Bachelor in Mode

The Gerrit Rietveld Academie has adopted an open and experimental approach to fashion. Students explore how fashion relates to the body by testing the boundaries, and they are not afraid to cross them.

Designing is the basis of the curriculum, thus starting by providing familiar contexts that enable students to become acquainted with the language of fashion and to develop both conceptual and technical skills. As the students progress, they will become increasingly independent in determining their own emphasis and setting personal goals. Towards the end of each school year, all fashion students will work together on The Fashion Show, a high-profile event where they present a selection of their work as a prelude to their graduation collections.

The origins of the Gerrit Rietveld Academie can be traced back to three schools in 1924 to form the Instituut Voor Kunstnijverheidsonderwijs (Institute for Education in the Applied Arts), or Kunstnijverheidsschool (School of Applied Arts) for short. From 1939 to 1960, the study programme was heavily influenced by the functionalist and socio-critical ideas of De Stijl and the Bauhaus, partly thanks to the socialist architect Mart Stam's role, who was the director of the programme.

The Gerrit Rietveld Academie offers one Bachelor's programme and two Master's programmes. The full-time Bachelor's programme is made up of the Basic year and 12 specialisations. All students complete a general formative year before choosing one of these specialisations for in-depth study in one of the two specialisations. The academy also offers a part-time Bachelor's programme, DOGtime, with two specialisations. The Foundation Course of the part-time Bachelor's programme takes two years to complete and is followed by three years of in-depth study.