‘Design’ is no longer a stranger to Sri Lanka’s major industries; In fact, design is currently becoming the most talked-about movement in the business world owing to the unique value addition that it brings about. At the forefront of this movement is Sri Lanka’s largest revenue generator- the apparel industry that has embraced design into its process to gain outstanding results today. Parallel to this, Sri Lanka’s own fashion industry comprised of retail businesses and individual designer brands is growing fast with the income of design talent and the demands of an increasing market. All in all, as Sri Lanka’s apparel manufacturing and designer fashion boutiques grow in size and numbers, it will become important to find effective ways to project them to clienteles at home and abroad. Predicting this upcoming need, Sri Lanka’s leading design and fashion educator AOD launched one of UK’s flagship fashion business programmes in partnership with Northumbria University.

This complete degree programme titled ‘Fashion Marketing & Design Studies’ is structured to train students in becoming industry-ready brand experts specialized in positioning, promoting and selling fashion within an international context. Fashion Marketing combines advertising and promotion with fashion and design along with a strong business perspective to get a fashion brand the attention that it needs to succeed. Fashion Marketers have a good understanding of the current trends in the market and on what will be stylish in the future which makes them visionaries able to recognize what determines a fashion success.

AOD believes that an internationally renowned UK degree in fashion marketing will have a massive impact in the country in the long run; “This programme is a big one for the country because of the importance of our domestic fashion industry. With our apparel industry bringing in more than half of our export revenue and the local fashion retail business growing fast, we need experienced fashion marketers who can really get the word out there. This becomes especially important because we’re no longer just manufacturers who work B2B but we’re also launching our own brands and talking to the customer directly. Even our own apparel industry are launching their own resident brands and it’s important than ever before to have dedicated fashion marketing experts who can envision the future of fashion and tell a story that appeals to the right market. This is the need we’re foreseeing and trying to prepare from now by creating fashion marketing and design professionals” stated AOD founder and visionary entrepreneur Linda Speldewinde who is also behind the successful business ventures such as Island Craft and www.fashionmarket.lk and fashion platforms such as Mercedes-Benz Fashion Runways Sri Lanka and Sri Lanka Design Festival.

Conducted by an international faculty in collaboration with local industry experts, this powerful programme prepares students to promote fashion for clienteles anywhere in the world. The Northumbria Fashion Marketing Degree at AOD is an academically sound programme structured to share the key theoretical concepts in fashion design, marketing as well as practical know-how that includes industry collaborative projects and internships that gives students the essential industry experience and valuable business connections even before graduating. The resulting graduates will be capable of promoting fashion from marketing strategy, trend analysis, market shift predictions to fashion photoshoot and campaign execution in digital, press and other media. Sri Lanka’s massive apparel industry as well as the growing designer fashion retail business will greatly benefit from this internationally qualified group of degree holders of this programme.