Newsmakers 2012: Woodbury Revamps Fashion Program
Woodbury University is revamping its fashion design program under the direction of the department chair, Kathryn Hagen, who has set a goal to launch Los Angeles’ first master’s degree programs in fashion design and costume design.
A graduate of Parsons School of Design in New York, Hagen joined Woodbury after 27 years teaching at Otis College of Art & Design. Already, she has enlisted the help of several well-known local designers—including Eduardo Lucero, Jared Gold and Rod Beattie—to serve as design mentors at the school, located in Burbank, Calif.
The department chair brought in new equipment, including 31 Wolf dress forms; added new courses, including figure-drawing and fashion-model drawing classes; and is encouraging the students to use new technology, such as training students to be able to sketch by hand and then use programs such as Adobe Photoshop to manipulate their designs.
On Hagen’s wish list is a downtown Los Angeles studio for seniors, where students could easily source materials in the Los Angeles Fashion District.
Hagen is currently writing proposals for the master’s programs with plans to launch the master’s program in costume design by 2014. Woodbury recently launched film and video-game design programs, so Hagen sees some natural synergies between costume design and film and game design.
“We have the ambition of being one of the cutting-edge fashion schools in the world,” she said. “In Europe, until you have a master’s degree program, you are considered a trade school. Places like Central St. Martins and Antwerp Royal Academy of Fine Arts have master’s degrees. If you want to be recognized worldwide, you have to have a master’s degree program.”—A.A.N.
