Master

Every year, Creative Academy hosts the Master of Arts in Design and Applied Arts, a post-graduate course providing the students with all the skills that a designer needs to work for a global luxury brand. Twenty talented designers, coming from international applied arts and design schools, are accurately selected to join a unique educational experience. The programme offers them all the tools and skills that can pave their way to a successful career in the creative studios of the Richemont Maisons, where the most deserving students have the opportunity to be selected for an internship at the end of the Master and begin their professional career.

The Master’s specialisation fields correspond to the three business areas operated by Richemont: Jewellery Maisons with Buccellati, Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels and Vhernier; Specialist Watchmakers with A. Lange & Söhne, Baume & Mercier, IWC Schaffhausen, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Panerai, Piaget, Roger Dubuis and Vacheron Constantin; and Other, primarily Fashion & Accessories Maisons with Alaïa, Chloé, Delvaux, dunhill, G/FORE, Gianvito Rossi, Montblanc, Peter Millar, Purdey, Serapian as well as TimeVallée and Watchfinder & Co.

Over the course of seven months of full-time classroom work, the students improve the skills required to work as a product designer in a luxury brand. For example, they learn to master hand and digital drawing techniques (sketch, gouache, 2D and 3D), are trained on the distinctive characteristics of the luxury market and delve into history, trends and design in the three areas of specialisation of the Master.

Throughout the Master’s programme, students have the opportunity to meet professionals from the Richemont universe. Thanks to meetings with the Maisons’ CEOs, the young designers discover the heritage and positioning of the Group’s brands, while the Creative Directors challenge the students by entrusting them with actual projects to work on. 

The Master’s programme is completed with lectures and seminars aimed at transmitting the transversal competencies necessary to excel in a contemporary professional environment: project methodology, time management, sustainability, principles of intellectual property.

In addition to classroom projects and a rich programme of visits to the places where artistic creation becomes reality – factories, ateliers, museum spaces, industry events – every year the students take part in a new project created on the occasion of the Milano Design Week, in collaboration with one of the Richemont Maisons and the Cologni Foundation for the Métiers d’Art. In front of an international audience of the most important annual event in the world of design, the students learn the importance of the creative dialogue between designer and craftsman and create a collection of unique pieces, entirely designed by them and shaped by the skilled hands of a Master Craftsman. 

Internships and alumni

At the end of the Master, the most deserving students have the opportunity to be selected by a Richemont Maison for a minimum three-month internship.

Over more than twenty years since its foundation in 2003, Creative Academy has trained hundreds of professionals, who are holding now prominent positions in the Richemont Maisons. A prestigious and international network of Alumni, who contribute to spreading a culture of luxury defined by excellence in design, creativity, craftsmanship, authenticity and sustainability.