Are you a creative person? Do you have a passion for design, making or material innovation? Textiles BA/BSc(Hons) allows you to explore the wide-ranging creative potential that this exciting and diverse subject area has to offer.

On our Textiles course we’ll:

• Give you the chance to produce innovative designs allowing you to explore how to make the textiles and surfaces which surround us all each day. You’ll be able to develop your aesthetic, commercial and professional awareness whether you become a Textile Designer, a Surface Designer and Illustrator or a Textile Craft Practitioner and you'll be supported by expert academic and technical staff who are actively engaged in research and are professional designers and artists in their own right.
• Use drawing to loosely inspire colourways and texture or producing a surface design or illustration. A drawing may become a building block in a digital design process useful for real world applications.
• Help you develop craft skills used in the creation of products suitable for the fashion or interiors market. Our modules which may be partnered with industry collaborators will help you learn about these design and production processes so you can see how your ideas may become fabric for fashion seen on the catwalk, the patterns that cover the walls, floors and surfaces of interior spaces, wrap our presents or accessorize our lives.

We’ll encourage you to develop your creative, professional, intellectual and personal abilities as these are acknowledged as the key skills required for a broad range of textile related careers and if you opt for a four-year course you will have the chance to go on placement, gaining invaluable experience in the world of textiles.

As a Textiles student, you will have the chance to develop your artistic skills and experiment with a breadth of materials and techniques in our world class workshop and studio environment. Workshops looking at areas such as print, knit, weave, embroidery and digital design will help you discover the type of textile practitioner that you are. Understanding this could provide you with the skills needed for a career in one of the myriad of industries that employ textile graduates each year.

Placements

The course offers an optional one-year (36 weeks minimum) work placement after the second year, in the UK or abroad. This will give you the opportunity to gain valuable hands-on experience, insight into your chosen career and open up your graduate employment prospects. Our Placement Unit and academic staff have excellent industry links and can support you in applying for and finding your placement(s), as well as during your placement year.

Students studying Textile courses have previously taken up placement opportunities with companies including: Marks and Spencer - London; Miss Selfridge - London; Hat Therapy - Hebden Bridge; Taylor and Lodge - Huddersfield; Visage - Manchester; Mamas & Papas - Huddersfield; Primeur Ltd - Bradford; Christy Garments - Barnsley; Oxfam Online - Batley; GTM Europe - Manchester; Isabella Oliver – London; TOFT – Rugby; Katrien Van Hecke – Belgium; Margo Selby – Kent; Souraya – Australia; Wooltex - Huddersfield and Sage Automotive Interiors - Bury.

Alternatively, if you are a student from within the UK or the EU, you could consider starting your own small business by applying for the Enterprise Placement Year in conjunction with the University’s Enterprise Team. You’ll have the opportunity to benefit from business advice, mentoring and networking sessions. You can find out more information on the Enterprise Placement Year here.

Your Career

This course aims to help you to develop the skills needed for roles such as product developer, designer, fabric technologist, buyer, merchandiser, stylist and trend forecaster for a range of retailers and manufacturing companies.

Graduates from our textiles courses are now working in roles at companies including Marks and Spencer, Burberry, Michael Kors and Primark, as well as Jaguar Land Rover and Crafty Praxis.**

Previous placements have included companies such as Anthropologie, Mary Katrantzou, Bag it Don’t Bin it, Hand & Lock, The Hepworth Art Gallery, IKEA, The Knit and Crochet guild, Philip Treacy and John Lewis. The course is accredited by the Textile Institute, a worldwide organisation for textiles, clothing and footwear