University of Westminster teams up with Asos Marketplace

Fashion design students from the University of Westminster have created 10 high summer 2012 collections that they will sell online via the Asos Marketplace from June. The project, which is an industry first, offered second year students the opportunity

to produce capsule collections for high summer 2012, following a brief from Asos Marketplace in December 2011. The groups were asked to choose womenswear, menswear or accessories, and included buying students who all took specific roles, typical of a business set up, such as product development and market research; while fashion design students came together to build and develop the concepts and collections.

As well as designing a collection of eight to 10 garments, each group had to create a business plan including their brand positioning, which included producing inspiration mood boards, a customer profile, an outline of their range plan, and they also had to create a marketing plan with a look book, a fashion shoot and branded packaging to finish off their brand.

Andrew Groves, course director of the University of Westminster's BA (Hons) Fashion Design, said: “In the highly competitive fashion industry, our collaboration with Asos Marketplace is a fantastic opportunity for our students to gain real life experience of having to marry the dynamic creative process with professional, business and commercial decision making. We are the first to have developed such a project which has been, without doubt, an invaluable learning experience for our students.”

Katie Oldham, senior marketplace manager at Asos Marketplace, added: “We’ve been astounded by the quality and creativity of the collections created by the students. The design talent we’ve seen has been first rate, and combined with well-thought customer-centric business and marketing plans we are excited to see the 10 unique collections launch and sell on the site.”

The 10 collections will launch on the Asos Marketplace, which buys and sells new, pre-owned and vintage fashion online, from June 1.

Image: University of Westminster