About Fedisa school of fashion
Few people today realise that FEDISA is the only tertiary institution in the Western Cape of South Africa that offers the fully registered and accredited BA: Fashion and a BA Honours: Fashion Degrees. The story of FEDISA is as fascinating as the institution’s graduates are successful. What started out as a revolutionary vision for fashion education has grown into a leading contributor to the global fashion industry
Unlike most fashion schools, FEDISA was created to deliver more than seamstresses and pattern-makers to the world of fashion. FEDISA graduates can today be found in an astounding array of careers across the globe. These range from working for Marchessa and Diane von Furstenburg in New York to Christopher Kane in London and Haikure in Milan. There are designers and buyers, editors and stylists, visual merchandisers, fashion technologists, and costume archivists. The list of local and international employment opportunities simply keeps growing for these talented and committed graduates.
FEDISA has also significantly contributed to exporting some amazing talent into the African continent, with Temitope Williams – FEDISA Graduate 2009 launching her own teaching academy in Lagos, Nigeria recently.
Another great success of FEDISA is the large number of students that the institution continues to attract from across South Africa and the rest of the world. To this end FEDISA has developed students from as far afield as the United States of America, Portugal, Germany, Belgium, Slovakia, Jordan, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Zimbabwe and many more.
FEDISA’s unprecedented growth remains premised on the ethos of excellence that continues to permeate all aspects of the institute, from the highly qualified academic staff and world-class educational facilities to the exceptionally diverse programme content and enormous annual Graduate Collection Show. FEDISA graduates are now so highly regarded in industry that final year students are headhunted by all the major players, often before they have graduated.
FEDISA has proven that the days of fashion schools training glorified seamstresses are over. The modern fashion institute must prepare its graduates for the enormous diversity of career opportunities that are available in today’s dynamic world of fashion. Herein FEDISA has been shown to be remarkably successful as the list of FEDISA graduates in the global industry keeps growing.
Fashion has long since lost the veil of frivolity and emerged as a major economic force. With global profits annually ranking in the billions of dollars it is obvious that fashion has become a serious pursuit for big business. Therefore, a serious fashion education is the access route to industry participation and success.