Cross-Cultural Perspective and Polytechnical Approach for Fashion Education: A Case Study of an Italo-Chinese International Program

With the rapid rise of globalization over the past several decades, fashion as a structurally diverse global industry is being forced to re-assess its role in response to these changes. The pace of change in the global fashion industry also requires us to re-evaluate our international fashion design education. With the increasing number of students studying fashion design abroad, fashion institutions as well as students themselves have experienced unprecedented challenges. During the 20th dmi conference held in the US in 2016, scholars have discussed about the challenges that international fashion design students, especially Chinese students encountered when experiencing unfamiliar teaching approaches of didactic laboratory. This paper illustrates a case study designed as a comparative investigation, showing how Chinese fashion design students respond to different teaching approach of their own when encountering no language difficulties or socio-cultural problems, and how such teaching approach could help to improve and cultivate fashion design students competencies. We hope that this case study could provide a basis for reflection and for critical discussions for the future works.