Students must learn French before they can design
A fashion program requires French lessons before design classes, turning language into a prerequisite for creativity.
The story
LIM and ESMOD launch a hybrid fashion degree program, allowing students to study in New York and Paris, combining business and design with internships and a capstone collection.
Source: wwd.com
Our reading
French lessons are the first step in a student’s journey, as if language is the foundation of design itself. It’s not that students need to communicate in Paris, but that they must prove they can navigate the bureaucratic ritual of global education before touching a sewing machine.
The program’s structure turns language into a gatekeeper, suggesting that without French, a student is not yet ready to be a designer. It’s a strange way to build a curriculum, but it ensures that students are fluent in both fashion and bureaucracy by the time they graduate.
By the time they return to New York, they’ll have mastered not just design, but the art of justifying their own education. The real capstone is the ability to explain why they needed two years in Paris to learn what a textbook could have provided.
