- Nora Veerman
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The Amsterdam Fashion Academy is now in Italian hands: the private
fashion school has been taken over by the Luiss Business School in Rome on
January 1, 2020. The spokesperson of the Amsterdam Fashion Academy confirms
this by phone to FashionUnited. The academy had been looking for
opportunities to strengthen its international network for some time and has
now found a way to do so. “This new step strengthens the position of the
Amsterdam Fashion Academy as a unique international fashion university,”
says Deborah Pulleyblank, director of the Amsterdam Fashion Academy, in a
supplementary press statement.
The students of the Amsterdam Fashion Academy will not notice much of
the takeover in the short term. “The Amsterdam Fashion Academy will retain
its own identity and unique character and will continue to grow and develop
in its own way. The range of subjects and study programmes will remain
unchanged and we will continue to do what we are good at: bringing together
the fashion industry and education, and offering a personal,
student-centred learning experience,” says Pulleybank.
For the Luiss Business School, the acquisition is the first outside the
Italian borders. Luiss Business School is affiliated with Luiss-University,
an independent and private university in Rome. Luiss-chairman Vincenzo
Boccia previously told the Italian newspaper Corriere Della Serra: “The
acquisition of the Amsterdam Fashion Academy is a historic milestone for
the Luiss Business School and for our university in general. The
Luiss-university thus confirms a dynamic reality and strong expansion, as
well as a focus on challenges in the field of education at an international
level”.
The Luiss-University was founded in 1977 by Umberto Agnelli, scion of
the Fiat dynasty, and is related to the Italian employers’ organisation
Confindustria, of which Boccia is also chairman.
The Amsterdam Fashion School exists since 2013 and offers Bachelor’s
degree programmes in Fashion Business and Textile Design, accredited by the
British Buckinghamshire New University. The school has approximately two
hundred students, many of whom come from abroad.
This article was originally published on FashionUnited NL. The
text has been translated and edited for an international
audience.
Photo: courtesy of Amsterdam Fashion Academy
