Design for the Fashion System at Politecnico di Milano

This essay reconstructs the origins, development, and distinctive identity of the Fashion Design programme at Politecnico di Milano, situating its emergence within the broader institutional transformation that led to the establishment of the Faculty of Design in 2003 and the consolidation of a multidisciplinary design culture. Moving from the late 1990s—marked by the introduction of the Fashion Design track within the Industrial Design Degree—the contribution frames fashion education as a response to profound socio-economic, technological, and cultural shifts that redefined both the fashion system and the university’s role in knowledge production. Against the backdrop of the transition from product-centred to system-oriented logics, from designer authorship to brand and communication strategies, and from material production to experiential and immaterial value creation, the programme reinterprets fashion as a design-driven, systemic, and processual discipline. The essay highlights the integration of meta-design, research culture, technical expertise, and systemic thinking as core pillars of the educational model. Unlike atelier-based traditions, the Politecnico approach positions fashion within a polytechnical framework that combines humanities, engineering, management, and industrial knowledge, closely aligned with the Italian manufacturing districts and the Made in Italy production model. Through this perspective, Fashion Design at Politecnico di Milano emerges as a strategic educational and research environment aimed at training designers capable of operating across complex value chains, integrating creativity and management, and contributing to innovation within the fashion system.