College & Adult Summer Intensive Studies: Parsons Paris

Half-Day Course - Summer 1

3 U.S. credits recommended
Language of instruction: English

This course is an immersive introduction to fashion industries and their management strategies. Students explore the relationships between innovation, design, production, and marketing. The course also provides an overview of the Parisian high-end fashion market and its key actors, from designers to retailers. Through visits to Paris luxury stores and showrooms, students gain a broad understanding of today’s fashion business.

Half-Day Course - Summer 1

3 U.S. credits recommended
Language of instruction: English

Creative Collaborations in Fashion and Art is a course exploring the way things work in the creative business world. Guided through the visual and performing arts, architecture, cinema, music, literature, and fashion, students become familiar with the history of strategy and today’s synergistic influences and investigate the maneuvers of key players through our fast-paced global culture. The class studies the creative industries that form the essential bridge between art and commerce while addressing sustainability in the broadest sense: both environmental and historical. The objective is to travel along the various roads linking the locked door of the design studio and the top-secret boardroom, winning over the critics, fans, highest-bidding collectors, endorsements, adoring followers, and money-spending consumers. And as the class raises questions about creativity and collaborative strategies required for success, students develop a solid understanding of what makes these complex and highly creative fields tick.

Full-Day Course - Summer 2

3 U.S. credits recommended
Language of instruction: English

This course introduces students to drawing as both a fundamental part of the design process and an integral tool for media arts of all kinds. Students approach drawing as a way of thinking, a critical tool, and a means for observation, storytelling, and representation. Traditional and nontraditional methods, media, and theories of drawing are all explored.

Full-Day Course - Summer 2

3 U.S. credits recommended
Language of instruction: English

This course introduces students to painting as both a fundamental part of the design process and an integral tool for media arts of all kinds. Students learn basic concepts of painting, such as color theory, composition, and techniques for using water-based paints. Drawing is also taught as a means for observation and representation. Traditional and nontraditional methods, media, and theories of painting are all explored. Time is set aside for students to develop a personal project.

Half-Day Course - Summer 2

3 U.S. credits recommended
Language of instruction: English

This course is an immersive introduction to communication strategies in fashion and luxury companies. Students learn how to create and foster dialogue between a fashion brand and consumers. The seminars and workshops cover a range of topics, such as semiotic resources for brand identity, advertising and event management, experiential marketing, digital and interactive marketing, fashion journalism, and fashion public relations in the digital age. In addition, the course offers a Parisian perspective on luxury company strategies and investigates heritage management strategies from a communications perspective.

Full-Day Course - Summer 1 and 2

3 U.S. credits recommended
Language of instruction: English

This course introduces students to various approaches and techniques involved in the design process for fashion products. Students are encouraged to experiment as they research and find inspiration for a fashion collection and devise innovative 2D and 3D production methods for their fashion pieces. Working on projects individually and in groups, students develop fashion concepts for which they draw on the unique resources of Paris and explore how fabrication methods and color affect collections.

Half-Day Course - Summer 2

3 U.S. credits recommended
Language of instruction: English

Today the discourse about cultural heritage and local patrimony is at the center of a variety of public and private activities involving design and fashion. While the organization of events such as Le Journées Européenne du Patrimoine includes fashion houses and ateliers, the concept of heritage has been recently employed in a new and sometimes controversial manner by private and public institutions. In this course, we explore this field, looking at the intersections between current discourses on heritage, patrimony, and memory—with particular attention to their relation to design and fashion. Through visits to major Parisian fashion archives and talks by experts from private and public museums, we examine fashion heritage in Paris in its multiple forms. Starting with UNESCO’s definition of and activities involving cultural heritage, we investigate the tensions between the idea of heritage and patrimony, hierarchies and power in the identification of heritage, and the use of national, regional, and city identity in the construction of personal and collective memory.

Full-Day Course - Summer 2

3 U.S. credits recommended
Language of instruction: English

Students learn to approach management as a strategic process that combines design innovation and business knowledge. In collaborative projects, they develop problem-solving skills and familiarity with design strategies through the application of research methods, prototyping, and quantitative analysis. Emphasis is placed on developing an understanding of the European setting and perspective and the way entrepreneurs, business innovators, and designers operate at the intersection of design and management. Students engage in design thinking and business strategy exercises, applying these approaches in a broad range of enterprises and real-world business contexts.

July 1–16, 2022 (course begins July 4 and ends July 15)

Luxury Design Management is a specialized summer course on the essence, the heritage, and the organization of high-end industries. It focuses on the strategic development of French and Italian leading luxury sectors and provides an interdisciplinary understanding of their processes and characteristics at the crossroads of design innovation, business, and culture.

The course is run by resident professors and guest lecturers from the industry in Paris and Florence, two of the main historical capitals of luxury. During the Parsons Paris portion of the program, special attention is given to haute couture and the relationship between French fashion heritage, local crafts, creativity, and strategic management. These topics are examined more closely in the Italian part of the program through the exploration of the tradition of Florentine craftsmanship, the production of high-end leather accessories, and the Made in Italy brand.

Full-Day Course - Summer 2

3 U.S. credits recommended
Language of instruction: English

Students learn about the techniques, aesthetics, and theory of photography. Field trips to Parisian neighborhoods provide points of departure for creative exploration of documentary, urban landscape, portraiture, and reportage. A variety of assignments, readings, field trips, and lectures encourage students to experiment with different modes of photography and to create a final project based on their interests.