| |9 9 DECEMBER 2018HIGHERReviewThe ability to collaborate and to communicate, a capacity for empathy, and an ability to articulate design insights shall be encouraged in design institutes to act strategicallyand reflection of culture. Constant improvement in technology has also become an aid to fashion design aspi-rants. And designers tend to make full use of these tools for their designs.Fashion Schools are rapidly evolv-ing and have become highly volatile in the academic landscape. Institutes are rethinking their long-standing philos-ophy of design education. The Fash-ion Design Industry's evolving future and high-end demand is affecting the mode in which education is delivered. As the world demands a better solu-tion for environmental sustainability, educators are providing opportunities for students to begin future agents of change. Students must acquire skills, in-terdisciplinary experiences and con-ceptual development throughout their learning. Fashion designers must, therefore, become familiarized with the research methodologies used in other fields so they can discover simi-lar, successful research data that drive the design processes. Hence, the im-portance for designers to acquire deeper forms of research becomes more meaningful when considering the excessive costs needed to build and sustain a brand today.The ability to collaborate and to communicate, a capacity for empathy, and an ability to articulate design in-sights shall be encouraged in design institutes to act strategically. And to ensure this, fashion design institutes must enable design cross-fertilization with areas such as science, business, education for innovation.The evolving future is largely cred-ited to the globalized fashion industry. The world has become smaller and de-signers need to be aware of cultures, global markets, resources and technol-ogies. Fashion is a cultural phenome-non in a social and historical context. Also, craft-based education should not be lost and neglected, nor should it be replaced by academic traditions that do not provide the specific need of fashion design education.Craft learning is an intrinsic part of the design education curriculum. Interactive, experiential learning is the core of the teaching pedagogy at our institution. Recently, a session by Mr Mohan Kumar Verma, one of the few remaining custodians of Sanjhi and a fourth generation Sanjhi artists spoke about the origin, motifs, tools and techniques of the craft. It was a hands-on workshop, where our stu-dents learnt to use special hand-made scissors and cut out detailed patterns to apply this knowledge in creating and developing new designs.The new curriculum aims to pro-vide students with contextual and pioneering cross-disciplinary engage-ment. Through this broader academic approach, design students will become versatile and able to succeed in the increasingly accelerated and knowl-edge-based professional environment.
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