Fashion and Costume

Fashion is more than just a multi-billion dollar industry. It is an integral part of our lives, reflecting our moods, culture and environment.

Fashion is a global enterprise that employs millions of people internationally in the design, manufacture, distribution, marketing, advertising, and retailing of textiles, apparel, costumes, and accessories. Both flexibility and focus are needed to succeed in the fashion industry, along with an understanding of the relations between design, technology, and business.

Albright students are encouraged to personalize degree paths by combining fashion with communications, digital media, business, education, and even psychology and political science. This broad approach polishes the critical thinking skills that are demanded in all professional fields and are expected in upper-level fashion positions. And hands-on instruction ensures graduates are skilled in technology and ready to take on the fast-paced industry.

Albright’s early history involves multiple moves and mergers. The College dates its beginning to the founding of Union Seminary in 1856. The present Albright College was formed by a series of mergers with other institutions of higher learning founded in the 19th century by the Evangelical Association and the United Evangelical Church. Union and Schuylkill Seminaries were not theological seminaries but were three-year collegiate institutes, the origin of the college’s liberal arts tradition.

Albright Collegiate Institute was founded in 1895 and became Albright College in 1898. Union Seminary, founded in 1856 and rechartered as Central Pennsylvania College in 1887, merged with Albright College in 1902. Schuylkill Seminary, founded in 1881, became Schuylkill College in 1923 and merged with Albright College in 1929. With the merger, Albright moved from its campus in Myerstown, Pa., to Schuylkill College’s location on the present Albright campus.