Professional Course in Digital Fashion

Lecturer: Marco Natale

Digital art is a natural evolution of a millennia-long creative process, which, while replacing the sheet of paper with a graphics tablet, still requires a basic classical technical approach, including, of course, the fundamental principles of drawing, especially when applied to figurative themes. The module, which is practical in nature, will allow you to enter the realm of artistic drawing disciplines applied to human anatomy, with a focus on the clothed figure, whether static or in motion.

• Basic anatomy knowledge: skeleton and musculature
• Movement
• Gestures
• Draping
• Draping: leather goods and footwear; fantasy clothing; Sci-Fi clothing
• Anatomy: Construction of the skeleton in complex movements and activities
• Study of hypertrophy and various body types
• Gestures: Lines of force/movement lines of clothing

Lecturer: Marco Natale

The quality and fluidity of storytelling are two key elements of any project, especially when it is of a digital nature. The module will prepare you to dissect your project carefully and perform a detailed analytical process that will take you from the initial idea to the completion of the work. Through historical and cultural insights from Classical and Modern Mythology, you will learn to contextualize the initial draft using key words and develop it in progressive steps, applying analysis and moodboard creation, with feedback and iterations.
The curriculum of the second year will guide you towards advanced design and the development of characters and Fantasy and Sci-Fi situations, progressing with the analysis and creation of project pages.

Lecturer: Marco Natale

The “character” or “mannequin” that wears the digital dress can interpret any type of gender, ethnicity, color, culture, morphology, to potentially not even be tied to purely human and/or terrestrial forms. Working on this principle, the module will teach you in the first year how character development works by applying identity and distinct forms, developing the silhouette and, obviously, dressing it appropriately and going into the detail of each individual accessory. The study also includes an analysis of the environment, climate, culture and social conditions, including the “gestures” of the complete character.
In the second year you will be able to delve deeper into the study and development of characters, analyzing in greater detail their relationship with the clothes they wear, the tools they use and the environment in which they interact.

Lecturer: Alessandro Depaoli

This second-year module will build on the basics of Blender and ZBrush to bring you to a professional level, teaching the most recent 3D modeling techniques.

• Decimation
• Introduction to 3D Printing and Prototyping
• Organic Modeling
• Drapery Modeling
• Dynamic Use of Dynamesh/Zremesh
• Pattern Creation in ZBrush
• Brush Editing
• VDM Brush
• Dynamics
• Micromesh
• Nanomesh
• Advanced Masking
• Advanced Texturing
• Layer/Morph Target

Lacturer: Daniele Angelozzi

The care of detail and the search for extreme realism are added values in a digital work (which can also be converted into three-dimensional through printing) and make the preparation and professionalism of an artist evident. This module explores all the techniques and secrets to make virtual clothing and accessories hyper-realistic, including footwear, leather goods, hats, and special props.
Among the various didactic focuses, you will discover the use of lowpoly modeling, dynamesh, mesh slicing, and zremesher, patch extraction, thickness creation, and model management through different tools and groups. Additionally, you will master the use of UVs for better texture creation management and sculpting techniques applied to microprops, i.e., the detail of the detail.
In the second year, the level becomes advanced, with the introduction of more complex shapes and the study of techniques and programs suitable for achieving the goal.

Lecturer: Gabriele Votta

With the use of Marvelous Design software, you will learn how to digitally sew clothes for your avatars, simultaneously becoming a fashion designer, pattern maker, and tailor. The result is a blend of knowledge acquired by intersecting the modules, in a journey that alternates between physical, tactile experience and mastery in using programs in the digital world.
Among the clothing items explored in the first year are various types of T-shirts, shirts, pants, skirts, and outerwear, both in sportswear and formal versions. In the second year, women’s clothing, lingerie, capes, and the rendering of garments in relation to physics and climate will be analyzed. The course concludes with the application on avatars and the final animation.

Lecturer: Leonardo Assom

The ultimate goal of the digital fashion designer is to see their clothes walking down the runway, worn by their characters in the cities of the Metaverse. By combining the work of the three software tools, Marvelous Designer, Blender, and ZBrush, you will be able to project your designs into virtual universes, making precise decisions regarding your concept, structuring high-poly models in combination, including studies on Cloth Simulation, Retopology, and Substance Painter. Using Unreal Editor for Fortnite, you will be able to take your production to the next level, visualizing your works directly on the Fortnite platform.

Lecturer: Leonardo Assom

Among the essential programs for 3D modeling, Blender is used for rigging, animation, compositing, and rendering 3D images. In this module, you will learn to use one of the “pillar” tools for preparing a digital fashion designer.

• Introduction to Blender: Interface and commands / Traditional modeling
• Application techniques in the fashion field
• Model optimization
• Rendering: video games / cinema / static / video

Lecturer: Alessandro Depaoli

The Zbrush software has revolutionized the field of digital sculpting, allowing designers to use essential tools for 3D modeling. A key feature of the program is its complete versatility, giving the artist the feeling of performing an extremely detailed manual craft. Used in the world of video games, the software is also appreciated in cinema for its ability to process complex figures. This module will allow you to learn Zbrush through a step-by-step program:

• Interface
• Masks/Polygroup/Selection/Cut
• Alpha
• Low poly polygonal modeling (Zmodeller)
• Insert Mesh Brushes
• Curve Brushes
• Introduction to organic modeling
• Brush
• Dynamesh
• Zremesh
• UV
• Surface
• Dynamic Micropoly
• Polypaint

Lecturer: Fabio Cristi

The Design Methodology course will help you understand how an idea is born and how it is developed into a finalized product that meets all the requirements for which it was created. The course will provide you with analytical tools to examine the relationship between the product and the processes behind its creation through a clear definition of design phases and the methodologies applied to them. The differences between traditional and contemporary design contribute to defining the role of the designer, working on their specific skills, responsibilities, and overall approach. The course also focuses on the identity analysis of the main types of projects: creative, engineering, digital, and research.

• Phases of the Design Process
• Project Management
• Development and Prototyping
• Communication and Presentation of the Project
• Evaluation and Implementation of the Project
• Definition of the Final Project

Lecturers: Claudine Vincent / Fabrizio Modina

The theoretical/practical module analyzes the materials and components used to create a garment or costume. Touch and sight are the senses that contribute to the choice of fabrics and accessories necessary for the fashion sketch. The material that makes up the garment represents the structural architecture that determines its image and appearance, therefore, in-depth knowledge of fabrics is an essential skill for those working in the sector. The analysis includes the entire range of available materials, from traditional fabrics to the latest technological experiments, animal, plant, artificial, synthetic fibers, technical and innovative fabrics, jersey, yarns for knitting, lace, leathers, furs, feathers, handmade and industrial processes of materials, buttons, buckles, and other accessories.

Lecturer: Silvia Mira

Fashion has always been inspired by art and the past, modernizing ancient forms and techniques, reinterpreting them in the form of precious details suspended in time. From the pleats of the Egyptians to the soft drapery of the Greeks and Romans, from the metallic medieval armor to the sumptuous Baroque fabrics, to the Victorian embellishments and the freedom of the Liberty style, the history of fashion becomes an essential journey for those who want to explore the cultural depth of the profession of couturier and costume designer, taking a trip back in time to discover how men and women dressed centuries before us.

• Ancient times: the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans
• From the early medieval courts to the end of the 16th century
• Merovingian and Carolingian costume. Ottonian period costume
• Costume from the 12th to 13th century
• Costume of the 14th century
• Costume of the 16th century
• Costume of the 17th century
• Costume of the 18th century
• Napoleonic fashion
• Bourgeois fashion: the century of crinoline

Lecturer: Fabrizio Modina

From Charles Frederick Worth to Iris van Herpen, fashion has evolved from the late 1800s to today, interpreting the desires and needs of the times and sometimes anticipating them. The absolute arbiters of these changes, the couturiers first and the designers later, have contributed to the inevitable transition from crinolines to neoprene. This module aims to objectively analyze the Italian and international designers and companies that have transformed fashion into art and art into fashion, visualizing through a photographic and audiovisual journey the work of masters such as Coco Chanel, Christian Dior, Valentino, Yves Saint Laurent, Giorgio Armani, Gianni Versace, Vivienne Westwood, Alexander McQueen, and many others.

• 19th Century: The first Parisian couturiers
• Chanel and the great revolution
• The 1950s
• The Space Age
• Great Italian fashion
• The 1980s: The French new wave
• Made in England
• Japan
• The Antwerp School
• The second Italian generation
• Kings of footwear
• Cult brands
• Jewelry

Lecturers: Fabrizio Modina / Emanuela Zilio

As with all contemporary forms of art and languages – difficult to identify and understand for those living in the same era – Modern Mythology remains today a space rarely codified from a cultural perspective, lacking structured research and an advanced critical apparatus. Working on the identity identification that at least five generations attribute to heroes and fantastic worlds generated by animation, comics, video games, television, and literature, the following educational proposal is designed to stimulate your curiosity for knowledge, beyond your vision skills, bringing your attention in a new way to assets with high anthropological, narrative, and value potential, helping you reclaim ancient culture, distant culture in space and time, complex and innovative culture, to identify and start formalizing your new professional profile, bridging knowledge, and recognizing the great authors of our present.
Alongside the heroes of history and the fantastic, the contemporary era is also generating myths, real figures of our time – coming from music, fashion, sports, or cinema – who have already become icons of the 20th and 21st centuries.
This module aims to fill a cultural gap by providing, through a narrative close to your language, stimuli for research and the deepening of contemporary topics that may seem different but are, in fact, closely interconnected.

• 18th and 19th Century: A Narrative Revolution
• 1900/1937: Proto-Modern Mythology
• 1938/1956: Golden Age
• 1957/1969: Space Age
• 1970/1979: Disco Decade
• 1980/1989: The Second Golden Age
• 1990/1997: Glittering Years
• 1998/2010: Wizardry Age
• 2011/2024: Remake & Reboot
• Interactive Lab Module:
  • Phygital and Onlife
  • Languages and Communication of Modern Mythology
  • Video Games and Gamification

Lecturers: Benilde Reis / Emanuela Zilio

Fashion is more than just clothing: it is a powerful tool for personal expression, identity, and inclusion. In a world where traditional gender norms and standardized body ideals still dominate the fashion industry, there is a growing need to challenge conventions and embrace diversity in all its forms.
The goal of this module is to guide you in understanding how genderless design concepts can be reinterpreted to accept and honor atypical bodies, those that challenge the restrictive conceptions of size, shape, and ability found in mainstream fashion. By questioning these paradigms and developing innovative ideas, it will be possible to combine theory, real-world design projects, and critical discussions to produce designs that highlight individuality and accessibility.

• The Future of Fashion
• Understanding gender concepts, bodies, and genderless clothing, considering its evolution in the history of fashion
• Exploring how atypical bodies are excluded or underrepresented in mainstream fashion
• Developing strategies to design inclusive and gender-neutral clothing
• Promoting awareness of the cultural and social implications of inclusive design
• Fundamentals of Genderless Clothing: Introducing gender-neutral fashion and its historical and cultural significance
• The history of unisex clothing in different cultures
• Atypical bodies and challenges in fashion: understanding the diversity of body types and their challenges in fashion
• Intersectionality in fashion and design principles for inclusivity

The Fashion Heritage Academy has partnered with the T.E.S.T. School. This will allow you to benefit from targeted language training, essential for navigating the international fashion scene, participating in interdisciplinary projects at the European or global level, and interacting appropriately with high-level partners, clients, and professionals. The course includes the exam for the APTIS ESOL certification issued by the British Council.