Meet Ananya: A Creative Dreamer with a Vision. Ananya grew up in a world of creativity. Her mother was a hobbyist seamstress, and her father was an architect. Fabric swatches and floor plans surrounded her from a young age. While most of her classmates struggled with career decisions, Ananya knew exactly what she wanted: to be part of an industry that was bold, expressive, and constantly evolving.
But she also knew that raw talent wasn’t enough.
“I didn’t just want to be someone who could sketch dresses,” she says. “I wanted to understand how the fashion industry works—from design and sourcing to branding and business.”
After months of research, she found her match: NIF Pune Kothrud, a place known for nurturing fashion and interior design aspirants. She chose the B.Des in Fashion Design, a program run and offered by Medhavi Skills University, and enrolled with the ambition not just to follow trends but to set them.
What followed was a four-year journey that would shape her into a confident, industry-ready designer.
Choosing NIF Pune Kothrud: Where Skill Meets Passion
When Ananya first visited NIF Pune Kothrud, she immediately noticed the difference. The environment wasn’t stiff or overly academic—it was vibrant, collaborative, and alive with ideas. Students were walking around with portfolios under their arms and swatches pinned to studio walls, and conversations buzzed with terms like “trend forecast,” “space composition,” and “fabric drape.”
She was impressed by the infrastructure—pattern-making labs, fully equipped stitching studios, a digital design suite, and material libraries—but the curriculum structure and its focus on practical industry preparation sealed her decision.
The B.Des in Fashion Design and B.Voc in Fashion Design programs at NIF combine creative freedom with disciplined technical training. Students don’t just learn how to design—they learn how to make, analyze, and sell what they design. The same philosophy drives the B.Des in Interior Design and B.Voc in Interior Design courses, where students dive deep into functional aesthetics, sustainability, and real client-based problem-solving.
Most importantly, all these programs are run and offered by Medhavi Skills University, ensuring that the degrees are aligned with national skill frameworks and global industry standards.
This wasn’t just about earning a degree. It was about building a career. And NIF Pune Kothrud made that very clear from day one.
Year 1: Building the Basics (and Dreams)
Ananya’s first year at NIF Pune Kothrud was a revelation. The transition from dreaming about fashion to studying it was thrilling—and humbling. She quickly realized that fashion design wasn’t just about creativity; it demanded precision, discipline, and a sharp eye for detail.
One of her first assignments in the B.Des in Fashion Design program was to deconstruct a basic kurta, understand its construction, and reassemble it with a personal design twist. She learned about grain lines, seam allowances, dart manipulation, and how structure supports style.
Her classroom wasn’t limited to four walls. Visits to local textile mills, fabric expos, and craft centers introduced her to the vast ecosystem that supports fashion. She explored everything from indigenous dyeing methods to contemporary textile innovation.
Courses like Fashion Rendering, Textile Science, and Pattern Making helped her build a design vocabulary and transform rough sketches into fully conceptualized pieces. Her sketchbook became a progress journal, filled with silhouettes, mood boards, and color palettes, page after page.
Meanwhile, her batchmates in the B.Des in Interior Design and B.Voc in Interior Design programs were exploring their creative foundations. They were drafting room layouts, learning spatial proportions, and experimenting with wood, glass, and metal materials. One class had them reimagine a 200-square-foot space as a multifunctional studio apartment—an exercise in creativity and constraint.
Throughout that first year, Ananya began to think not just like a student but like a designer in training. Every new skill learned, every critique received, and every peer collaboration brought her closer to the professional world she had always dreamed of.
Year 2: Stitching Skills to Industry Standards
In the second year, Ananya truly began to understand what it meant to design for the industry. Gone were the days of only theoretical learning—this was the year she rolled up her sleeves and got to work refining the technical skills that would anchor her creative vision.
She dove into Pattern Grading and Menswear Construction, learning how a single design could be adapted across size ranges while maintaining structural integrity and fit. Each measurement had a logic, and each adjustment had a purpose. Her appreciation for tailoring grew with every garment sewn—not just for its visual appeal but for its engineering.
The Clothing Industry Overview module opened her eyes to the entire fashion supply chain. From sourcing raw materials to understanding quality control and ethical production, Ananya learned how garments reach markets and why some brands succeed while others fade away. She began to understand the business behind beauty.
Meanwhile, a course in Retailing and Merchandising taught her how design decisions translate to consumer choices. What colors work for which season? What silhouettes sell best in which region? Why is visual merchandising as important as the product itself? These weren’t just theories; they were real factors that would shape her career in the field.
At the same time, her peers in the B.Voc in Fashion Design track were mastering the production side of the industry—working on industrial machinery, practicing time-based garment execution, and participating in workshops with manufacturing experts.
Across the corridor, Interior Design students were exploring the world of residential interiors, ergonomics, and sustainable materials. Ananya often shared lunch with one of them, who was redesigning a living room for a real client and grappling with blending style and functionality in small spaces. The parallels between fashion and interior design became more apparent daily. Both disciplines required the same core competencies: aesthetic judgment, client insight, material mastery, and technical precision.
By the end of the year, Ananya had already started thinking like a professional designer—one who understood not just the craft of fashion but also its commercial and cultural relevance.
Year 3: Real Clients. Real Projects. Real Growth.
The third year felt like a turning point. For Ananya, it was no longer just about becoming a designer but a professional. The classroom extended beyond the campus walls as the focus shifted to industry integration and hands-on execution.
One of her most memorable projects was a capsule collection created for a niche brand targeting eco-conscious millennials. Working under tight timelines, she had to present her concepts, revise them based on client feedback, source sustainable fabrics, and oversee garment construction. It was stressful—but exhilarating.
She also enrolled in a Garment Up-Cycling module, where old clothes were given new life. What started as a sustainability workshop became a personal philosophy. Ananya realized that fashion didn’t have to come at the cost of the planet. With guidance from mentors, she reimagined discarded denim into a sculptural jacket that later featured in the institute’s annual showcase.
This year also brought a pivotal experience: her internship. Placed with a contemporary womenswear label in Mumbai, she worked directly under the creative head. From assisting in fittings to co-developing tech packs for production units, she was exposed to the real pace and pressure of the fashion industry. She learned how design teams collaborate with marketing, how buyer presentations are structured, and how feedback loops improve a final product.
The B.Voc in Fashion Design students also participated in similar internships, many gaining experience in export houses and fashion retail chains. Their practical expertise, especially in execution and quality control, became evident when collaborating on multi-disciplinary projects.
On the interior design side, students worked on actual client briefs—from restaurants to studio apartments—and learned to manage not just designs but budgets, materials, vendors, and time schedules. Whether in fashion or interiors, the third year was about ownership and accountability.
Ananya found herself thinking differently now. She wasn’t designed to fulfill an assignment but to meet expectations, solve problems, and tell a story. For the first time, she felt like she belonged in the industry.
Year 4: Thinking Like a Brand (Not Just a Designer)
By the time Ananya entered her final year at NIF Pune Kothrud, she was no longer thinking about garments—she was thinking about collections, market niches, and brand narratives. This shift from being a student designer to a strategic creative thinker was exactly what Year 4 was designed to foster.
Her coursework began with Foundation of Luxury, a deep dive into what sets high-end fashion apart. She examined what makes a luxury product desirable and timeless, from heritage techniques to exclusive materials and iconic fashion houses. She studied the success stories of brands like Chanel, Sabyasachi, and Bottega Veneta—their design styles, business strategies, customer positioning, and global presence.
A parallel module on Luxury and Culture explored how design interacts with the world—how fashion is shaped by, and shapes, societal movements, cultural identities, and global narratives. Ananya researched the intersection of tribal art and contemporary fashion, producing a thought-provoking visual thesis that both faculty and visiting professionals praised.
But her final project—developed in the Design Concept and Fashion Future module—truly marked her transformation. She conceptualized a future-oriented fashion line built around biodegradable textiles, minimal-waste patterns, and digital integration (including a virtual try-on component). Every piece in the collection was supported by research, a target market strategy, and a presentation that mimicked a real-world investor pitch.
Courses like Luxury Brand Management complemented this design journey with practical insight. She learned how to price products, craft brand language, and build omnichannel campaigns—skills often missing in traditional design education. By the end of the term, Ananya wasn’t just making clothes—she was building a brand ecosystem.
Meanwhile, her peers in B.Des in Interior Design worked on similarly ambitious capstone projects—redesigning co-working spaces with adaptive lighting or creating modular, eco-sensitive homes for urban settings. They, too, were learning to think like brand consultants, not just decorators—considering user experience, brand values, and lifestyle integration.
This final year tied together every skill Ananya had developed—creativity, craftsmanship, business thinking, research, and sustainability. She no longer saw herself as a fashion designer alone but as a changemaker with a signature voice, ready to step into the industry with purpose and confidence.
What Happens After Graduation?
Graduation didn’t feel like an ending—it felt like a beginning. Armed with a polished portfolio, a distinctive design voice, and real-world experience, Ananya stood at the edge of the industry not with anxiety but with readiness.
Within weeks of her final presentation, she had two interviews lined up—one with a sustainable fashion label she’d interned with and another with an emerging luxury resort wear brand. Both were impressed by her ability to speak the language of design and business and how she could back up her aesthetic with consumer insights, production knowledge, and brand strategy.
She chose the latter, drawn to its bold vision and international reach. Within months, she was part of a team preparing a new collection for Lakmé Fashion Week—researching trends, sourcing materials, and assisting with everything from line sheets to model fittings.
Meanwhile, some of her batchmates chose other paths. One co-founded a slow fashion brand rooted in Indian craft. Another entered costume design for OTT platforms. A few pursue post-graduate studies in fashion communication and luxury management in Europe.
The outcomes were equally diverse on the interior side. Graduates from the B.Des in Interior Design and B.Voc in Interior Design programs became freelance consultants, interior stylists, and junior designers at architecture firms. One of them, Ananya’s friend Isha, landed a job redesigning commercial workspaces for a global tech company, blending functionality with high design.
This united them all: They weren’t entering the industry to figure things out. They were entering with a toolbox of skills, confidence, networks, and clarity. Thanks to the industry-centric, skills-based approach run and offered by Medhavi Skills University, these weren’t just graduates. They were practitioners.
Ananya remembers something a mentor told her during the final semester: “Design isn’t a subject. It’s a language. The world will listen if you’ve learned to speak it well.”
She had learned it—and the world was already beginning to listen.
Backed by Medhavi Skills University
Behind every great design program is a strong academic foundation—and for all four design degrees offered at NIF Pune Kothrud, that foundation is Medhavi Skills University.
Medhavi Skills University runs and offers both the B.Des in Fashion Design and B.Voc in Fashion Design programs and their interior design counterparts. This institution is nationally recognized for its commitment to work-integrated learning and outcome-based education. Rather than confining design education to textbooks and classroom theory, the university framework emphasizes practical exposure, employability, and entrepreneurial thinking.
Through this collaboration, students are not just educated—they are skill-certified, ensuring that their knowledge meets the needs of India’s fast-evolving design and lifestyle industries. The partnership brings regular workshops from industry leaders, live market projects, and opportunities for students to work while studying.
This grounding transforms a design degree from a certificate into a career pathway. Academic integrity is what makes NIF graduates stand out—not just for their creativity but also for their readiness to deliver, lead, and innovate.
Your Turn to Step into the Spotlight
Ananya’s story is inspiring—but it isn’t unique. Every year, students like her walk into NIF Pune Kothrud with raw talent and big dreams and walk out as industry-ready professionals equipped to thrive in fashion and interior design.
Whether you’re drawn to the textures of fabric or the flow of space, whether you see yourself crafting silhouettes or sculpting interiors, your journey can begin right here—in Pune, in a classroom that feels like a studio, among mentors who teach like collaborators, and with a curriculum that never forgets the industry waiting on the other side.
The choice is yours. Choose fashion, interiors, and a future where creativity and career sync.
Most importantly, choose a design education that celebrates and prepares your passion for the real world. Explore programs and apply now at NIF Pune Kothrud.
Your runway is ready. Step into it.
