Bachelor of Fashion Business

Bachelor of Fashion Business is Holmes's attempt to sit between a straight business degree and a design school program. It teaches merchandising, buying, retail management and fashion marketing rather than pattern-making or garment construction, so students who actually want to design clothes should look elsewhere (RMIT or Whitehouse Institute are the more obvious choices in that space). What this degree is for is the commercial side of the fashion industry: supply chain, brand management, retail analytics and marketing applied specifically to apparel and accessories categories.

It shares a business core with Holmes's other undergraduate business degrees in years one and two, then narrows into fashion-specific units (trend forecasting, fashion retail management, visual merchandising) in year three. Melbourne's retail and wholesale fashion sector gives students some access to local industry placements and guest lecturers, though the program is smaller and less established than Holmes's mainstream business and accounting degrees, and prospective students should treat it as a niche offering rather than a flagship one.