Course Syllabus

Scandinavian Textiles and Fashion Workshop

Course Description 

Expand your understanding of Scandinavian design,  art and culture and unleash your creative identity by exploring textiles in fashion and surface design and how they change the way we dress as well as inform the spaces around us. The course combines visits to Scandinavian designers and artists, global brands the likes of H&M, Filippa K, and Marimekko with readings and studies of tactility, expression, and materials. Scandinavian Textiles and Fashion Workshop is appropriate for students in studio art, interior design, architecture, design history, information design, creative management or business. Students will work in analogue and digital media. User knowledge of Adobe Suite is helpful.

Learning Objectives

• To cultivate ways of exploring textiles in fashion and surface design and their intersections with identities, histories, narratives, and cultures in the contemporary world
• To introduce tools and optics that can support students individual explorations of textiles in fashion and surface design
• To plan, execute and document actual individual and team-based explorations 

Faculty

Magda Marnell
Magda Marnell is a fashion designer, educated at the London College of Fashion and Beckmans College of Design, Stockholm. She has run her own fashion brand, exhibiting at several internationally renowned galleries and art venues such as DOX Centre for Contemporary Art and The New Stage of the National Theater in Prague. Between 2010 and 2024 she held different senior design positions at H&M in Stockholm. Magda holds a BA in Art History from Uppsala University and has worked as a freelance illustrator for customers like Uncommon Guidebooks and Sofar Sounds. She is co-founder and creative director of Matsson Marnell, a design studio with a holistic approach specializing in high-end collectibles and interior design. Featured in magazines such as Architectural Digest, Get Clever, Elle Decoration, Residence Magazine, Tidskriften Rum and exhibited at Stockholm Furniture Fair 2023 and 2024 and TräArt, Bodafors, Sweden 2024.

Readings

• Barnard, Malcolm. 2002 (reprinted 2008). Fashion as Communication. Second Edition. Oxon and New York: Routledge: 72 - 101
• Kollnitz, Andrea and Pecorari Marco (red) 2022. Fashion, Performance and Performativity - the complex space of fashion. Bloomsbury: 27 - 41
•  Julie Sommerlund, Ideological design,
• Recycling from waste in Fashion and textiles, Pandit, Pintu, Ahmed, Shakeel, Singa etc
• Fletcher, Kate. 2014. Sustainable Fashion and Textiles: Design Journeys. Second edition. London & New York,  Routledge: 139 - 161
• Svendsen, Lars. 2006. Fashion: A philosophy. London, Reaktion Books: 90 - 110

Field Studies

A vital portion of our learning will take place outside the classroom visiting companies, showrooms, outlets, researchers, designers and artists.

Guest Lecturers

Mina Lundgren - Notion of form https://www.notionofform.com/

Approach to Teaching & Expectations of the Students

Be prepared to participate, contribute, ask and answer questions, in other words, to explore:

• Are you willing to test new ideas and new ways of thinking?
• Do you promote an environment where everyone feels free to express their ideas and stretch their thinking?
• Do you contribute to the learning environment of the class as a whole by sharing your thoughts and experiences?

There will be about three hours of class time a week and you are expected to work an average of six hours per week outside of class (this includes time spent on individual urban explorations, activity on the discussion board, the development of your journal/lookbook, and the design of the moodboards).

Evaluation

Engagement: Be engaged in class, on field studies and on study tour. Be inquisitive, daring, open-minded. Be patient to allow those who are not so keen on talking in class to gather their thoughts - depth is shaped by thought, not speed. Our guest speakers and people we go to meet are smart and busy people giving us their time. Prepare and respond with all you’ve got.

Fashion, Textiles, and Gender exploration: In this group assignment you venture on a gender scavenger hunt in the city of Stockholm. You will through a series of observations among styling exercises explore which roles gender play in the shaping of Scandinavian fashion & textiles and how clothing in general let us express and read gender. 

Fashion vs. Costumes Exploration: In our everyday lives, we perform identity simply through getting dressed everyday, is life a  sort of costume party, is everyday Halloween? In this Individual Assignment you will examine the intersections between costumes and fashion, performance and identity through an exploration including photo-observations and written reflections. 

The Moodboards - an initial definition: A mood board is a type of visual presentation or 'collage' consisting of images, text, and samples of objects in a composition. A mood board can be used to convey a general idea or feeling about a particular topic. They may be physical or digital, and can be effective presentation tools.

Grading

Individual grades for team assignments may be applied. The course policy is that late assignments are not accepted.

Academic Regulations  

Please make sure to read the Academic Regulations on the DIS website. There you will find regulations on: 

• Course Enrollment and Grading  
• Academic Expectations and Honor Code 

DIS - Study Abroad in Scandinavia - www.DISabroad.org