A g-local approach is to inform the academic offering of fashion and design school Istituto Marangoni’s first outpost in Saudi Arabia, not unlike its other 10 campuses where education is tailored to the location, student audience and local creative industry.
The educational institution is opening its doors in Riyadh in August, becoming the first international fashion school with a permanent campus in the Kingdom. The first enrolled cohort will include about 55 students.
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“We turn 90 years this year and we have campuses all around the world. Riyadh is the number 11. What we do in each campus is putting together the heritage of the place with the global trends,” said Anna Zinola, school and education director at Istituto Marangoni Riyadh during the 2025 WWD Global Fashion & Beauty Summit.
“Our offer is tailor-made on needs of the students and of the companies as well. We want to fill this gap,” she explained.
The school will offer six, three-year-long, undergraduate specialized programs including Fashion Design and Accessories, Fashion Communication and Image, Fashion Management, Digital Communication and Media, Fashion Product, and Fragrances and Cosmetics Management.
These are validated by Saudi Arabia’s Technical and Vocational Training Corporation and form the core curriculum, developed specifically to address gaps in the region’s fashion workforce while meeting international education benchmarks.
In addition to diploma programs, the school will offer one-year and semester-long upskilling courses for industry professionals, addressing the needs of the current workforce alongside preparing future talent.
Per the school’s approach, each class will include about 15 students to ensure better instruction.
Mindful of younger generations’ frequent career shifts, Zinola said the school’s curriculum is designed to equip students for multiple career changes with both technical and adaptive skills.
“We want to give the right tools to these young, talented, passionate Saudis… in terms of both hard skill and soft skill. It means, for example, all the digital tools like 3D clothing or how to design a collection, but even how to manage the social media content, or how to read a financial plan,” Zinola said. “Fashion is design, is creativity, but you should take care of the financial element in the management of the company. Creativity is super important, but unfortunately, it’s not enough.”
The Istituto Marangoni campus will be located in the new Riyadh Creative District at KAFD, part of a government strategy to build cultural and business sectors that diversify the economy beyond oil revenues.
The school’s commitment to nurture homegrown fashion talent is tied to ensuring high employment rates.
“All around the world the employment rate [of Istituto Marangoni’s graduates] is 91 percent within the first year, and we have even a lot of entrepreneurs. What we want to do here is support both employment and entrepreneurship.” Zinola said.
The final year of Istituto Marangoni Riyadh’s three-year courses will entail industry projects, internships, and active collaboration with companies that are custom-selected for each student — taking into account both parties’ needs and skills — to ensure job market alignment.
Acknowledging an ebullient entrepreneurial spirit among the youth in the Kingdom with a strong female component, too, Zinola said that the school’s ultimate goal is to foster those creative and business seeds.
“I think that we are aligned with Saudi Vision 2030 [the government program for economic, cultural and social diversification] and we want to support young talent here, these very talented young generations of Saudis,” she said. “That’s exactly what I see as a success. My success is the success of this generation as they grow up.”
