinkers who’ve themselves struggled with and successfully challenged industry barriers to propose creative solutions.

Business Seminar 1: Understanding Consumers
This unit explores what happens before, during, and after the point when someone buys something. It investigates how having (or not having) certain products affects our lives; specifically, how these items influence how we feel about ourselves and each other, especially with the influence of social media and the digital consumption. You’ll explore major trends and changes that impact the study of how consumers behave with a focus on the creative industries and the purchasing of creative goods and services such as fashion, music, cosmetics, beauty, films, media, toys, furniture, and interiors.

Foundations of Marketing and Communications
You will be introduced to the concepts, theories and models utilised in marketing and communications, providing the basis for further study within the course. Specifically, you’ll be introduced to the objectives and theory of marketing as a business function and explore the role of marketing within organisations and how marketing can be used in the achievement of an organisation's goals and objectives. Moreover, you’ll develop your understanding of the principles of marketing and communications and its relevance to organisations in fulfilling their customer requirements in a changing world.

Creative Fashion Branding Communication
You’ll be introduced to the key concepts of fashion as a vehicle of cultural communication, and how fashion brands utilise these techniques within a range of advertising campaigns. You’ll discuss the fast-changing nature of fashion in all its forms in the wider context of the creative industries and the way they integrate, as well as the outside influences, which affect the discipline, learn about different roles within fashion branding and start to identify your own place within it.

Business Bootcamp 2: Research and Development
This Bootcamp is designed to build a highly effective learning community aligned with the Inclusive Curriculum Framework, through research and development. R&D is the generation of new knowledge to apply to businesses, and is something that companies undertake in order to develop new products, ways of doing business or services, or develop those that already exist.

Business Seminar 2: Business Analytics
You’ll learn about business analytics, using case studies and examples from various creative industries and develop your knowledge of statistics and probability. You’ll be introduced to concepts such as random variables and probability distributions, and it cover the basics of statistical analysis and inference.

Visual Literacy
This practice-based unit is designed to introduce you to Visual Literacy in the context of fashion editorials, learning about the roles of fashion stylist and photographer, their relationship in the creation of a fashion image, and specialist materials, equipment and techniques used. You’ll learn industry software and be able to experiment with new and traditional media as you produce a collection of photographic images.

Understanding Trends & Forecasting
Of the many areas of expertise within the businesses that make up the creative industries; the ability to assess and react to the macro and micro-environment is vital to stay competitive and remain connected to customer lifestyles and buying behaviours. In this unit you’ll explore the concepts, theories and practices of trend forecasting within the context of the creative industries.

All students choose one unit from the following:

Cosmetics & Beauty: Business & Practices (elective unit)
You’ll be introduced to the fundamental principles of business and practices within the cosmetic and beauty industries through a global lens. You’ll identify with how the macro environment affects the cosmetic and beauty industry sector and consumer groups and how it operates, introducing you the various market levels and sectors. It will examine the various roles and stakeholders in the business as well as the structure, supply chain and distribution of products and services to end users. Within these core areas, the unit will evaluate and consider trends and developmental opportunities and challenges as technology continues to impact on the business.

Fashion: Business & Practices (elective unit)
You’ll learn fundamental principles of fashion business and practices through a global lens in this unit. You’ll identify with how the macro environment affects the fashion industry sector and consumer groups and how it operates, introducing you the various market levels and sectors. Each sector of the industry will be addressed, and you will understand the interrelationships between these sectors with emphasis on the evolution of business models in a digital economy.

Lifestyle Products: Business & Practices (elective unit)
This unit introduces you to the fundamental principles of the business and practices of lifestyle products, but through a global lens. You will identify with how the macro environment affects the lifestyle products industry sector and consumer groups and how it operates, introducing you the various market levels and sectors. It will examine the various roles and stakeholders in the business as well as the structure, supply chain and distribution of products and services to end users. Within these core areas, the unit will evaluate and consider trends and developmental opportunities and challenges as technology continues to impact on the business.

Business Bootcamp 3: Storytelling and Narrative (all students)
Telling stories is one of the most powerful means that we have to influence, teach, and inspire. It forges connections among people, and between people and ideas. Stories convey the culture, history, lifestyle, and values that unite people, they engender emotion and loyalty. This bootcamp provides you with an opportunity to explore narrative structures and experiment how they have been used, particularly in the changing landscape of digital marketing, demonstrating how important it is to develop your storytelling skills in the creative industries.

Brand Generation (all students)
Using in-depth analysis and the skills you’ve already gained, you’ll research and develop ideas to create your own brand. You’ll consider the tangible and intangible components of a brand identity and consider the relationship between entity and perception. And you’ll explore how brand persona promotes good practice in validating a desired direction and design.

Business Seminar 3: Professional Practice (all students)
Through a series of lectures, workshops and seminars you'll begin your preparations for industry experience. We'll ask you to self-assess your interests, strengths, areas for development and your future career ambitions; building and creating your network, how you can make a positive contribution to the industry and how you see yourself and others.

Creative Business Start-up (all students)
Learn the process of creating and building a new business venture, through exploring a range of case studies and identifying and evaluating the role of creativity in business start-ups. With this knowledge, you will apply business innovation as well as how to create value in firms, through new product or services, technologies and business. To this, you’ll conduct market research and produce a creative business plan.

Business Bootcamp 4: Exploring Innovation (all students)
Through a series of exciting and engaging fast-paced workshops, tasks and peer sessions you will be introduced and welcomed to professional practice and conduct in the creative industries through the BSCI Honeycomb Lens where we facilitate self-motivation, exploration, empowerment, and support development and recognition of skills for learning as you experience your business school journey.

Professional Placement (all students)
This unit is self-initiated and will involve you taking a legitimate Industry placement opportunity, regarded by you and your unit leader as an appropriate and unique professional experience.

All students choose one unit from Gamification & Marketing and Wearable Technology

Gamification & Marketing (elective unit)
This unit approaches the subject of gamification and marketing holistically, investigating the practical, critical and theoretical contexts surrounding this subject.

Wearable Technology (elective unit)
This unit approaches the subject of wearable technology, assessing the practical, critical and theoretical contexts surrounding this subject. You’ll explore wearable cultures, alongside the macro and micro landscapes and how this is influencing and impacting the creative industries. You’ll look at how sectors are adopting, or resisting, wearable technology and where and how it is being used.

All students choose one unit from Digital Marketing Analytics or Influence & Influencers or Public Relations or Art Direction or Journalism

Digital Marketing Analytics (elective unit)
Digital marketing analytics seeks to understand markets to improve marketing actions. The ability to acquire, analyse and to understand large marketing data sets, made possible by digitisation, can improve marketing campaigns and result in better performance. Data sets can be mined using a variety of quantitative techniques. Understanding markets better will enable more effective allocation of marketing budgets and an improved understanding of customer experiences.

Influence & Influencers (elective unit)
You’ll holistically approach the subject of influence and influencer-led marketing, looking to the practical, critical and theoretical contexts surrounding this subject. We’ll begin by outlining the contexts surrounding influence – including the history of the influencer, and its contemporary applications within fashion, music and advertising.

Public Relations (elective unit)
Great PR resonates in a way that advertising never can. In this unit, you will discover the theories, the personalities, and the good, the bad and the ugly of this craft. You will learn how to produce press releases, how to build and elevate compelling stories and how to pitch them.

Art Direction (elective unit)
Art Directors lead and inspire teams by creating and nurturing a culture of exploration and experimentation, and you’ll learn more about this in this unit. You’ll be introduced to appropriate practical and technical skills through workshops, discussions and critique. You’ll create visual layouts of your ideas for maximum impact and effect, and communicate them as ‘scamps’, ‘comps’ storyboards, and key frames.

Journalism (elective unit)
This unit looks at styles of journalism that allow for even greater levels of depth, investigation, external perspectives, media law and ethics and substantiated fact. You will not only present the story, but look beyond, the story behind the story, and potentially further, the story behind that. As part of this unit, we will present and discuss the importance of “hooks” and “angles” in generating in-depth work, alongside the importance of distinctiveness, in view of the existing sources of information that could be consulted.

All students choose one unit from Behavioural Studies and Consumption or Identity & Marketing or Visual Communications

Behavioural Studies and Consumption (elective unit)
You’ll be introduced to the theory and practice of consumer behaviour and consumption. You’ll explore how perceptions, learning, memory, personality, and culture influence consumer behaviour and how consumption changes by cultural and subcultural influences.

Identity & Marketing (elective unit)
An evaluation of both company and consumer identity and culture is a vital component of marketing. This unit will introduce you to how identity and marketing work in tandem. You’ll examine the symbolism of brand identity and its importance in attracting a loyal customer, and the ways marketing utilises data to target segmented consumer groups attracting niche audiences with customised promotions.

Visual Communications (elective unit)
You’ll explore the many facets of visual communication - graphic design through typography, editorial design, branding and packaging and illustration through drawing, image making and visual storytelling, all which touch upon both traditional and digital skills and techniques. You’ll also learn the wider contexts surrounding visual communication in multiple contexts from fashion to music, and discuss the fast-changing nature of publishing in all its forms.

Creative Innovation (for students on the Professional Practice Year pathway)
The ability to adapt and innovate is a vital element of creative business to withstand and prosper in fast-paced, and highly transformative sectors. This unit is designed for you investigate the real-world, relevant issues that are impacting on your Industry, while challenging well-established theory and/or principles which these contemporary issues conflict with. You’ll attempt to locate solutions to these problems through creative concepts, underpinned by alternative or reinvigorated principles and/or theory.

Industry Lecture Series (for students on the Professional Practice Year pathway)
This unit allows you to explore contemporary industry practices central to today’s global creative industries. It will allow you to build a portfolio of knowledge pertinent to your chosen industry sector. The series will include industry expert lectures, group workshops and group working, in order to test and explore industry sectors

Critical Analysis with English for Academic Purposes 1 (For direct entry international students only)
This unit will help you improve your academic skills within the context of the creative industries, including learning about our core expectations, formal and informal communication skills, critical thinking, research and presenting skills and academic writing skills.

Critical Analysis with English for Academic Purposes 2 (For direct entry international students only)
This second unit will help you further improve your academic skills within the context of the creative industries, covering academic study, writing and considerations in-depth. This unit covers the likes of critical analysis, research methodologies, referencing, and further writing skills.

If you opt to complete a professional practice year, this will take place in year three. You will undertake a placement within the creative industries to further develop your skills and CV.

While on the Professional Practice Year, you will be required to pay a reduced tuition fee for that year. This fee will be determined using government funding regulations. Based on current regulations, we expect this to be a maximum of 20% of the tuition fee rate that you are charged for your second year of study. You will also incur additional travel and accommodation costs during this year. The University will provide you with further advice and guidance about this as you approach your Professional Practice Year.

Business Bootcamp 5: Research & Methodologies (all students)
This bootcamp is about examining research and methodologies and how this applies to your course. We will discuss the different methods by which you can elicit findings whether quantitative (informing by data) or qualitative (informing from opinions).

Self-branding & Promotion (all students)
In this unit, you will gain a thorough framework of the contemporary challenges to visibility, traction and communication that face creatives seeking to represent themselves and their values across social media platforms, professional networking websites and freelance labour marketplaces. You’ll also investigate the commercial and ethical possibilities for branding yourself with a view to capitalizing upon your unique and relevant competencies targeted towards potential allies, agencies, collaborators, and employers.

Business Seminar 4: Strategy & Decision Making (all students)
More than ever, we are facing the challenge of making decisions under uncertainty against the backdrop of external factors that we cannot control or predict. As leaders, managers and executives, making effective decisions in a time-conscious manner is crucial. This bootcamp will enable you to transform decision-making into a smart and insightful process, providing a robust framework of effective and replicable solutions for better decisions and awareness of decision traps, as well as learning how to assess and choose high-value strategic options under the current climate of enormous uncertainty.

Business Bootcamp 6: Developing Enterprise (all students)
This unit will provide you with the opportunity to develop your creative thinking skills in a collaborative environment, bringing greater understanding to how those ideas may develop and transform through product or enterprise development.

Degree Project (all students)
In this final unit, you will apply all you’ve learned to create a distinctive piece of work for your degree project, the purpose of which is to allow you to identify opportunities successfully in your specialist subject area to promote and to develop your career. Through research, you will independently identify and/or generate innovative opportunities within your specialist subject area. Your portfolio will consist of a series of outcomes that showcase your knowledge, and your key attributes and skills as a reflective creative practitioner. You will be expected to consider the theoretical and professional contexts of your exploration. It is important that your work is contemporary, innovative, and representative of its target audience and industry sector.

All students choose one unit fromCosmetics & Beauty: Global Industry & Futures or Fashion: Global Industry & Futures or Lifestyle Goods: Global Industry & Futures

Cosmetics & Beauty: Global Industry & Futures (elective unit)
This unit explores the concept of future thinking and its influence on the global cosmetics and beauty industries. You’ll assess influence from culture and society and predict through recognition of global shifts and emerging trend manifestations. You’ll complete an in-depth study of the current macro environment, using the findings of this study to translate, validate and communicate a vision for the future of these industries.

Fashion: Global Industry & Futures (elective unit)
You’ll explore the concept of future thinking and its influence on the global fashion industry. Analysing influence from culture and society and predicting through recognition of global shifts and emerging trend manifestations, you’ll complete an in-depth study of the current macro environment and use the findings of this study to translate, validate and communicate a vision for the future of fashion.

Lifestyle Goods: Global Industry & Futures (elective unit)
You’ll the concept of future thinking and its influence on the global lifestyle industries, analysing influence from culture and society and predicting through recognition of global shifts and emerging trend manifestations. You’ll complete an in-depth study of the current macro environment, using the findings of this study to translate, validate and communicate a vision for the future.

All students choose one unit from Data Mining for Marketers or Audience Evaluation or Predictive Analytics for Business.

Data Mining for Marketers (elective unit)
Data Mining focuses on the use of automation to uncover relationships within datasets that can be used to support improved decision processes. When employed in marketing, data mining will use customer, potential customer, supplier, and population data to reveal patterns in the data that have potential to improve the marketing process and outcomes. You’ll be introduced to the processes of data mining using various tools including descriptive statistics, including SPSS and R.

Audience Evaluation (elective unit)
The concept of audiences has been broadened its meaning in recent years and is especially linked to the consumption of media and cultural productions. Audiences have been described as ‘spectators’, and most recently they are regarded as ‘consumers’ who avidly consume a variety of entertainment forms and cultural activities. This unit introduces audience research in the creative industries, aiming to evaluate how audiences play a key role in shaping creative and cultural experiences and marketing activities in contemporary business environments.

Predictive Analytics for Business (elective unit)
Predictive analytics is a domain of statistical analysis that allows an organisation to extract information from data to predict patterns and trends. This unit introduces predictive modelling and explains its application in business decisions. It focusses on a set of statistical techniques including regression modelling, cluster analysis and survival analysis.

This course is designed to offer you (if eligible) the opportunity to study part of your degree aboard at a UCA partner university, while still earning credits towards your UCA degree.

For more information please visit the Study Abroad section

Industry placement
offer

Preparing graduates for successful careers underpins everything we do, and all students on this course may be offered support to identify and prepare for an industry placement according to their individual needs. We’ll draw on our wide range of contacts within the creative industries to help provide you with opportunities that align with your interests and future career aspirations.

Course specifications

Please note, syllabus content indicated is provided as a guide. The content of the course may be subject to change in line with our Student Terms and Conditions for example, as required by external professional bodies or to improve the quality of the course.

Fees & funding

Fees & financial support

Tuition fees - 2024/25 entry

  • Integrated Foundation Year: £9,250
  • BA course: £9,250

If you opt to study the Professional Practice Year, for 2024 you will be required to pay a reduced tuition fee of £1,850. You will also incur additional travel and accommodation costs during your Professional Practice year. The University will provide you with further advice and guidance about this.

Tuition fees - 2024/25 entry

  • Integrated International Foundation Year: £9,250 (see fee discount information)
  • BA course: £9,250 (see fee discount information)

If you opt to study the Professional Practice Year, for 2024 you will be required to pay a reduced tuition fee of £1,850. You will also incur additional travel and accommodation costs during your Professional Practice year. The University will provide you with further advice and guidance about this.

Tuition fees - 2024/25 entry

  • Integrated International Foundation Year: £16,950
  • BA course: £17,500

If you opt to study the Professional Practice Year, for 2024 you will be required to pay a reduced tuition fee of £3,390. You will also incur additional travel and accommodation costs during your Professional Practice year. The University will provide you with further advice and guidance about this.

Please note: The fees listed on this webpage are correct for the stated academic year only, for details of previous years please see the full fee schedules.

UCA scholarships and fee discounts

At UCA we have a number of scholarships and fee discounts available to assist you with the cost of your studies.

Financial support

There are lots of ways you can access additional financial support to help you fund your studies - both from UCA and from external sources. Discover what support you might qualify for please see our financial support information.

Additional course costs

In addition to the tuition fees there may be other costs for your course. The things that you are likely to need to budget for to get the most out of a creative arts education will include books, printing costs, occasional or optional study trips and/or project materials.

These costs will vary according to the nature of your project work and the individual choices that you make. Please see the Additional Course Costs section of your Course Information for details of the costs you may incur.

Facilities

Fashion Branding & Communication students have a dedicated course studio and study space, access to campus print making workshops with dedicated technical support, campus photographic studios with lighting rigs, green screen lighting set up and digital media suites equipped with Macs and PCs, programmed with specialist design software. Students also have access to screen printing and bookbinding facilities, together with wood workshops for set building.

View 360 virtual tour

Fashion Branding & Communication studios, UCA Epsom

Photography studio, UCA Epsom

Print studios, UCA Epsom

Digital media suite, UCA Epsom

What’s it like being a student at UCA?

That’s a big question. Get some answers from people who are studying right here, right now.

Chat to a student

Ashley Deverell

"The tutors helped guide me through my creative thoughts and turn them into processes that I then could take into the real world. They were good at helping me understand the importance of prioritising and finding a balance, which I still try and use"

Ashley Deverell

Entry & portfolio requirements

Entry & portfolio
requirements

BA (Hons) course
BA (Hons) course with Professional Practice Year

The standard entry requirements* for these courses are one of the following:

  • 112 UCAS tariff points, see accepted qualifications
  • Pass at Foundation Diploma in Art & Design (Level 3 or 4)
  • Distinction, Merit, Merit at BTEC Extended Diploma / BTEC National Extended Diploma
  • Merit at UAL Extended Diploma
  • 112 UCAS tariff points from an accredited Access to Higher Education Diploma in appropriate subject
  • 27-30 total points in the International Baccalaureate Diploma with at least 15 IB points at Higher level, see more information about IB entry requirements.

And four GCSE passes at grade 9-4/A*-C including English (or Functional Skills English/Key Skills Communication Level 2).

Other relevant and equivalent Level 3 UK and international qualifications are considered on an individual basis, and we encourage students from diverse educational backgrounds to apply.  

Portfolio requirements

These courses don't require a portfolio. If you receive an offer, you’ll be invited to attend an Applicant Day where you can meet the course team and learn more about the course. 

 


BA (Hons) course with Integrated Foundation Year
BA (Hons) course with Integrated Foundation Year and Professional Practice Year

The standard entry requirements* for these courses are one of the following:

  • 32 UCAS tariff points, see accepted qualifications
  • Pass at Foundation Diploma in Art & Design (Level 3 or 4)
  • Pass, Pass, Pass at BTEC Extended Diploma / BTEC National Extended Diploma
  • Pass at UAL Extended Diploma
  • 32 UCAS tariff points from an accredited Access to Higher Education Diploma in appropriate subject
  • 24 points from the International Baccalaureate, see more information about IB entry requirements.

And four GCSE passes at grade 9-4/A*-C including English (or Functional Skills English/Key Skills Communication Level 2).

Other relevant and equivalent Level 3 UK and international qualifications are considered on an individual basis, and we encourage students from diverse educational backgrounds to apply. 

Portfolio requirements

These courses don't require a portfolio. If you receive an offer, you’ll be invited to attend an Applicant Day where you can meet the course team and learn more about the course. 

 


*We occasionally make offers which are lower than the standard entry criteria, to students who have faced difficulties that have affected their performance and who were expected to achieve higher results. We consider the strength of our applicants’ portfolios, as well as their grades -  in these cases, a strong portfolio is especially important.

BA (Hons) course
BA (Hons) course with Professional Practice Year

The entry requirements for these courses will depend on the country your qualifications are from, please check the equivalent qualifications for your country:

Any additional entry requirements listed in the UK requirements section, e.g., subject requirements, work experience or professional qualifications, also apply to international applicants applying with equivalent qualifications.

Portfolio requirements

These courses don't require a portfolio. 

 


BA (Hons) course with Integrated International Foundation Year
BA (Hons) course with Integrated International Foundation Year and Professional Practice Year

For these courses you need to have completed 12 years of schooling (with good grades) and show strong evidence of your ability to successfully complete the programme and progress onto your chosen degree.

Any additional entry requirements listed in the UK requirements section, e.g., subject requirements, work experience or professional qualifications, also apply to international applicants applying with equivalent qualifications.

Portfolio requirements

These courses don't require a portfolio.


English language requirements

To study at UCA, you'll need to have a certain level of English language skill. And so, to make sure you meet the requirements of your course, we ask for evidence of your English language ability, please check the level of English language required:

Don't meet the international entry requirements or English language requirements?

You may be able to enter the course through the following entry pathways:

Apply now

Please use the following fields to help select the right application link for you:

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