About Us

The Australian Institute of Fashion Design Pty Ltd, Trading as: Australian Institute of Creative Design, Australian Institute of Make-Up & Styling, Australian Institute of Interior Design, Australian Institute of Beauty Therapy and Australian Fashion Academy.

• ABN: 99 115 686 014 / ACN: 115 686 014
• RTO National Provider #: 31301
• Cricos Provider #: 02937A

Australian Institute of Creative Design incorporates the Australian Institute of Fashion Design, Australian Institute of Make-up & Styling, Australian Institute of Beauty Therapy and Australian Institute of Interior Design and is a registered training organisation based on the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia. The Australian Institute of Creative Design offers courses in various fields within the fashion design, beauty therapy, makeup, styling and interior design industries.

Professional Associations

The Australian Institute of Creative Design is a member of the following organisations:

The History of AICD

The school was founded by fashion designer's Tracy and Sonya Saywell, a mother and daughter team who have both grown up in the fashion industry.

Tracy has operated a sewing school for over 18 years, and has also run fashion design courses for 8 years, previously under the names - 'Tracy Saywell Sewing Studio' and 'Tracy Saywell Designer Wear', while also running a retail fabric and evening & bridal wear store (making one off couture dresses for clients).

Tracy planned to expand her training to include nationally recognised training in fashion design for many years, but it wasn't until 2005 that she had the opportunity. Tracy and Sonya formed the school under the name - 'Australian Institute of Fashion Design' (AIFD), and became a Registered Training Organisation, delivering the Advanced Diploma of Textiles, Clothing & Footwear (Fashion).

AIFD has since changed from the 'Advanced Diploma of Textiles, Clothing & Footwear (Fashion)' to the latest nationally recognised training package qualification - 'Advanced Diploma of Applied Fashion Design & Technology' released in 2007, being the first training organisation in Queensland to be approved to offer this qualification.

Along with the Advanced Diploma course, AIFD also offered a range of short courses, including the 'Fast Track Fashion Design Course' that has been running for over 8 years now. These short courses included: sewing, pattern making, fashion styling and fashion business & merchandising. AIFD also developed a distance course (the Fashion Design & Styling course) in 2007 to allow all the students who were unable to travel to study fashion, the chance to study.

Having run a number of successful fashion styling short courses, Tracy and Sonya recognised the need for professional level training for fashion stylist hopefuls, that would provide students with the skills to work in a diverse range of areas within the styling and image consulting industry and therefore went through the process of having a nationally accredited Diploma of Fashion Styling approved.

Makeup training is included in many of AICD's fashion styling courses, so give students a competitive edge when applying for styling jobs, as well as expanding their job opportunities. As students completed styling courses with AICD, they were often asking if they could study makeup further with the school, and to accomodate that need, AICD began offering makeup courses.

Realising that the name 'Australian Institute of Fashion Design' no longer covered everything that was offered by the school, it was decided that a new name was needed. As the current name had built such a reputation, it was decided to keep the name, and add a few more names to the business. Australian Institute of Creative Design became the banner name for the college and Australian Institute of Make-Up & Styling was also added.

The progression from makeup to beauty therapy happened naturally and in late 2007, AICD became approved to offer nationally recognised Diploma of Beauty Therapy, and hence added another name to the school - the 'Australian Institute of Beauty Therapy'.

After over a year of development, AICD accredited nationally recognised qualifications in styling including the Diploma of Styling (Fashion, Image and Media) and the Certificate III in Styling (Fashion, Image and Media).

In 2008, AICD also extended it's scope of registration to cover the Advanced Diploma of Fashion & Textiles Merchandising becoming one of the first privately owned registered training organisation to become approved to deliver this qualification.

In 2008 AICD developed a correspondence course in Interior Design, with the plans to offer Diploma and Certificate qualifications when the updated nationally recognised training package was released for interior design.

In 2009 AICD started running short courses in interior design and also became approved to offer the 'Advanced Diploma of Interior Design' as well as the 'Certificate III in Interior Decoration' qualifications.

To view our current training registration details, please visit the National Training Information Service website.