1. All students interested in declaring the FITS Minor must complete the following Information Session and take the quiz at the end. Once these are complete, students will be directed to fill out an online request to declare the minor.
FITS Minor Info Session and Quiz
Note: Your University of Arizona GPA needs to be a 2.0 or higher in order to declare the fashion minor.
2. The Student Services Office will review and approve new minor requests weekly, so students should expect to see their FITS Minor added within 5-10 business days. Students will be notified via email that they have been accepted to the minor.
3. The classes are on a first come first served basis, and students will enroll themselves through UAccess.
4. If you have additional questions, please feel free to contact Serena Valle via email at ssvalle@arizona.edu or make an appointment.
View the Fashion Minor handout
Please note only FITS academic advisors can declare the FITS minor for a student.
The following six classes are needed to complete the FITS minor.
- FITS 204: Fashion Consumer and the Economy (3-units)* - A study of consumer behavior and fashion adoption processes in contemporary society, the nature of fashion theories, the life cycle, social and cultural processes and evolution of fashion, and the role of fashion in the global economy in general and in the fashion business industry in particular.
- FITS 215: Mechanics of Fashion (3-units)* - A comprehensive overview of how the fashion business works. The course will feature topics covering the past and present in fashion personalities, fads, pop culture, product development and retail. The class will go through examples of people, principles, management practices, and retailer. In addition, we will examine fashions ethical awareness of the twenty first century.
- FITS 345: The Science of Textiles (3-units)* - This course integrates the chemical composition, molecular arrangement, and physical structure of natural and manufactured fibers. Yarn and fabric manufacturing processes as well as finishing techniques are included. Attention is given to how these characteristics and techniques affect function, performance, and quality of textile products.
- FITS 333: Fashion Promotion (3-units) - The fashion industry is, ever-changing and a greater understanding of all aspects of fashion promotion is necessary for student success. Communicating effectively across a range of platforms with respect to the consumer and maintaining consistency to navigate the global landscape in fashion communication along with managing emerging trends in social marketing and event planning is necessary for all fashion promotion. Use of current news, events, and personalities as a basis for writing and evaluating institutional and product publicity releases for news and feature stories. Students plan publicity campaigns and create a press kit. Students plan and develop sales promotion activities in order to achieve specific marketing and communications objectives. Both business-to-business and business-to-consumer sales promotion campaigns are developed. This online course provides an analysis of the principles and practices of e-commerce in fashion retailing and their relationship to customer service integrated as fashion promotion. Topics included a survey of brick & mortar fashion customer, its technology underpinnings, understanding and communicating with the e-customer. Case studies and projects will be used to apply the concepts.
- FITS 335: Fashion Forecasting and Research Trends (3 units) - Develop the science of predicting future fashion trends. Learn the relationship between forecasting, trend prediction, external, social changes, and historical style movements. Analyze past styled movements and establish an understanding of historical context, consumer trends, buying patterns, fads, and cults. Research color palettes, surface and fabric trends and concepts, form and silhouette changes, and product shifts. Learn to synthesis trends for new product by gaining insight into consumers' attitudes and lifestyles phases. Group and individual projects are used to access the students learning. This course is not intended for RCSC majors. No RCSC credit will be given for this course.
- FITS 435: Society Culture and Fashion Relationships (3 units) - Universally, people make daily choices about what to or not to wear. This course presents a comparative examination of fashion across different cultural perspectives using Western and non-Western examples; we will take a three-pronged approach to distinguish dress across cultures, uncovering its relationship to human beings as biological, aesthetic, and social creatures. We will review readings collected from course textbooks, academic journals and other current articles from magazines and newspapers. In addition, we will analyze the complexity of dress from a multidisciplinary perspective. Therefore, we will explore topics that include anthropology, sociology, economics, fine arts, religion, natural sciences and technological changes.
FITS Minor Advising:
- Email Serena Valle ssvalle@arizona.edu or schedule an appointment
- Email with general questions: nortonminoradvising@email.arizona.edu
A Minor with Major Impact
A secondary focus in Fashion Industry’s Science & Technology can accompany a variety of majors. Schedule an appointment with an adviser to learn more.