Course summary

Sportswear incorporates apparel worn for a vast range of activities, from traditional team sports and athletics through to outdoor pursuits and watersports.  Designing sportswear is about much more than just aesthetics. Specialist sports apparel is technically engineered to ensure fitness for purpose and to optimise the wearer’s performance, whether they are climbing a mountain, sailing a dinghy across a lake, or running a 100-meter sprint. The MSc Sportswear Design course at BCU combines creativity with science to equip designers with a combination of technical design skills and sports science knowledge.  What's covered in this course? Whilst exploring the sportswear sector, you will consider practical, social, environmental, and economic factors, identify issues, and respond to opportunities for new products. You will learn to engineer innovative functional garments that meet the specific needs you have identified, incorporating ethical and sustainable practices, and pushing the boundaries of the growing sportswear apparel market. With support from leading sportswear brands and industry professionals, you will develop your technical design process from concept exploration through to final product, gaining an understanding of performance fabrics, construction techniques and sports appropriate features and fit. With access to lab testing facilities and the Alexander Stadium, experimenting with prototypes will become embedded in your practice; you will analyse data and evaluate features and fit against the functional criteria of specific sports, enabling you to create professionally researched and considered garments that are fit for purpose. You will further enhance your knowledge of performance sportswear design and manufacturing by working with our industry partners. You will develop professional presentation and communication skills to support your future employability and field trips, associations with local sports fraternities, live industry briefs and work placements will all boost your industry network. This is a unique course that is perfectly placed in Birmingham with its sports heritage and community. Professional Placement option This course offers an optional professional placement. This allows you to spend 20 weeks with an employer, following completion of your taught modules, and is a great way to enhance your employability. The experience you gain through your placement will allow you to evidence your professional skills, attitudes and behaviours at the point of entry to the postgraduate job market. If you choose the placement option, you will be responsible for finding and securing a suitable placement to complement your chosen area of study. You will be able to draw on the University’s extensive network of local, regional and national employers, and the support of our Careers teams. If you do not secure a suitable placement, you will automatically be transferred back to the standard, non-placement version of the course. Please note: Placements will only be confirmed following a competitive, employer-led selection process. As such, the University will not be able to guarantee placements for students who have registered for the professional placement option.