Fashion In Fields: The Professionalisation of the Fashion Curriculum at RMIT University from 1889-1999

Abstract Fashion and dress education in Australia has a history woven into both the vocational and higher education sectors, where assumptions around gender and social class impact the curriculum. The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University (RMIT), formerly the Working Men’s College (WMC), was established in 1887 to support general and technical education for workers, and although male workers were the central consideration in the formation of the College, women enrolled from the outset, and the dress cutting classes for women conducted from 1889 form an important part of the WMC/RMIT history. This research investigated the narrative connecting these first classes with contemporary fashion programs at RMIT up until the end of the twentieth century as government commissioned reviews into the provision of state-funded education continued to impact the way technical education was constructed for this creative discipline. Interwoven into this narrative is the relationship between RMIT and the Emily McPherson College, where fashion and dress curricula was conceived around a variety of possibilities; as entry into the workplace, as access into a teaching career, and as a useful skill and art form for women to exploit for themselves. The narrative begins prior to the amalgamation of the Emily McPherson College with RMIT and concludes in 1999, when the Melbourne Institute of Textiles, formerly the Melbourne Textile Trades School, merged with RMIT University. Drawing on archival documents, institutional texts, historical publications and semi-structured interviews with fashion program alumni, the data was analysed by applying Bourdieu’s field theory which uses the conceptual tools of field, capital and habitus to make visible the tension, competition, and power relations between players in the field and different types of knowledge. Through an analysis of the curriculum constructed within fashion and dress education fields; the art school field, the domestic economy field and the trade school field, changes in socio-cultural expectations of women’s work within a practice dominated by women was examined. The research showed that knowledge privileged in the art school field supported the professionalisation of fashion design practice, through programs positioned within the higher education sector but underpinned by tacit knowledge and skills drawn from the domestic economy and trade school fields. The research also fills a gap in the institutional history, revealing key players and their contribution to the development of the fashion design discipline; the details of which often have been hidden in plain view. Based on the findings I argue that it is the structure of the education sector, that determines which parts of fashion design practice is reconstructed into curriculum. While the education sector continues to highlight the differences between vocational and higher education courses and programs, the historical record suggests the continued advancement of fashion design as a discipline is best supported through the collaboration of players in both sectors.<p></p>