Costume with Textiles BA(Hons)

About the course

Do you light up while watching period dramas and other costume-heavy films and TV shows? Perhaps you’re at the edge of your seat, marvelling at the intricacies of the gowns and outfits? If so, this course is for you.

On our Costume with Textiles BA(Hons) degree, you’ll learn to design and create costumes for film, TV, theatre, and games. You’ll gain real-world experience via placement opportunities in theatre, film, and TV, with previous students having undertaken placements at Royal Shakespeare Company, BBC, and Open Australia.

You’ll hone your skills via a range of briefs to establish a personal identity, undertaking independent research, analysing scripts, and developing costume concepts and designs.

The course offers a professional approach to costume design and construction and you’ll investigate textiles techniques to give you a thorough grounding in all aspects of this subject area.

You’ll be taught by tutors who have professional costume-making experience, learning in our state-of-the-art, £30-million Barbara Hepworth Building.

Why study Costume with Textiles BA(Hons)

The course is accredited by The Textile Institute – the professional body for people and organisations in textile, clothing, and footwear industries.

Enrol onto this course and you’ll explore experimentation in costume design and illustration, textile design, advanced pattern cutting and construction techniques, bespoke garment fitting and costume realisation.

You’ll also have opportunity to develop professional costumes, and hone skills such as text/music/character analysis, visual and contextual research methods, and presentation practice. You’ll be encouraged to apply reflection and evaluation to your work and consider sustainable principles in the costume industry. An impressive 100% of graduates from this course are in work and/or further study 15 months after graduating (Unistats 20/21 data, UK domiciled graduates).

Our design, construction, and textiles studios are home to facilities that help bring your ideas to life, including:

• Computer-aided design (CAD)
• Traditional and contemporary embroidery
• Printing techniques, including handcrafting, laser cutting 3D Printing and digital printing
• Traditional and contemporary knit and weave workshops, that host a variety of machinery and yarns for students to experiment with.

Our textiles and construction workrooms provide specialist equipment, too, allowing you to work on surface textile techniques and sophisticated costume construction methods.

If you’re keen to make your mark within costume, fashion, decorative arts, theatre crafts, textiles or more, this course is designed to provide the foundations for a fruitful, post-university career within the costume and textile industry.

Entry requirements

Offers will be subject to a digital portfolio review, after which you will be invited to attend an Applicant Visit Day, at which you will have the opportunity to discuss and be given feedback on your portfolio. Read more about the portfolio review process on our Interviews, auditions and portfolio pages.

If your first language is not English, you will need to meet the minimum requirements of an English Language qualification. The minimum for IELTS is 6.0 overall with no element lower than 5.5, or equivalent. Read more about the University’s entry requirements for students outside of the UK on our International Entry Requirements page.

Other suitable experience or qualifications will be considered. For further information please see the University's minimum entry requirements.

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