Online Courses in Fashion – Sustainability, Business, Design

by Carley Lake | Last Updated:   May 29, 2020

Check out the best online courses in fashion—sustainable fashion, fashion business, and fashion production. These have helped me really understand the business and how to make sustainable changes.

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1. Fashion and Sustainability: Understanding Luxury Fashion in a Changing World

Platform: FutureLearn 

Offered by: UAL: University of Arts London, London College of Fashion’s Centre for Sustainable Fashion, supported by luxury fashion group Kering

Duration: 6 weeks 

Price: Free, extra benefits from €49 (access to this course for as long as it’s on FutureLearn + a print and digital Certificate of Achievement once you’re eligible)

In this class, you will learn all about how you can make fashion more sustainable and brainstorm your own initiative manifesto and possible solutions. The course is from UAL: University of Arts London, London College of Fashion’s Centre for Sustainable Fashion, supported by luxury fashion group Kering. (I basically just skipped the videos that discussed Kering’s business…). 

I loved hearing from Professor Dilys Williams, Director of Centre for Sustainable Fashion at London College of Fashion. She and fellow professors discussed the complex nature of sustainability, how to apply design thinking processes to your own solution ideas, debated current and emerging perspectives, and helped explain how students could develop innovative approaches to fashion that can contribute to ecological resilience and thriving societies. This is one of my favorite online courses in fashion.

2. Sustainable Fashion (Business) Online Courses in Fashion

Platform: Coursera

Offered by: Copenhagen Business School 

Duration: Approx. 14 hours to complete, Suggested: 6 weeks, 1.5h a week

Price: Purchase Course is €44, Can audit for free (You’ll be able to see most of the course materials for free, but you won’t be able to submit certain assignments or get grades for your work. You won’t be able to submit assignments for feedback or a grade and you won’t get a course certificate.)

This online course in fashion provides an overview of business model theory and discusses business models as essential tools in the transformation towards more sustainable businesses. The class is a great option if you want to understand the business side of the industry (and then how you can change it :)). 

By the end of the course, you should have an understanding of the overall challenges and potential solutions for businesses to become more sustainable. You will learn about the challenges and opportunities of implementing circular business models and various tools that companies use to measure and report about sustainability. 

The course includes short videos, readings, and quizzes. 

3. Fashion Product Development (Online Courses in Fashion – Short Course)

Platform and Offered by: UAL: University of Arts London, London College of Fashion Online Platform

Duration: 6 weeks 

Price: £465

I took this class at 5am every Thursday for 6 weeks (since I was on PST time). It was worth it. 🙂 If you ever wanted to get the 101 on how clothing goes from design concepts to a first a series of prototypes, to garments produced in large volumes to meet your client’s requirements, this class is for you. 

You will learn about the entire process, from understanding the product and its construction process in detail, to working and communicating with factories in order to produce the product. This course is for those who want to learn about what goes into producing a fashion product and the people involved at the different stages of fashion production. You will also learn about sustainability in the production process.

The class is live on video with the professor and fellow students so you get the benefit of live brainstorm, time for questions, and feedback on your assignments which is great for one of the online courses in fashion.

Professor Tina Sutradhar co-founded luxury clothing brand MIUNIKU with her sister. They were awarded the Special Jury Prize at the LVMH Prize for Young Fashion Designers 2014. Tina and her sister Nikita also received the Fashion Innovation Award at London college of fashion (July 2013) and the ISKO™ Denim Diffusion Award (July 2013). They were semi-finalists of the H&M Design Awards 2014. 

4. Fashion’s Future: The Sustainable Development Goals

Platform: FutureLearn 

Offered by: Fashion Revolution 

Starts: June 10 

Duration: 6 weeks 

Price: Free, extra benefits from €49, ~$54 (access to this course for as long as it’s on FutureLearn + a print and digital Certificate of Achievement once you’re eligible)

In this course, you will learn how fashion can support and link to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. You’ll learn how clothes are made, how fashion supply chains work and the importance of responsible production and consumption. This includes all aspects—fair trade/ethical trade and why it is essential to international development and human rights, how global supply chains work and how they can have a more positive impact on people and planet, gender equality within fashion, the environmental impacts of fashion, and more. 

I hope you learn a ton in one of these online courses in fashion!