San Francisco
San Francisco is the fashion center and cultural heart of Northern California. A city known for its artistic temperament as well as its individualistic character and love of innovation, its residents are known for their creativity and avant-garde daring, making San Francisco a natural location to study fashion and fashion design.
San Francisco Fashion Schools
San Francisco is the fashion center and cultural heart of Northern California. A city known for its artistic temperament as well as its individualistic character and love of innovation, its residents are known for their creativity and avant-garde daring, making San Francisco a natural location to study fashion and fashion design.
San Francisco is home to important fashion and apparel companies such as Levi Strauss & Co., The Gap, The North Face, and Birkenstock. In addition, the Haight-Ashbury, Hayes Valley, and Mission districts house a variety of local, independent boutique designers that create and sell anything from menswear to women's T-shirts to corsets. Top local talent is also regularly showcased at the city's annual fashion extravaganza, San Francisco Fashion Week.
True to form, San Francisco has a mild, Mediterranean climate and unique neighborhoods with strong individual characters — from North Beach (Italian) to Japantown (Japanese) to the Mission (Hispanic) to SoMa (artistic) to the Castro (gay and trendy) to Cole Valley (community-oriented) — from which to draw inspiration.
San Francisco is a vibrant place with a strong artistic tradition. Throughout the year the city is host to theatre, opera, music concerts, dance, and other performing arts. It also puts on many annual art, film, music, dance, ethnic, and alternative festivals like the Cherry Blossom Festival, San Francisco Jazz Festival, Folsom Street Fair, and Jewish Film Festival. San Francisco's roster of world-class museums include the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Legion of Honor Museum, and de Young Museum, which occasionally feature temporary fashion exhibits.
All told, San Francisco's cultural and artistic capital is unparalleled in the West and, naturally, San Francisco fashion schools tap into and follow this rich artistic tradition.
Studying Fashion in San Francisco
Fashion schools in San Francisco offer a variety of degrees and programs that focus on different aspects of fashion and fashion design and take advantage of the city's fascinating urban environment.
With their fashion department building centrally located next to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the Academy of Art University is the biggest art and design school in the U.S.
The Academy of Art University offers Associate (AA), Bachelor (BFA), and Master of Fashion (MFA) degrees. Specialty tracks include Fashion Design, 3-Dimensional or Technical Design, Applied Textile Design, and Knitwear Design and Construction.
The Art Institute of California-San Francisco
The Art Institute of California-San Francisco is a private arts university located in the Civic Center area of downtown San Francisco. They offer an Associate of Science in Fashion Design, an Associate of Science in Fashion Marketing, a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Fashion Design, and a Bachelor of Science in Fashion Marketing and Management. The extracurricular student club Fashion Salon gives students an opportunity to talk fashion and get involved in local fashion events.
City College of San Francisco
One of the biggest community colleges in the nation with over 100,000 students a year, City College of San Francisco offers Certificates of Achievement in Fashion Merchandising, Fashion Design, Image Consulting, or Textiles. Except for Textiles all the programs require internships or work experience in the fashion and apparel industry as part of the curriculum. The college also offers an Associate degree in Fashion Merchandising.
San Francisco State University
Founded in 1899 and one of the state's oldest public universities, San Francisco State University (SFSU) forms part of the California State University system and has almost 30,000 students at its main Sunset district campus. The university offers a Bachelor of Science in Apparel Design and Merchandising and students can specialize in either apparel design or fashion merchandising. Regular student fashion shows give students the opportunity to put their growing fashion design and production skills into practice.
The Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising-San Francisco
Located next to Union Square's designer stores in the heart of downtown San Francisco, The Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising-San Francisco is a fashion forward fashion, art, and design school that offers Associate of Art degrees in Fashion Design, Apparel Manufacturing Management, Textile Design — Knitwear, Textile Design — Surface Design, and Jewelry Design. Advanced study degrees include Footwear Design.
