Mofussil to Markets: SNDT Women’s University is taking fashion design boom to the Maharashtra hinterlands

Mrunal Kale, 25, has always been interested in art and craft and aspired to make a career in design. She was fortunate to find a fashion technology institute in her hometown, Jalgaon, in northern Maharashtra, and went on to pursue a master’s in design at the Sir Vithaldas Thackersey (SVT) College of Home Science, at the Juhu (Mumbai) campus of SNDT Women's University.

While still in college, she started her own venture of handmade bags, jewellery and canvas painting, focusing on Indian art forms and sustainability. Two years later, she now runs a full-fledged business from her home, using social media platforms, such as Instagram and WhatsApp, as a marketplace, while also working as a freelance digital illustrator on the side.

She is grateful to have her passion earn her a livelihood and grant her financial independence. “If you learn design, you can take the country’s beautiful art forms to people,” she said.

Kale is among the many youngsters, especially women, from the mufassil parts of the country who are increasingly drawn to careers in the fashion and design sector. While this industry is often defined by the glitzy boutiques of big-name brands and fashion shows in hotel ballrooms in metropolises, newer opportunities are coming up for professionals in smaller, less glamorous places, too.

While the popularity of design as an academic discipline is on the rise, thanks to shifts in the garment industry, proliferation of internet and digital devices as well as more awareness about fashion trends, it’s being sustained by the many fashion design education institutes mushrooming across the hinterland. Though many of these have dubious affiliations and unrecognised courses, the approved colleges are thriving.

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Design courses see sharp rise

In Maharashtra, this growth is spearheaded by the Shreemati Nathibai Damodar Thackersey (SNDT) Women's University, the country’s first and largest women’s university, and also a foremost institute of fashion education. Even though the National Institutes of Fashion Technology (NIFT) and the National Institutes of Design (NID) are considered to be the most prestigious centres by those pursuing careers in fashion, design and allied disciplines, SNDT Women’s University claims to be the pioneer in fashion education through its BSc Home Science (Textile and Fashion Design) and Diploma in Apparel Manufacturing and Design programmes. It counts several prominent fashion designers, including Neeta Lulla, Masaba Gupta and Anita Dongre, among its alumni.

In the last five years, the varsity has witnessed an exponential rise in the number of affiliated colleges offering fashion design courses. According to the data available on its website, as of academic year 2024-25, the varsity had over 100 colleges, polytechnics and departments offering undergraduate courses in fashion design, jewellery design, interior design and apparel design under various nomenclatures such as BA in Fashion Design, BDesign (BDes), BSc Home Science (Fashion and Apparel Design) and BVoc.

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However, the majority of these institutes were set up within a span of two academic years – at least 44 new affiliated colleges were approved in 2022-23 and another 23 in 2023-24. While most of the new institutes were approved to run BDes programmes, it was later changed to BA in Fashion Design to bypass the All India Council for Technical Education’s (AICTE) norms, which had taken over as the regulating authority for the design courses.

Most of the new institutes have come up outside the large urban centres, with Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar (previously Aurangabad), Jalna and Beed districts in the Marathwada region getting the highest number of the new entrants in the fashion education space. Some of the existing institutes have been approved to create additional divisions for the programme.

Fashion, Textile Designing: Small-town, rural expansion

The expansion in fashion education is in line with the SNDT University’s focus on empowering women by offering training in the vocations traditionally associated with them. However, the spurt in the institutes in the small towns and rural areas was perplexing even for the varsity’s academic leaders.

“It’s surprising to even us how the popularity of the courses is increasing in mofussil parts,” said Jayashree Shinde, dean, Interdisciplinary Studies at the university, noting that the growth in fashion design follows a similar boom in teacher training programmes, another discipline populated by female students, a few years ago.

Armaiti Shukla, the head of department of Textile and Fashion Designing at SVT College, surmises that the textile manufacturers relocating from cities to interior parts of the state could be responsible for the sudden growth in educational institutes in the remote parts of Maharashtra. “States like Maharashtra, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh are good cotton growers. Besides, we also have a substantial presence in the silk industry. But with manufacturing now increasingly happening outside large cities like Mumbai, design institutes are moving out too,” she said.

As part of the Textile Cluster Development Scheme (TCDS), the centre and the state governments have funded the setting up of textile parks in places across Maharashtra, including Kolhapur, Dhule, Kagal, Baramati, Shirpur, Latur, Akkalkot and Hinganghat. According to the data presented by the centre in the parliament, these projects have generated employment for more than 33,000 people.

The scope of the fashion industry is widening too, encompassing everything from fabric to apparel to jewellery to accessories, for both men and women. The professionals can find work in several allied areas, such as fashion stylist, fashion photography, visual merchandising and fashion communications. With malls opening up in small towns, newer opportunities have opened up in the retail space.

Then, there’s the internet and social media. The enhanced access to the digital tools and platforms is allowing young professionals to connect with vendors and customers beyond their localities. This has been particularly helpful for women, who can run online shopping stores while also handling domestic responsibilities. “One can easily reach people online and work with manufacturers by creating digital designs from home, or anywhere else,” said Kale.

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The rising demand for fashion design programmes also fits into the larger trend of skill-based programmes pushing the more generic UG courses out of favour. The shift also has an economic side, as the institutes are able to levy much higher tuition fees for professional courses – around Rs 1 lakh for a UG fashion design programme. The aided institutes, like SVT College, though, are much more affordable.

“While our objective is to empower girls, many of those who are creating institutes are motivated by financial reasons,” said Varsharani Khoche, principal of Grace Institute of Fashion Design, an SNDT University-affiliated institute set up in 2022-23 in Badnapur, a small town in Jalna district.

Fashion Designing: The challenges

The growth, while welcomed by everyone, comes with its own set of challenges. The new colleges have to go out of their way to counsel and convince female aspirants in mufassil areas about the utility of their offerings.

“Many people don’t realise that many career and business opportunities are available in this field, especially for women who can handle both family and work. People only know about glamour, even though clothing is one the three basic needs,” said Khoche.

The Jalna institute’s teachers have been drawn from nearby cities and have to travel long distances to reach the campus. The required infrastructure and facilities are being created in a piecemeal manner.

Teaching is a task too. “Despite social media’s reach, many students lack exposure, and even basic communication and writing skills. We undertake a lot of initiatives to ensure overall empowerment of the students,” adds Koche.

She, however, remains optimistic, as all 60 seats at the college were filled last year.

Experts believe that the growing number of colleges could turn out to be a blessing as well as a threat to the quality of fashion education in the state. According to Shukla, a healthy competition among institutes can potentially improve quality. At the same time, it may lead to dilution of standards due to paucity of teaching and other resources.

For now, the academics insist that there’s an adequate pool of trainers available to cater to the needs of the new campuses. “Two-three new institutes in places where there wasn’t any isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The saturation could ultimately happen, but it would take a decade or so,” said Shukla.

SNDT Women’s University Mumbai curriculum

The SNDT University, on its part, is trying to maintain standards by having a well-defined curriculum in place and ensuring its implementation through rigorous audits of the institutes. It’s also updating the syllabus according to the changes in the industry as well as the objectives of the National Education Policy (NEP).

“The students are well equipped with the knowledge and skills to perform according to the industry’s needs. They have been given the orientation of global requirements, and how the local industry can be made stronger,” said Manju Hundekar, former principal of School of Fashion Technology (SOFT), an SNDT University-affiliated college in Pune.

She informs that around 60% of the SNDT University curriculum is practical and application-based with the remaining space for theoretical subjects such as textile science, dyeing and printing. The practical components include hands-on skills, such as digital and hand rendering of fashion, design innovations and surface development, with marketing and merchandising offered as complementary subjects to open more careers opportunities. On-job training has also been included in the coursework.

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While the BA in Fashion Design curriculum includes interdisciplinary programmes and other verticals, such as skill enhancement courses and Indian Knowledge System (IKS), BDes programme focuses more on the core subjects. The university is now planning to introduce an online assignment monitoring system to keep an eye on the students’ work across the affiliated colleges.

“We don’t just teach tailoring,” said Shinde, adding that the university follows an interdisciplinary approach where the students are required to learn the basics of all three major specialisations – fashion, jewellery and interior design.

With the opening of fashion colleges, life is coming full circle in the countryside. “Ultimately, we need to understand that our heritage was very much rooted in rural areas. And most of the designers have exploited it and commercially benefited from it,” said Hundekar.

Speaking about her students, Khoche said, “These are the children of farmers. They are already familiar with cotton production. They just need to be taught what comes next.”