Apparel Design

God is the source of all beauty, the Giver of good gifts to mankind—even the gift of beautiful clothing. At BJU you’ll learn how having a right view of God informs your values and daily decisions, and gives you the motivation to create beautiful and useful apparel.

You’ll learn how to create clothing, from concept development to illustration to garment construction. In addition, you’ll build a working understanding of business and retail, and learn about marketing clothing. And throughout the program, you’ll learn how God’s character, including His creativity, holiness and goodness, can energize you in your field as you create attractive and modest clothing for His glory.

Program

The true strength of BJU’s apparel design program is its breadth. You will receive excellent preparation in a variety of subjects, including garment design, garment construction, home business and fashion/retail merchandising. This breadth provides you with valuable perspective on the diversity of the field. The program also allows you plenty of opportunity to specialize your study on the areas that interest you the most.

You’ll start the program by laying a solid foundation in art. You’ll learn how to design clothing using a variety of tools and techniques, including a basic sloper, dart manipulation, garment styling, and applying principles of fit to half-scale design and construction.

In addition, you’ll learn how to prepare your designs for presentation. You’ll study sketching three-dimensional forms using light and shade; create fashion plates that include apparel details, fashion silhouettes and fabric rendering; and develop your illustration skills in both monochromatic and color media. You’ll even study various retail merchandising concepts and methods, such as inventory control techniques, calculating markups and terms of sale.

The program culminates in an internship that’s designed to give you hands-on experience in a professional setting. And for your capstone project, you’ll showcase your work.

BJU Core

As a professional in the apparel design field, you’ll need skills to connect with people from a variety of backgrounds and to communicate effectively with them. Liberal arts courses, such as economics, philosophy and speech, will challenge you to see life from a broader perspective. Subjects in the sciences and math will also help you develop essential life skills such as critical thinking and problem-solving.

The Bible courses will connect your pursuit of God to all of life—even being skilled as a designer or manufacturer of apparel. These courses will better equip you to pursue God and will remind you to allow your knowledge of Him to inform your ethics and practices in the field. And more importantly, you’ll learn how you can point others to the beauty and holiness of God and the hope found only in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Electives

The apparel design program gives you the flexibility to supplement your program with a few electives. Additional art or design courses will help you sharpen your skills in your craft, regardless of setting. Courses in business and technology also complement the program well, especially if you’re planning to work at a small business or as an entrepreneur.

Career Support

BJU offers students a variety of ways to network with employers and organizations. A multitude of job opportunities are posted each year on Career Central, our online job board. In addition, more than 60 businesses and 150 Christian schools/mission boards/Christian organizations come on campus to recruit students through on-campus interviews and job/ministry fairs.

Career Services also helps students by holding seminars on resume preparation and interview techniques.