Tell us about the history of your brand...
Istituto Marangoni is a fashion and design school founded in 1935 in Milan, Italy by the tailor, Giulio Marangoni. Over the years, the school has established a reputation for providing high-quality education in fashion, design, art, and management. Istituto Marangoni has expanded its international presence, opening campuses in London, Paris, Florence, Shanghai, Shenzen, Mumbai, Miami, and recenetly Dubai. Today, the school continues to be one of the leading institutions in the fashion and design industry, providing students with the education and skills necessary to succeed in these competitive fields.
Istituto Marangoni London (IML) has established itself as a leading provider of UK degree programmes in fashion and design. It has developed a portfolio of innovative higher education (HE) undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, all of which are delivered in full-time mode and short courses with the support of a faculty drawn from across the industry and incorporating placements sourced through Istituto Marangoni unparalleled access to leading industry businesses.
What is your brand best known for? What has been a significant achievement in your company’s timeline?
Istituto Marangoni London offers students varied, well-informed, specialist higher education that is developed to both meet and challenge the needs of future employers and leaders in the fashion, design and luxury business industries. In 2003, Istituto Marangoni London was opened in a Grade II listed former textile factory at 30 Fashion Street in Shoreditch. A distinctive feature of IML is its emphasis on developing ‘industry-ready’ graduates.
In the beginning, Istituto Marangoni focused primarily on fashion design and tailoring, offering courses in pattern making, draping, and tailoring. Over time, the school expanded its curriculum to include undergraduate and postgraduate courses in fashion design, fashion styling, and fashion business, and recently expanded its portfolio of courses to includes interior design, product design, jewellery design, visual design, and luxury accessories design. Students benefit from IML’s close links with industry and practicing tutors, many of whom are or have been senior designers, managers or stylists with leading companies in the world of fashion and design. Underpinned by its vision, IML aims to be the first international school of fashion and luxury enhancing talent through experiential learning, and sets its mission as to drive creative dynamism and beauty, generating disruptive, experimental thinking and concepts relevant to future industry leadership.
Why do you love the brand?
IML enables an increasingly global curriculum in which inspiration is in every classroom, driven from every street corner and corporate boardroom of London. The brand enables active, critical, self-aware innovative learning, between luxury academics and industry leaders, with open and creative exchange between luxury fashion communities and stakeholders. The school ensures industry readiness for all graduates, where Istituto Marangoni brand recognition as a lovemark is strengthened through alumni employability and success in the luxury sector. IML brings together students, luxury industry leaders and academics in the review, co- creation and development of London-based luxury fashion and design business worlds. Each course is grounded in, and aligned with, the professional knowledge and competencies required in the fast-moving fashion or design arena, partnered with acute subject specialism. In this way, the London School aims to produce ‘industry-ready’ luxury graduates whose learning has been integrated with and based upon ‘real world’ experience rooted in the multicultural field of contemporary luxury fashion and design.
Why does your brand represent the very best in British luxury?
The pillar of IML’s educational method lies in its Italian and British identity through a combination of craftsmanship, a well-developed sense of aesthetics and business acumen. IML’s academic programmes are distinctive from other UK programmes in their focus on the luxury sector rather than mass-market fashion, and they draw on the London school’s heritage, which blends design detailing with strong commercial acumen. Taught by academic and industry professionals, its programmes are devised and adapted to serve changing demands and evolving UK and International markets, through a global community of academic faculty. IML puts a strong effort on delivering graduate leaders for the luxury sector, with a contemporary focus upon innovation, responsibility, ethical practice, leadership and technology.
IML's academic programmes are distinctive from other UK programmes in their focus on the luxury sector rather than mass-market fashion, and they draw on the London school’s heritage, which blends design detailing with strong commercial acumen with a focus on the correlation between luxury, technology, leadership and responsibility. The school, works closely with the London fashion and design luxury industries, both incorporating external industry events – including London Fashion Week and London Design Week – into the student calendar and offering students career development opportunities in the form of short internships with potential luxury employers.
What attracted you to becoming a Walpole member?
It is a privilege for us to join Walpole where wa can access the organisation's resources, network, and advocacy efforts, and support the growth of the wider UK luxury industry. As a member, we benefit from Walpole’s advocacy and have a voice in important industry discussions and debates around British luxury, its dynamics and future trends. Furthermore, we hope that Walpole's network could help the school in fostering closely tailored relationships between our students and the UK Luxury and creative industry. We hope that this collaboration will result in synergies around improving our abilities in understanding student strengths, ambitions and skills, and matching talent with opportunities in the UK and International luxury industry, fuelling ongoing and increasingly strategic relationships.
If you could collaborate with another Walpole member, which one would you choose?
IML loves Alexander McQueen: its cutting-edge designs and avant-garde approach to fashion. By collaborating with Alexander McQueen, IML could tap into the brand's high-end customer base and its reputation for innovation and creativity in the fashion industry. This could help to raise the profile of Istituto Marangoni and position it as a leading institution for fashion education. Additionally, a collaboration with Alexander McQueen would provide opportunities for Istituto Marangoni students and faculty to work with one of the most respected and influential designers in the industry. Each of our programmes has strong industry partnerships, reflected in the type of projects we involve our students with and providing them with good opportunities to expand their skills, knowledge, professional networks, and provide valuable learning experiences that they can apply to their future careers in luxury fashion.
Tell us about an exciting development or new launch for your brand in the coming months...
Istituto Marangoni London School is delighted to be launching an innovative, inter-disciplinary Masters programme from October 2023 called MA Responsible Fashion. This will provide an essential space for students with fashion design, textiles, business, ecology or other relevant backgrounds to gain the important knowledge, critical thinking and problem-solving capacities required to innovate new responsible systems that radically reimagine luxury fashion for a symbiocene era. Students will work on a series of collaborative and individual projects, to develop and apply their growing theoretical understanding of ecological design principles, systems thinking, alternative economics, the politics of luxury, regenerative systems, future sourcing, indigenous knowledge systems, the local, and values-led communication to the development of new fashion systems and luxurious products that reflect their disciplines, ethics and future goals.
We believe that the traditional values of luxury can promote sustainability: through slow, responsible and highly-skilled techniques and processes, through compelling and enduring designs, and through use of rare and precious materials sourced from traditional and innovative knowledge systems and the powerful narratives these hold. We are committed to questioning and shaping the future of luxury fashion, by exploring how it may become a vehicle for positive change in our diverse global societies.
