Free Online Courses for Learning About Luxury Brand Management and Fashion
Accessible online classes for a sometimes inaccessible field
If you are seriously considering pursuing a career within the luxury brand or high-fashion sectors, it might be worth looking into lower-cost (and lower risk) learning options online first in order to build your foundation of knowledge. I’ve scoured the web and sourced some of the highest quality and highest impact online courses in this space. After taking one or more of these courses, you may find that this is a sector you want to pursue learning more about. Online courses such as the ones listed below will give you the foundational skill base you need if you do decide to pursue a higher-level degree in these fields or even make the jump directly to applying for internships and jobs within the industry. These high-quality, free (or low-cost), online certificate courses from prestigious institutions such as Bocconi, London College of Fashion, Copenhagen Business School, and The Museum of Modern Art are terrific resources for building your résumé and learning new industry-specific skills (some of these links may contain affiliates). After the successful completion of these courses, you’ll receive an accredited certificate you’ll be able to share on LinkedIn.
Università Bocconi — Management of Fashion and Luxury Companies
Perhaps the most high-profile online course on this list, Università Bocconi has created an in-depth certificate course offered on Coursera for those interested in understanding the intricacies of the codified world of the business and brand management of luxury and fashion brands.
In this course, you’ll learn how fashion and luxury companies work and understand their brands, products, retail, and communication strategies. Travel through business models, international development, and product categories with industry experts.
Adopting a case-study approach, this particular course presents strategic brand management in luxury and fashion companies as a balancing act: tradition vs. innovation, expertise vs. experimentation, casual vs. stylish; in order to increase the brand value by nurturing the brand heritage and at the same time staying fresh, relevant, and contemporary in the global marketplace. Topics such as the impact of new retail channels, new media channels, and new business declinations for the brand and emerging markets will be discussed in the course.
After successfully completing this course, you’ll have a more in-depth understanding of the strategy and management of luxury and high-fashion brands. I took this course back in 2015 and really enjoyed the depth and rigor of the course material, as well as the enthusiasm from the instructors. You’ll also step away with a certificate you can share on LinkedIn and cite on your résumé.
For more information about this particular course, take a look at the video below.
If you’re seeking to deepen your knowledge in this space, check out this reading list I’ve put together on luxury brand management:
The Museum of Modern Art — Fashion as Design
This course is more for people interested in the understanding of high-fashion from a design and artistic perspective, rather than a business or brand management lens. In this course produced by The Museum of Modern Art on Coursera, learners will develop critical tools to appreciate and contextualize fashion design — from everyday clothing to couture garments — through many different perspectives.
This course aims to:
- Trace the history, development, and impact of garments over time, and explore how they may be reinvented.
- Investigate garments through multiple lenses including politics, identity, and economics.
- Understand more about the lifecycle of clothing, from its design and production to its marketing, distribution, and consumption.
- Better comprehend the choices you make about fashion with respect to the visual language of dress, individual and collective identities, and issues such as labor practices, sustainability, and body politics.
For more information about this course from The Museum of Modern Art watch the video below.
Copenhagen Business School — Sustainable Fashion
In this course, CBS provides an overview of business model theory and discusses business models as essential tools in the transformation toward more sustainable businesses. Throughout the course, the curriculum will use business model theory as a foundation to look at how real-world fashion brands are adopting more sustainable ways of doing business. This course will provide you with a rich opportunity to examine efforts and consider strategies for your own organization. By the end of the course, you have an understanding of the overall challenges and potential solutions for businesses to become more sustainable. You will learn about the challenges and opportunities of implementing circular business models. You will be able to think about business model theory in new ways and apply strategies to manage business model innovation towards sustainable practices.
Luxury Marketing Masterclass via Udemy
In this unique masterclass hosted on Udemy, seasoned marketing and branding expert Pina Russo takes learners through the foundational elements of marketing luxury products. This class focuses on how to build a powerful, sustainable, luxury brand, mainly through digital channels.
In this course, learners will be introduced to luxury marketing strategies for products, services, and destinations. Learners will be also learning about:
- The New Consumer: The HENRY’s (what are they looking for, how can you connect with them).
- How to market various products within the domain of luxuries, such as Wellness, Food, Places, Art and Fashion.
- How to build a Unique Value Proposition based on the Made In Italy Principles.
- How to use LinkedIn and Instagram to reach your audience.
Fashion and Sustainability: Understanding Luxury Fashion in a Changing World
In this course, the London College of Fashion in partnership with Kering on Futurelearn, learners will get an introduction to issues, agendas, and contexts relating to fashion and sustainability in a changing world.
People enrolled in this course will get an introduction to sustainable fashion design, research, and business practice. Learners will explore key sustainability issues, agendas, and contexts associated with luxury fashion.
- Discuss the complex nature of sustainability through the introduction to materials sourcing for luxury fashion; informed decision making; and the creative realization of ideas.
- Apply understanding of fashion and sustainability knowledge and reflection to your practice through manifesto creation and design thinking processes.
- Demonstrate a critical understanding of key sustainability agendas, issues, and contexts associated with luxury fashion design, production, and consumption.
For more information about this course, watch the video below:
Innovation: the Fashion Industry via FutureLearn
This course introduces a case study showing how Marks & Spencer has been a key innovator in fashion, introducing new fabrics that make our lives easier and more comfortable.
You will see how M&S continues to drive innovation to bring consumers new and better products. You will also consider your own clothing and its innovation story, research how a favorite item of clothing is the result of innovative developments in the industry, and share your findings with other learners.
My hope is that by using resources outlined in this article you can make an informed educational decision on building your foundation within the luxury or high-fashion sector. These industries are notoriously competitive, but by being proactive, diligent, and staying motivated to learn as much as you can, there is no reason you can’t achieve your goal of working in either of those sectors. I hope you found this article useful.
