Student beauty challenge kicks off new memorandum of understanding with IFM
Primary page content
A student challenge in collaboration with Mane on how global brands can meaningfully embrace different viewpoints on beauty formed part of a new memorandum of understanding agreed today.
Professor Frances Corner and Dr Kelly Meng with Sylvie Ebel, Executive Director and Professor Caroline Ardelet of the IFM
The challenge is an early deliverable in a memorandum agreed between Goldsmiths and Institut Francais de la Mode (IFM) which will also see students and staff exchanges, curriculum developments and deepen teaching and research collaborations.
In its pilot year Goldsmiths students on the MA Luxury Brand Management will join students from Stern Business School, New York and Getulio Vargas, Brazil as well as IFM students in mixed groups under the supervision of MANE. The Paris based parfumier, whose products supply luxury brands like Armani and Joe Malone, will invite the winning team to their New York office and present their project.
With its focus on improving the approach that luxury brands take to diversity, the challenge complements an important aim of the agreement.
Luxury brands want to expand their knowledge of the world and to understand who their customers are. They are coming to us asking precisely the same questions the challenge is set to answer -help us to better understand how beauty is perceived all over the world.
Dr Caroline Ardelet Director, Executive MSc in Strategic Management for Fashion and Luxury
Goldsmiths and the IFM are formalising a partnership that is prompted by both a recognition of the challenging landscape faced by creative higher education institutes and the vision and global ambitions they both share.
Dr Kelly Meng, Programme Director for the MA in Luxury Brand Management said;
“Our shared commitment to world-leading research and progressive teaching enables us to build on common ground and to propose actionable steps that are at the heart of this agreement.
By coming together, we will address issues such as how societal changes related to the body and self-image are reshaping the design and creative industries, at how we can better connect academia and industry to bring theory and practice closer together and to better prepare our students with the skills needed to thrive.
Dr Kelly Meng, Reader Institute for Creative and Cultural Entrepreneurship
The memorandum of understanding envisions the student challenge evolving into wider interdisciplinary initiatives, opening participation to students from a broader range of degree programmes, from bachelor's to master's degrees, who will be encouraged to strengthen ties between London and Paris.
Goldsmiths Vice Chancellor, Professor Frances Corner was joined at the MOU signing by IFM’s Executive Director Sylvie Ebel. Professor Corner said:
“Paris fashion has an intellectual aspect to it that you don’t find anywhere else. Goldsmiths research too is unique for its creative and critical approach. The possibilities of these combinations coming together in this partnership are incredibly exciting as well as timely both for the enrichment of our students and staff and for providing leadership and direction for the creative sector.”
“Fashion is too often viewed on a surface level’” said Sylvie Ebel, “but the challenges the industry faces demand deeper exploration on a cultural, societal, historical and environmental levels. Getting beneath the surface to the deeper issues are an increasing demand made by the industry and young people and they make this partnership with Goldsmiths both timely and essential.”