North West School of Design (NWSD), founded by awarding winning and globally recognized Fashion Entrepreneur Marlene Oosthuizen, has recently celebrated 22 years of training International and South Africa’s top designers and fashion professionals.

North West School of Design (NWSD), founded by awarding winning and globally recognized Fashion Entrepreneur Marlene Oosthuizen, has recently celebrated 22 years of training International and South Africa’s top designers and fashion professionals.

From 2013 the institution provided the South African fashion industry aspirants the opportunity to gain certification from the internationally recognised City and Guilds in fashion design or fashion buying and communications. As per the DHET, it is unfortunate that City and Guilds is no longer recognized in South Africa as of 2018 – this has provided an opportunity for NWSD to reinvent the brand and become aligned to the HEQSF at an appropriate NQF level. Through research and commitment, NWSD has designed a NQF Level 6: DIPLOMA IN FASHION DESIGN which has been submitted for accreditation.

Mission Statement

To deliver fashion entrepreneurs honing mastery technical skill sets and high-performance business acumen to the fashion industry.

Vision 

• Provide students with comprehensive knowledge and understanding of the global fashion industry.


• Promote entrepreneurial thinking from concept to collection.


• Produce culturally diverse, professional global citizens.


• Encourage personal growth through a high performance, quality-driven culture.


• Stimulate creativity and intellectual social interests within graduates.


• Promote technical skills that hone quality and excellence.

NWSD does not only offer an exceedingly recognized 3-year course in fashion but also offers various short courses, correspondence courses and portable skills training.

The 3-year Fulltime course in Fashion aims to provide the technical skillsets and practical techniques. The course aims to equip aspirant fashion designers with the mind-set and skill-set that enables them to conceptualize ideas, create blueprint patterns and, construct apparel by applying finishing techniques to production processes. It also aims to provide understanding of the core theoretical principles and practices that are integrated into the business of fashion, encouraging an entrepreneurial mindset able to justify the impact of the fashion world in driving international markets and globalization. Graduates entering the industry have a variety of career options available and gain valuable exposure through real-world work integrated learning experiences throughout the three years.

NWSD has recently celebrated 22 years of training South Africa’s top designers and fashion professionals, such as – click here to meet our Alumni

NWSD offers a variety of short courses, such as Part-time Fashion Design, Sewing, Runway Modelling, etc.  In the efforts to make our short courses more affordable, the NWSD short courses are offered as non-credit bearing courses, as these courses are not unit-standard based. Student therefore receive a non-credit bearing certificate after completing the short course.

The correspondence courses can be completed in your own time with the help of the award winning X!act Design Patternmaker™.  This patternmaking tool was initially designed to address identified needs of North West School of Design students, this tool is used for drafting basic block patterns that are accurate, accessible and cost effective, but the Patternmaker is now used by many fashion professionals and fashion schools.

The NWSD Portable Skills Training is a short course training, composing of sewing, sketching etc, done on your own turf. This training is designed to suit the needs of the group which should consist of no less than 8 individuals.

The highly esteemed and sought after, Platinum Fashion Festival was founded and is hosted by the NWSD, with students and staff collaborating as event managers and designers. The Platinum Fashion Festival has grown into one of the leading fashion industry event of every year since its birth.

The North West School of Design is situated in the City of the People – Klerksdorp, North West. Together with Rustenburg, Klerksdorp forms the economic heart of the Platinum Province, the North West Province.