Summer Intensive Studies Paris | Parsons School of Design

Acquire academic credentials and deepen your knowledge in one of the world capitals of culture: Paris. Our college-age students are pursuing full-time degree programs or building competitive portfolios to prepare for careers or advanced study, while adult students come to Paris to acquire new professional skills.
Students benefit from learning with Parsons Paris faculty, a project-based curriculum, and the resources and stimulating academic environment that only a top art and design educational institution can provide. All courses are taught in English.
Course Dates Summer 1: June 4 – 26, 2021 (courses begin June 7 and end June 25); Summer 2: July 1 – 24, 2021 (courses begin July 5 and end July 23)

Location Parsons Paris

Schedule See individual course listings below.

Housing Included in tuition (See below)

Registration Deadline April 1, 2021 (Payment due April 15, 2021)

Ages 19+ or 18 with a year of college

Tuition $6,920 - $7,990
Courses
- The Business of Fashion
  
  Half-Day Course
  SUMMER 1: June 4 – 26, 2021 (courses begin June 7 and end June 25)
  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 an overall understanding of today’s fashion business.
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- Explorations in Drawing
  
  All-Day Studio Course
  
  SUMMER 2: July 1 – 24, 2021 (courses begin July 5 and end July 23)
  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.
  
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- Explorations in Painting
  
  All-Day Studio Course
  SUMMER 2: July 1 – 24, 2021 (courses begin July 5 and end July 23)
  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 and 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 will be set aside for students to develop a personal project.
  
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- Fashion Communication and Art Direction
  
  Half-Day Course
  SUMMER 2: July 1 – 24, 2021 (courses begin July 5 and end July 23)
  3 U.S. credits recommended
  Language of instruction: English
  In this course, students focus on a practice-based project that will expand their knowledge of art direction, fashion branding, and communication strategies, exploring the challenges of constructing a brand identity. Through case studies of Paris-based brands, students learn and engage with pragmatic concepts behind fashion communication practices and fashion brand challenges. Students also engage with fashion professionals exploring the multiple fields of art direction in fashion, from fashion design to fashion photography, styling, and publishing. The class consists of seminars, talks with practitioners, and visits to concept stores and leading agencies in the field of Paris fashion. Through the concepts and practice of art direction, this course emphasizes the relation between products, images, and communication.
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- Fashion Design Process
  
  All-Day Studio Course
  
  SUMMER 1: June 4 – 26, 2021 (courses begin June 7 and end June 25)
  SUMMER 2: July 1 – 24, 2021 (courses begin July 5 and end July 23)
  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. Students are also introduced to branding and merchandising basics used to identify and create work for targeted markets and consumers.
  
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- Fashion Photography: History and Practice
  
  All-Day Studio Course
  SUMMER 2: July 1 – 24, 2021 (courses begin July 5 and end July 23)
  3 U.S. credits recommended
  Language of instruction: English
  This course combines theoretical and practical approaches in an effort to guide students in acquiring an understanding of fashion images and how to create them.
  Students learn how to analyze fashion photography using interdisciplinary tools ranging from history to sociology to semiotics. In parallel, students experiment with practical photography techniques at a professional level in order to produce a fashion shoot from the preliminary research stage to the final realization in collaboration with a model. Workshops, field trips, and exhibitions are also proposed during the course.
  The course explores photographic methods that enable students to see and interpret the meaning of style. Paris is the historical capital of haute couture and luxury fashion, but students also learn to appreciate it as a city of fashion subcultures in which appearance can express social and political claims.
  
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- Fashion Styling
  
  Half-Day Studio Course
  SUMMER 1: June 4 – 26, 2021 (courses begin June 7 and end June 25)
  3 U.S. credits recommended
  Language of instruction: English
  This course focuses on the creation of contemporary fashion imagery following a professional brief. It offers an introduction to various fashion media and sheds light on the sequences that lead to a strong fashion editorial concept and to the creation of an original narrative and its visual translation. Students become familiar with cutting-edge fashion stylists, photographers. and editors in the Paris fashion scene. They learn to select models, choose and assemble garments and accessories, and prepare professional shoots. The course concludes with the creation of a personal stylist portfolio.
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- Introduction to Design and Management
  
  All-Day Studio Course
  SUMMER 2: July 1 – 24, 2021 (courses begin July 5 and end July 23)
  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 understanding a 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.
  
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- Introduction to Jewelry Design
  
  All-Day Course
  SUMMER 2: July 1 – 24, 2021 (courses begin July 5 and end July 23)
  3 U.S. credits recommended
  Language of instruction: English
  This studio course is an introduction to the design and construction of jewelry objects and collections and a survey of the fundamentals of jewelry design, focusing on key contemporary methods and materials. It offers a full overview of the techniques, practices, processes, and opportunities that characterize this important sector. In the studio, students design and develop a line of jewelry, engaging in a professional design process, from field research to the sourcing of materials and from the initial experimentation with materials and creation of sketches to the development and presentation of a prototype.
  
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- Luxury Design Management: Parsons Paris—Polimoda (Paris and Florence)
  
  All-Day Course, Monday to Friday
  Paris: July 2 - July 17, 2021
  Florence: July 19 - July 31, 2021
  6 U.S. credits recommended
  Language of instruction: English
  Parsons Paris has partnered with Polimoda, a world-ranked fashion school based in Florence, to offer Luxury Design Management, a specialized course giving students the unprecedented opportunity to learn from leading faculty-practitioners in a study program held in two European fashion capitals. The course begins at Parsons Paris, where you focus on high-end industries and the relationship between French heritage businesses, local crafts, design innovation, and strategic management. You examine leading luxury sectors more closely in Italy by immersing yourself in Florence’s robust creative traditions, including the production of finely crafted leather accessories.
  The course combines lectures, seminars, workshops, and field trips to luxury fashion companies and production sites in and around Florence and Paris. During the course, participants receive instructions and tutoring as they work on a research project, keeping track of their process in written and visual form.
  Luxury Design Management is taught in English and offered through The New School's affiliated study abroad program provider, API Abroad. To apply, you must be an adult learner or a matriculated junior or senior student in good academic (2.75 GPA) and disciplinary standing in an eligible major for the program. Non-native English speakers must provide TOEFL scores of 79 or above or IELTS scores of 6.5 or above to show proof of English proficiency.
  All applicants must receive academic approval to participate in the program. New School students can discuss their options with their advisor; other applicants can email studyabroad@newschool.edu.
  
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- Paris: Fashion and Brand Heritage
  
  Half-Day Course
  SUMMER 2: July 1 – 24, 2021 (courses begin July 5 and end July 23)
  3 U.S. credits recommended
  Language of instruction: English
  Today discourse about cultural heritage and local patrimony is at the center of a variety of public and private activities involving design and fashion. Fashion houses and ateliers are playing a role in organizing events like Le Journées Européenne du Patrimoine. But the concept of heritage has been recently employed in new and sometimes controversial ways by private and public institutions. In this course, we look at the intersections between heritage, patrimony, and memory in current discourse — with particular attention to their relationship to design and fashion. Through visits to major Parisian fashion archives and talks by experts from private and public museums, the class looks at fashion heritage in Paris and its multiple forms. Starting with UNESCO’s definition of and activities involving cultural heritage, students 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 memories.
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