This shows that online education is really as dynamic as taking courses in person, and that the system of online education has really come of age. Other online fashion schools include Westwood Online, The Art Institute of Pittsburgh – Online Division, Ashworth University and Ashworth University - Canada, Penn Foster Schools, including The Penn Foster Career School, ICS Canada, and IADT – Online.
Where online schools offer only a degree in fashion merchandising, dressmaking and design, fashion retailing or fashion retail and management, The Academy of Art offers an associate, bachelor and masters degree in fashion, which is why their students are hired by notable firms, such as Louis Vuitton, Nike, Burberry, Marc Jacobs and Gap, Inc.
Taking it a step further, the idea of virtual fashion creation and design, in other words, fashion design without the usual machines, fabrics, etc., is becoming a huge success. Already used all over the world, Virtual Fashion, a program of just that, is a division of 3D software company Reyes Infografica based out if Madrid, Spain, and creator of the award-winning first commercial cloth simulation software, ClothReyes, which was launched in 1997. Now companies in over 20 countries use Virtual Fashion, including top Italian designers Gucci, La Perla and Prada.
In June of 2006, Virtual Fashion created a junior version of this program called Virtual Fashion Basic for Poser. This is an easier to use program which created designs faster than it previously had, and takes the junior designer through a series of steps, from original design, to material choice in the FittingRoom, lights and camera angles in the PhotoStudio and finally the MaterialEditor where print ready images are made in a virtual photo shoot. Though this may seem like child’s play, it is not to be forgotten that the world’s most popular online game is The Sims, where people manage a virtual person, people, or even an entire family. In fact, Thierry Mugler, the famous French designer, designed the first-ever virtual catwalk through ClothReyes software.
The most notable aspect of the Virtual Fashion Basic for Poser is that it is the first program to lend itself to the average artist who does not necessarily have previous design experience. Similar programs can have a steep learning curve and be confusing and hard to use, but Poser bypasses all this to have its users creating in a fraction of the time. The most impressive part of software design programs is that, with the ability to be printed out or emailed, there is less room for miscommunication and other unknown costs from production.
For an independent label or a student trying to build a repertoire, this could be the difference between success and failure as sometimes every penny counts – Eliza Goodman
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