Constructing a future-skills talent training mechanism for vocational undergraduate fashion design in the age of digital intelligence

Comparative analysis of domestic and foreign training models

Currently, different talent training models in fashion and apparel design are being developed in various countries—including academic, applied, and interdisciplinary models. In Europe and the United States, fashion design education focuses on achieving a balance between academic research and artistic creation, while some schools see cultivating avant-garde artistic creation as the main goal of education. Because Western fashion education was the first to develop, a comprehensive system has already been established, with schools in different regions adopting distinct approaches. For instance, Central Saint Martins in London and Parsons School of Design in New York prioritize creative research, experimental fashion, and interdisciplinary integration. Their teaching is arranged in a "studio-based + project-driven" mode, and their students are highly experimental and avant-garde (Figure 2). In contrast, the Swedish School of Textiles and the Politecnico di Milano in Italy value a balance between creativity and commercialization, fashion interdisciplinary integration, fashion management and sustainability, industrial innovation, and social responsibility. Japan tends to adopt a technical application model based on crafts and industry. Bunka Fashion College, for example, values a combination of garment structure, pattern making, and industrial production, emphasizing technicality and entry into the job market. Famous teachers who graduated from this school include Yohji Yamamoto, Kenzo Takada, and Junya Watanabe, who are renowned for their unique tailoring techniques and structural designs.

Figure 2. Graduation projects and campus scenes at the Parsons School of Design and Central Saint Martins. Source: https://www.newschool.edu/parsons/mfa-fashion-design-society/; https://www.arts.ac.uk/colleges/central-saint-martins/stories/ma-fashion-show-2025.

The talent training models employed for fashion programs in Chinese higher vocational colleges frequently demonstrate a current state characterized by emphasizing skills while neglecting comprehensive literacy, with a pronounced disconnection between theoretical knowledge and practical application (Shi, 2023). This approach results in graduates who lack robust professional problem-solving capabilities and innovative characteristics. Many institutions continue to adopt relatively traditional "skill-oriented" curriculum frameworks. In contrast to the "problem-solving" pedagogical models employed by internationally acclaimed fashion institutions—which promote learning through project-based practice—domestic fashion programs place insufficient emphasis on industrial demands and future technological innovation within their curriculum architectures. In this regard, Hangzhou Vocational and Technical College's Dali Women's Fashion Institute in Zhejiang Province and Suzhou Arts and Crafts Technology Institute in Jiangsu Province stand at the forefront of comparable higher vocational institutions in China regarding fashion design talent cultivation (Zhuo & Li, 2025). These institutions have capitalized strategically on locally advantageous industrial clusters by establishing distinctive industrial colleges and specialized program subdivisions that address the urgent needs of local industries. They have designed project-based practical training curricula that authentically align with industry requirements. Hangzhou Vocational and Technical College's Dali Women's Fashion Institute has entered a partnership with Dali Silk (Zhejiang) Co., Ltd. to vigorously develop comprehensive training facilities equipped with diverse equipment and full-category garment production workshops while actively inviting frontline industry designers and technical personnel to deliver on-campus instruction. Similarly, the Suzhou Arts and Crafts Technology Institute has established specialized program subdivisions—including knitwear, menswear, and embroidery design—by strategically leveraging partnerships with advanced garment manufacturing and knitting enterprises located in Changshu and Suzhou, as well as Tongxiang and Haining in Zhejiang Province.

Through a comprehensive comparative analysis, it becomes evident that fashion programs across different geographical regions must cultivate distinctive regional industrial characteristics in their talent-training approaches. Leading international institutions such as Central Saint Martins and Parsons School of Design effectively leverage their strategic positions within the world's premier fashion capitals of London and New York. They achieve this by focusing on the seamless integration of innovation and technology, comprehensive interdisciplinary education, and profound project-based alignment with regional industries. These exemplary approaches provide invaluable insights and promising exploratory directions for the future development and enhancement of China's vocational undergraduate fashion design programs, as illustrated in Table 1.

Major challenges in talent training for vocational education in fashion and apparel design in China

At Chinese vocational colleges, talent training in fashion and apparel design has traditionally focused on "direct employment and development", whereby fashion and apparel design programs emphasize "performance and use". Since the very beginning, the ultimate goal of these colleges has been to prepare skilled talent for the fashion industry so that they can apply basic design and production knowledge and work on the front line as assistants or designers in the fashion industry. Graduates from these colleges normally work as fashion design assistants, pattern- or sample makers, technicians in garment production and management, or in visual merchandising and marketing.

However, according to an employment survey, most graduates in fashion and apparel design prefer career paths with tracks as creative designers, starting from an assistant position and providing creative support (Feng et al., 2024). Thus, there is high consistency in final employment and employment tracks following graduation from undergraduate programs in general education, higher vocational colleges, and vocational undergraduate programs. This weakens the characteristics of the three types of education but also reflects problems in the talent training system, such as insufficient differentiation in training models and poor matching with market needs.

Typological positioning of vocational undergraduate fashion design programs

In 2014, the Chinese Ministry of Education and other departments first proposed the Decision on Accelerating the Development of Modern Vocational Education (State Council of the People‘s Republic of China, 2014), which recommends exploring the types of talent training for vocational education at the undergraduate level. In 2019, the State Council formally included vocational undergraduate education in the typological education system in the Implementation Plan for National Vocational Education Reform (typically called 20 Articles on Vocational Education in China; State Council of the People's Republic of China, 2019). In the 1990s, Chen Yu proposed the vocational belt theory, Chen (2006) believing that skilled professionals can be divided into three major categories: Skilled, technical, and engineering. Vocational undergraduate education is a component of applied undergraduate education. Within this system, fashion design majors at this level are expected to receive training that builds their technical and advanced technical-application abilities—namely, strong professional skills, project implementation capacity, and applied innovation capability (Jin & Wang, 2025).

However, in actual practice, not all engineering and technology universities in China play a key role in implementing the above types of training in fashion design programs. For example, the fashion design programs of the Shanghai University of Engineering Science and Shenzhen Technology University focus on technical applications, but the curriculum system designs of these two schools do not differ from the fashion design programs in regular universities; that is, they remain within the framework of traditional general-undergraduate talent training.

Therefore, to correctly position the talent training goals of fashion design programs at the vocational undergraduate level, we must first clearly define the future job distribution of graduates from different levels of education and their corresponding capability requirements.

Drawing on Barbara Minto's pyramid principle, we constructed a model to illustrate the relationship between the distribution of talent in the fashion industry and corresponding levels of education (Figure 3). It can be seen from Figure 3 that the research positions in high-end fashion design and innovative design applications (A, B, C) account for approximately 25% (the percentage of positions provided by fashion companies in relation to the total), and the main source of recruitment is graduates and undergraduates. Design collaborations and brand operations at the middle level (D) account for approximately 15%, with the main source of recruitment being vocational graduates. The remaining 60% comprises basic production and sales positions (E), mainly from graduates of diploma-level vocational education and short-term vocational training.

Figure 3. Talent training and job distribution pyramid in fashion design under digital intelligence.

In Figure 3, A, B, and C represent individuals with strong innovative thinking and the ability to manage innovation design, corresponding to graduates at the general undergraduate level. This does not mean that fashion design students at the vocational undergraduate level cannot perform similar tasks. This study took 10 fashion companies in the Greater Bay Area, with Shenzhen at the center, as the main research object and interviewed the enterprises' design supervisors. Through interviews and questionnaires, we found that the enterprises expected vocational undergraduate fashion design graduates to possess mature product innovation design skills and strong cognitive-transformation abilities; that is, graduates required creativity to transform ideas into commercial products according to brand requirements and brand development strategies to ensure effective implementation. The results showed that the ability to design from an international perspective and respond flexibly to the industry were the main criteria for these fashion enterprises to evaluate recruits.

By understanding the levels of education for recruitment across various positions, a clearer understanding can be gained that the goals of vocational fashion design education should focus on training undergraduates to adapt to industrial demand and international perspectives, and space should be allocated in curricula for students' upward academic advancement.

Talent training characteristics of vocational undergraduate fashion design education

In traditional vocational colleges, talent training in fashion design is often limited by fixed, isolated curriculum bands. Following the principle of "technical first, then standardized competency", many vocational colleges clearly separate technical and design courses in their curricula. These standardized models blur the connections between creativity and craftsmanship, technology, and business, making it difficult to develop the integrated competencies required by the industry.

In the digital intelligence age, from a regional and international perspective, vocational undergraduate fashion design training should establish a job-oriented talent training model that integrates creativity, technology, and business and is empowered by digital intelligence.

Enhancing digital-intelligence literacy and the integration of technological competence

In a future skills-based fashion design training system, digital-intelligent technology changes from having a traditional subordinate tool to being a main driving force that deeply influences the creative generation, design optimization, and production collaboration process. Future digital-intelligent literacy encompasses not only advanced technology capabilities but also overall quality, including digital thinking, data cognition, and cross-disciplinary innovation (Théric et al., 2025).

In the digital-intelligence era, the competencies of design graduates in the textile and apparel industry have gradually advanced from lower to higher levels, evolving through three stages: From a solid technical foundation, to digital intelligence-empowered core capabilities, and, finally, to innovation-driven advanced capabilities (Ling, 2024).

Based on Bloom's (1956) cognitive domain theory and Senge's systems thinking theory, we constructed and analyzed a three-tier progressive model of undergraduates' future professional fashion design literacy (Figure 4).

Figure 4. Three-tier progressive competency structure for future fashion design graduates.

The foundational layer forms the basis for cultivating professional talent, which mainly focuses on basic design and technical abilities that students need to master in the initial stage of their work and provides the technical basis for their development of upper-tier skills. Middle-tier skills act as a bridge to connect creation and practical implementation. Students use digital design tools to quickly create realizable and producible design ideas. Top-tier thinking is the most advanced ability of students. It is also the basic quality of future fashion design leaders.

To further simplify this competency structure, Table 2 describes the specific content and key technical courses and application scenarios for each skill tier.

Building cross-disciplinary integration and systems thinking

In the age of digital intelligence, the range of fashion design disciplines is no longer fixed. Fashion-design value-creation processes are no longer limited to aesthetic considerations in apparel design but now encompass the coordinated integration of materials, garment-engineering processes, cultural creativity, marketing, and digital operations.

Senge's system thinking theory proposes that overall cognition and cross-element coordination are indispensable. When meeting with problems, fashion designers in the age of digital intelligence should have a global view and coordinate resources across various disciplines (Gupta et al., 2025).

First, in terms of integrating garment craftsmanship and structural design, future fashion professionals should master not only conventional garment structure and technology but also the latest developments in textile material innovations, such as recyclable fibers and functional fabrics, and in the application of environmentally friendly technology, such as zero-waste cutting. Garment engineering courses at Polimoda in Italy and Bunka Fashion College in Japan have already introduced textile innovations into garment teaching, and students can consider material characteristics and manufacturing conditions when designing garments, thereby achieving a high level of design-manufacture coordination (Michaelson et al., 2024).

Second, in terms of cultural creativity, future fashion designers should integrate regional cultural symbols, brand narrative logic, and a comprehension of user experience into their design and creation so as to achieve a competitive advantage in a global context. This would highlight interdisciplinary integration, situational authenticity, and the ability to design system-based solutions (Xue et al., 2025).

Therefore, future fashion-designer training should not focus on improving individual abilities, but by arranging courses and practices in a contextualized way, students can be trained to gain competence in cross-disciplinary integration and systems thinking so that graduates can achieve the efficient transfer of creativity and technology into competitive fashion products in different contexts.

Value orientation of sustainability and innovation-driven development

With the promotion of the united nations sustainable development goals and the continued advancement of educational informatization, sustainable fashion design education has gradually become a recognized future development trend in the international fashion academic community (D'Itria, 2020). Taking into consideration research on global sustainability strategies and international consumers' demand for personalization, this paper discusses the changes in intrinsic requirements for fashion design graduates triggered by the latter. Fashion design professionals should not only focus on aesthetic presentation but also create green value and perpetual innovation. Vocational undergraduate training should not be limited to transcending the old model of merely emphasizing "doing" skills but should also stress the ability to "envision, validate, and express" and to create in sustainable ways. This is because the labor demand logic at the industrial and enterprise levels is changing from one focusing on "usability" to one emphasizing "creativity". Professionals who merely complete simple work but are not extended creatively will soon be dismissed (Hong et al., 2025). On the other hand, in the fashion industry, consumption logic and technology have normalized personalization, small-batch production, rapid response, and digital presentation, thus changing the intrinsic requirements for fashion design roles. Therefore, to face new challenges, future designers should have the ability to validate creativity with digital tools and constrain design solutions within the logic of sustainability. Vocational undergraduate programs should not be homogenized with general undergraduate and higher vocational programs. Only when they take the lead in furnishing graduates with intrinsic competence in sustainable and autonomous innovation can these programs' unique advantages be sustained so that they open a path for graduates to enter mid- and high-level professional positions (Liu et al., 2023).

In summary, undergraduates' competence in future skills-oriented fashion design can be established through a three-tier paradigm: A foundation of solid craftsmanship and digital literacy, cross-disciplinary integration at the intermediate level, and sustainability-driven autonomous innovation at the peak. This combination constitutes a distinct Chinese model of vocational undergraduate education serving the dual transformations of digital intelligence and green development in the fashion industry.

Strengthening digital-intelligence empowerment: Optimizing "AI+ " teaching content and methods

With the arrival of the age of digital intelligence and the maturity of AI, big data, and virtual simulation technology, the curricula of traditional fashion design programs need to be deeply integrated with these new technologies to meet new industry development demands. Many educational researchers aim to rebuild professional curriculum knowledge maps by designing interdisciplinary modules such as "AI+ design thinking" and "AI+ styling innovation" to enhance students' abilities in using intelligent tools to quickly express creativity and design optimization judgment (Gangoda et al., 2023). At the same time, their goal is also to enhance teaching using technological means, such as virtual simulation and digital twins, and to transform experience-based teaching into intelligent teaching.

Preliminary research has found that AI+ optimization and the reconstruction of undergraduate courses are the most suitable approaches to vocational education in China in general. This study proposes reconstructing the curriculum content of fashion programs into three course clusters—collaborative innovation design, intelligent manufacturing, and sustainable design—and empowering them with AI+ (Figure 5).

Figure 5. AI+ curriculum matrix for vocational undergraduate fashion design education. AI, artificial intelligence.

Reconstructing the curriculum: Building a new interdisciplinary platform for "art-engineering integration"

In this century, the scope and trajectory of design education have gradually shown a trend of interdisciplinary extension, which has gradually influenced fashion design education. In the past, fashion courses centered on "craft skills training". Students' training was limited to the "can-do" level and lacked systematic training in logical thinking, overall integration, and technological innovation. This not only divided the knowledge structure and stacked courses in a disorderly manner but also caused students to feel lost and helpless when they were faced with new materials, new technologies, and new ideas (Chai, 2020).

To meet the new requirements of the digital-intelligence transition and the green transition, the vocational undergraduate curriculum can be reformed from a foundational curriculum concept. Based on the need for interdisciplinary integration in the clothes design and technology process as the core of "art-engineering integration", as well as new liberal arts, a progressive three-level course-cluster system of foundational, professional, and integrational can be established.

Taking the foundational level as the starting point, design thinking, art literacy, and science literacy are integrated. Aesthetic training is strengthened. Digital intelligence tools, such as data analysis and virtual simulation, are introduced. Taking the professional core level as the main body of the concept, garment structure and technical processes are combined with engineering thinking, with market logic integrated, to form a strong complementarity between artistic creation and technical implementation. Taking the integration and extension levels as the main line, cultural creativity, brand planning, digital marketing, and sustainable design are combined to strengthen the ability to communicate with designers, businesses, society, and technologies in a multidimensional way in an interdisciplinary field (Liu et al., 2024).

This system is characterized by multidimensional cooperation with humanistic and social orientation. In addition to the previous advantages of "aesthetics-craft-practice" fashion education and based on the construction of an interdisciplinary implementation platform, the "islands of technique" are broken to foster students' systematic knowledge building and integrative abilities from conceptual design to final products (Figure 6). The basic aim of the system is to cultivate versatile graduates who can take multiple roles in the process of digitally empowered and industrialized fashion design development and to promote a genuine transition from "skills-oriented" to "competency-oriented" training in undergraduate fashion design education.

Figure 6. Logical framework of the "art-engineering integration" curriculum.

Deepening school-enterprise cooperation: Creating a new teaching model of authentic co-creation with regional characteristics

School-enterprise cooperation is a key element in vocational undergraduate talent cultivation that connects teaching content and industry. It places students' learning processes in a real industrial context, realizing a "knowledge learning—skill practice—employment transition" connection. As shown in China's newly issued "industry-education integration community" concept, this type of cooperation involves the multiparty participation of schools, enterprises, industries, and governments. Through the sharing of resources, standard co-construction, and process co-management, it realizes a fitting connection between educational supply and industrial demand (Hu & Li, 2024). This approach to cooperation is essentially a deep integration of industry-academia-research, regional cultural characteristics, and authentic project co-creation. It constructs a closed-loop teaching link that encompasses school-enterprise co-construction, co-research, co-creation, and co-evaluation around the technical chain, creative chain, and industrial chain needs of fashion design programs.

Through the "dual mentor system" mechanism, "enterprise project studios", and "regional industry alliances", students can realize "learning by doing, doing by learning" by linking the real production of enterprises with the real market environment in schools (Yang, 2022).

In Shenzhen, some local application-oriented universities' fashion design programs have formed a "new, three-chain integrated school-enterprise cooperation model" of the "teaching chain—creative chain—industry chain" by cooperating with local fashion enterprises, promoting the development of the local fashion industry, and improving the training quality. They cooperate with local enterprises to conduct brand product-design project practical courses in depth and to explore a new type of "school-enterprise co-creation" talent-cultivation model. The joint brand-fashion design training between Shenzhen University and Shenzhen Ellassay Fashion Group, and the pre-employment design-innovation training courses for graduates organized by Shenzhen Polytechnic University and the Shenzhen Fashion Industry Association, are typical cases of successful school-enterprise cooperation in recent years. Through school-enterprise co-creation courses, university students directly participate in the product-design stage of fashion enterprises and complete market-oriented product development through trend analysis, style design, sample patternmaking, and market testing carried out by university teachers and enterprise mentors. Through the joint teaching of enterprise mentors and university teachers, job standards and industry norms are incorporated into the teaching link.

Therefore, to realize the new teaching model of authentic school-enterprise co-creation with regional characteristics by deepening school-enterprise cooperation, the most important thing is to give full play to regional advantages and form a "three-chain integration model" encompassing the teaching chain, the creative chain, and the industry chain (Wan & Li, 2024). The teaching chain relies on the course-module link to ensure the systematic transmission of theoretical knowledge and professional skills; the creative chain is driven by the project's goal of strengthening training in original thinking and instilling comprehensive design ability; and the industry chain turns learning achievements into real products that conform to market logic through an authentic school-enterprise co-creation scene, so that the learning achievements can be transferred into the industrial logic. The dynamic interaction of the three chains not only improves the fashion students' job and innovative practice skills but also greatly enhances regional schools' ability to retain talent and the service level of industries.

Advancing the digital-intelligence transformation of faculty: Cultivating a dual-track, application-oriented teaching structure

Curriculum innovation and teaching model innovation should be promoted through faculty construction and structural adjustment. In the case of digital intelligence development, faculty members should have strong academic backgrounds and research strengths, enhanced practical industry experience, and cross-disciplinary knowledge (Yang & Yan, 2024).

In terms of faculty building, Shenzhen Polytechnic University has carried out a preliminary exploration in constructing the fashion program faculty. One approach is to invite famous designers and technical masters in the industry to set up a flexible co-teaching mode of "academic teacher + enterprise mentor". Another is to enhance the faculty through internal and external training. Through external training, teachers can master advanced means of digital intelligence design and management, such as AIGC, virtual simulation, and intelligent manufacturing, to develop courses with advanced-level industry coordination. In conjunction with Zuoshang Fashion (Hangzhou) Co., Ltd., the Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology has jointly set up Fashion Brand and Product Planning. Under the guidance of teachers and enterprise personnel, students conduct course projects in the hot and bustling Sijiqing apparel market in Hangzhou. Project courses can greatly enhance students' abilities in creative expression and practical application while exploring new ways to reform project-based, industry-coordinated teaching in fashion and apparel design programs (Li & Li, 2023).

In short, by building a flexible, robust faculty team, a cutting-edge, real-time practice-teaching team model has emerged. It can transform teachers from simple "knowledge transmitters" into "facilitators of industry practice". On the one hand, it can guarantee that courses match the innovation level of the industry. On the other hand, it can ensure that students experience a learning process that is coordinated with the needs of the job market.

Improving the outcome-based education (OBE) evaluation system: Embedding new pathways for future skills certification

OBE, as an educational philosophy centered on learning outcomes, emphasizes using predetermined learning outcomes as an approach to driving the design and assessment of teaching processes. This model requires the educational process to revolve around four key questions: What competencies do students need to acquire? Why do they need these competencies? How do they acquire these competencies? How do we verify learning results? This forms a closed-loop logic of objectives, implementation, evaluation, and feedback. The OBE approach provides a scientific curriculum-learning evaluation system to cultivate fashion design talent.