Fashion Communication: Digital Futures module, a comprehensive exploration into the intersection of design, creativity, technology and communication within the dynamic world of the fashion and lifestyle industries. This module is designed to equip you with creative and practical, industry-standard software skills, advanced communication techniques and a deep understanding of relevant supporting theories. On completion of this module, you will be suitably prepared for any creative challenges that you will encounter through the rest of your time at university and beyond. The skills learnt and creative approaches learnt here will serve as a foundation to your future studies within the Fashion Marketing and Management programme.
In this module, you will examine key insights and trends in the fashion industry, enhancing your understanding of marketing and branding roles and the necessary skills for success in fashion marketing and branding. You will learn about fashion consumer behaviour, exploring psychological, sociological, and behavioural approaches to fashion consumption. Through a range of industry and academic speakers you will learn about the most up to date industry practices with particular reference to fashion consumer and industry insights. You will critically examine contemporary marketing and branding strategies in the fashion industry through case studies. You will have the opportunity to reflect on and develop your professional career within the creative industries.
Fashion Communities & Consumers explores the evolution of fashion & lifestyle industries in response to critical changes and attitudes driven by environmental, technological, economic, and social factors. Expanding on level 4’s ‘The Future Consumer’, this unit will build a more detailed and sophisticated understanding of brands, consumers and communities’ ability to co-create and collaborate. You will draw on social theory and psychology to explore the idea of communities, with a focus on the need for fashion and lifestyle industries to align with personal, cultural, and social values of these groups and reframe meaning beyond consumption to thrive. This unit will also discuss the use of fashion narratives, image ideation and construction that help to foster brand identity while integrating transparency and ethical considerations.
In this module you will engage with Fashion Design and its fundamental relationship with materials and textiles. You will experiment and explore colour, fibre, construction, process and finish through a creative lens of the wants and needs of a considered audience (customer/market) and the broader environmental impact of fabric and garment production. Developing and embedding learning from Foundations of Fashion and Embedding Context into Practice in semester 1 you will enhance and deepen your use of context and research, design, material development and presentation skills.
Within this module you will be challenged to utilise your growing creative skills and analytical thinking in order identify key critical issues and responses for the evolving retail landscape. As part of this module, you will consider the future role of fashion retailing and its place in the effective distribution of fashion/lifestyle products to the consumer. A key part of your focus is understanding both instore and online consumption environments, changing trends and new emergent technologies. You will develop your investigative and critical approaches as you explore this rapidly evolving landscape. Among other areas of focus will be the retail industries response to consumer disability, neuro-divergence and wellbeing, disruptive theory and challenges, frictionless trading, and experiential retail. Overall, you will consider the future evolution of fashion environments and their impact on society and consumer behaviour.
This Module introduces a range of debates, theory and practice informing future fashion. It will provide you with the contextual platform needed to develop challenging and creative fashion design, relevant to a future context. You will draw upon lectures, seminars and personal research to explore and identify developing areas of sustainable, technological, social and ethical practice to embed into your own personal design process. Hands-on skills-based workshops, creative design and industry insight sessions will support the practical creation of a considered original garment which draws upon the context, research and practical applications gained through this module.
Aimed to support the journey towards becoming a confident and skilled fashion designer equipped with industry knowledge this module is supported by live design projects, interaction with practicing experts and market intelligence from our industry partners to mirror real world experiences. Through critical reflection, design development and experimentation, you will develop a keen awareness and discipline in fashion design practice, hone your ideas, techniques and confidence to prepare for your professional journey. Set projects immerse you in industry practices, providing valuable insights for future career planning or a Year in Employment.
This module engages you in learning about Fashion Management by experiencing a collaborative project brief set-in conjunction with a fashion company and is designed to enhance your digital and employability and skills. The module equips you to discuss problem-based solutions confidently and professionally, adopting collaborative experimental approaches and creative responses to fashion management issues. Working to an industry based project brief is essential to develop new insights to address shared challenges within the diverse fashion world, related to employability, style, and social inclusion while meeting sustainability agendas. Some training on Adobe creative suite provided in the early part of the module.
This module delivers a broad understanding and appreciation of fashion, luxury, and lifestyle industries, developing your knowledge in contemporary and historical contexts. By studying critical eras, events, influences and media that have impacted the current fashion landscape, this module will provide you with essential knowledge to underpin your wider programme of study. It will introduce you to how to reflect on the work of others and a greater understanding of the language used to communicate identities, ideologies and values. This module will also support the development of your critical and writing skills for university by teaching you key skills in primary/secondary research, academic referencing, critical thinking and evaluation.
We are all familiar with fictions from Romeo and Juliet to Jaws, from The Hobbit to Harry Potter. Despite this familiarity, the nature of fiction and of our engagement with it appears puzzling. On the one hand, fictional characters do not exist. On the other hand, we can think and talk about them. Indeed, it seems we can make true claims about them, e.g. that Romeo is the son of Montague. But how can that be true, if it is also true that there is no such person as Romeo? It is as puzzling that we appear to feel for fictional characters. We might weep for Juliet when she finds Romeo dead, even though we know that no one has really died. The aim of this module is to explore what fiction is, what our relationship with fiction involves, and whether we engage with fictions outside of the realm of art and literature, for example, when talking about morality or possibility.
Each student undertakes an investigation which includes both practical and theoretical components. The theory component will consist of a critical review of the literature relating to the proposed experimental component of the project. The fieldwork is related to the appropriate degree programme. Each student is assigned to an appropriate supervisor who will advise on and direct the project and the preparation of a written report. The aim of this module is to allow students to carry out an extensive field-based project on a special topic related to his/her main area of study, and to complete a literature survey on a topic related to this area of research.
Over the last four hundred years progress in understanding the physical world (theoretical physics) has gone hand in hand with progress in the mathematical sciences, so much so that the terms applied mathematics and theoretical physics have come to be almost coterminous. Vector calculus is one of the main mathematical tools to study the world around us. Many physical quantities are described by vector or scalar fields. Examples include not only velocities and forces (particularly useful in fluid mechanics), but also particle displacements (useful in solid mechanics), and electric and magnetic fields (electromagnetism). In this module we use the vector calculus as a tool to understand some basic theories in theoretical physics. We also introduce tensors and the tensor calculus. Tensors extend the idea of a vector. A tensor is a multi-index array (e.g. a matrix) with well-defined transformation rules under coordinate transformations. This module applies vector calculus in fluid mechanics and electromagnetism. We concentrate on fluids which do not have any resistance to flow (inviscid fluid flow) and electromagnetiism in vaccum. The mathematical models we discuss all involve solutions of equations including vector derivatives (i.e. div, grad and curl and their tensor generalisations). A particularly interesting feature of our development is the close mathematical similarity between equations from different branches of theoretical physics.
This module introduces fundamental concepts in electric fields, electromagnetism and mechanics, as a foundation for more advanced topics in electromagnetic theory and mechanics. It also equips students with basic techniques of engineering electromagnetism and engineering mechanics with emphasis on the application of these methods to the solution of typical problems.
Fieldwork is an integral part of the archaeological process. Whether through excavation or survey, it is one of the primary means by which archaeological data is generated. It is essential that students gain some experience of fieldwork in order to: develop comprehension of how the archaeological record is manifest; the techniques employed to scientifically investigate deposits, sites and landscape; and the means by which they are recorded. It combines the principles of both practice and theory. Fieldwork experience also provides invaluable transferable skills, such as problem solving, decision making, teamwork and personal responsibility. At the core of this module is participation in at least three weeks of fieldwork and/or related activities by means of a field school or research project, and in certain cases post-excavation or similar activities. Through this, you will master the key skills of field and practical archaeology, and understand how new insights into past societies are generated 'at the trowel's edge'. You will be asked to consider the relationship between research designs and methods, and the way field projects are organised. It is a requirement of all Archaeology degrees at Southampton, both single and joint honours, that they participate in at least three weeks of archaeological fieldwork, normally on a project organised by the University of Southampton.
Geology and Environmental Geoscience students attend two residential field courses: during the Easter vacation, and at the end of Year 1. The module builds on the ideas and methods learned in other modules in a classroom setting. We start from the fundamentals of "Locate - Observe - Record", developing a range of techniques which can be used to systematise each step, and builds to production of a geological map of a ~5km2 area. Students gain experience visualising the structures in 3D and make and interpret geological cross sections from their maps.
When we speak about protest in Britain today, it divides our society: from the politicians who want to curb our rights and the columnists who worry about protests going too far, to the activists who argue that protesting is one of our democratic rights as citizens. But there is rarely any discussion of the long history behind British protesting. We will explore that history from the mass trespass on Kinder Scout in the 1930s to the boycotts and pickets of the anti-apartheid movement into the 1990s. We will explore different tactics, from strikes to marches to boycotts to riots. We will think about what protestors want, how they fight for it, and whether they have been successful. And we will explore the historical context behind the protests that we see in Britain and around the world today.
The dissertation is an extended piece of work of 8,000 words in length which is the result of an in-depth study of an area of film studies. The subject matter could be a movement, a director, a studio or production company, a national cinema, genre or theoretical issue. It should not replicate assessed work in the other final year module.
Composing music for films has a rich, 100+ year history, and technological advances and inspired and innovative teams continue to evolve this dynamic sector of the creative industries. You will be introduced to this history and a series of contemporary techniques and processes central to the practice of synchronising original music to film, creating your own scores to a selection of film cues provided on the module.
This module offers a comparative study of contemporary global film industries, with particular focus on the UK, Europe and East Asia. It addresses how government and industry policy initiatives help to shape developments in the production and dissemination of film. It examines the interrelationship between national policies and the international contexts of today’s cultural industries.
The module explores issues of stardom and media celebrity in relation to debates on persona, performance, iconography, consumerism and capitalism, as well as issues of gender, sexuality and ethnicity. The emphasis will be on historical and industrial context throughout, highlighting within each case study and through the module as a whole, the ways in which stars and celebrities are interrelated to their media industrial and hisotrical context.
The dissertation is a personal research project of 10,000 words, which is completed with some guidance from a personal supervisor. It takes place over the Summer period and should involve original research and high-quality formal written presentation of material.
