“We nurture creativity, and we see how young creative minds develop throughout the 2 ½ years they spend with us. Fashion design is a subject that relates to many other subjects as it involves research and development, understanding the history and psychology of clothing, marketing and selling the product and most importantly presenting a quality product to the customer in style. At LIFT (Lanka Institute of Fashion Technology, the premier fashion education provider in Sri Lanka) a student can gain complete experience of all the above areas which is very important to a designer, during the advanced diploma in Fashion design course” Niroshani Leanage – Managing Director of LIFT.

A designer develops ideas to create a new look for the customers, and also is fully responsible to advise on total styling for the garment they create. Once the students complete the final year collections each student is given the opportunity to expand on the ideas of how they prefer to promote their collections to customers. In this case dealing with professionals as required and creating the look the designer needs for the garment is very important. At this stage students get professional guidance in styling, hands on experience on hair and make-up and a professional fashion shoot arranged by the institute at its studio.
The expertise on styling is handled by LIFT staff where they give individual guidance and professional advice to each student to bring out the concept of each individual’s collection.

The hands on experience of Hair and Make-up is given by the renowned make-up artist and hairstylist Mr. Ramzi Rahaman. Students get to experiment the basics of make-up and hair techniques during these sessions where it helps them to decide the final look of the model with make-up and hair for their photo shoots. The photo shoots are done by a professional photographer Mr. Yasendra Amerasinghe who looks into each student’s concept and discusses the outcome the student designer needs. LIFT introduced fashion styling and photography to the course three years ago as a subject to support the fashion business studies module. The institute always encourages students to develop their own designer labels.

The institute offers a full-time course on week days, the Advanced Diploma in Fashion Design (5 semesters) and a part-time course on Saturdays, the part-time Diploma in Fashion design (18 month course). These course details are available on www.lift.lk or visit no 87, Horton Place, Colombo -7 for more information.