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February 10, 2021 Two students from the Exhibition and Experience Design MA program (EED) partnered with a student from the Fashion Design MFA program to create an interactive website. The project received a $4,000 grant from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. Two years ago, the chair of EED, Christina Lyons, invited students from the MFA program to team up with her students and share their thesis work. EED students then designed concepts for exhibitions to highlight the fashions. One team emerged with a promising idea. For his thesis, MFA student YunRay Chung created a series of performances on the theme of “culture shock” (he is from Taiwan), involving garments that were doused in paint and glue and exchanged between the performers. In response, EED students Tina Columbus and Chang Lee proposed a series of installations around New York at which visitors could bond, based on their shared experience of immigrating to the city. The team, which called itself “by xx,” won a grant for the proposal. When COVID-19 rendered an in-person version of the project impossible, they transformed it into an interactive website. The result, our nyc journeys, launched in October, along with a related Instagram component. Visitors can tag places on a map of New York to contribute a memory. Chung said one participant marked the location of their first apartment, which happens to be the same block where his was. Columbus said her favorite anecdote was contributed by EED Professor Brenda Cowan, who described being in SoHo in the 1980s. Columbus said, “This is what we wanted to do—expose the multiple layers of the city.” More than 120 memories have been collected so far.   The site is still live, and the team hopes to realize an in-person version after the pandemic ends. All three graduated in 2019, and Columbus works as an experiential graphic designer for the firm IA Interior Architects. Lyons says the project proves the potential of interdisciplinary work: “Exhibition and Experience Design is an extremely multidisciplinary field, so we certainly look forward to further project partnerships across FIT.” our nyc journeys was made possible in part with public funds from Creative Engagement, supported by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and administered by Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.     Click here to read the original article 

February 8, 2021     When in-person classes were halted in March 2020, faculty scrambled to reinvent their curricula for remote delivery. They came up with creative solutions, especially challenging for hands-on courses. Here are four of countless examples of courses that shine online. In TY 421: Advanced Hard Toy Design and Engineering, students typically build prototypes of hard toys in FIT’s state-of-the-art lab, but when classes moved online, SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor Judith Ellis and her team substituted 3D printing for lab work. Faculty member Joseph Masibay and James Pearce, manager of the Innovative Technology and Digital Production Group, showed students how to digitally model their toys in SolidWorks. Then, using a new industrial-grade high-resolution 3D printer, Pearce’s team in the FabLab produced and mailed toy parts to the students, allowing them to present a fully functioning toy vehicle by semester’s end. “We’ll never go back to teaching the way we did,” Ellis says.   For Lori Massaro, professor of Fashion Business Management, it was easy to move her courses in Computer-Aided Product Development (FM 341 and 441) online. Most of the technology used in the curriculum is cloud-based, and the lab component became more streamlined when students could share files and receive feedback seamlessly. Importantly, the shift to remote meetings mirrored the same shift by industry, a change that experts predict will linger after the pandemic. In other words, according to Massaro, students need to learn on a virtual platform to be better prepared for the workforce. Collaborating remotely, she says, “I find we get a more personal connection.” Prior to the pandemic, Jean Marc Rejaud, professor of Advertising and Marketing Communications, had been setting up partnerships with institutions to help raise FIT’s profile in the advertising industry. He trained members of the Association of National Advertisers in shopper marketing and taught at ISCOM, a college in France specializing in communications and advertising. When COVID-19 struck, he taught these seminars remotely—and then applied lessons learned to his courses at FIT. Rejaud found that attention spans are shorter on digital platforms, so he broke up his lectures with frequent polls and small-group discussions. This meant he couldn’t cover the material as quickly, but he supplemented class time with videos that students watched in between classes. He also met with students individually, to reduce the distance brought on by remote learning. One benefit of teaching online is that he can easily bring in speakers from around the world. In TS 461: Weft Knit Fabrication and Finishing Techniques, Fashion Design students usually learn how to operate the industrial machines in FIT’s Knitting Lab. Marian Grealish-Forino, adjunct assistant professor of Textile Development and Marketing, and technologists Kathryn Malik and Bernd Wyss worked to replicate that experience for students at home. Through trial and error, they recorded demonstrations on the large, complex Stoll knitting machines; a custom-built box held an iPad above Grealish-Forino while she operated the equipment. They also mailed students yarn kits to teach them to knit and apply trims by hand. To make final garments, the team programmed the Stoll machines according to students’ specifications, then mailed them the pieces to be assembled at home. “They ultimately did finish their garments,” Grealish-Forino says. “We really pulled it off.”     Click here to read the original article 

February 4, 2021 As senior curator of education and public programs at The Museum at FIT (MFIT), Tanya Melendez-Escalante, also a graduate of FIT’s Fashion and Textiles Studies: History, Theory, Museum Practice master’s degree program, connects exhibition curators and fashion designers to create dynamic learning experiences. However, for a recent exhibition at the Museo de Arte de Zapopan (MAZ) in Guadalajara, Mexico, she seized the opportunity to curate a show herself. Newsroom recently sat down with Melendez-Escalante to talk about the experience of curating her new exhibition, Julia y Renata: Moda y Transformación, which tells the story of the Guadalajara-born sisters and fashion designers Julia and Renata Franco through their fashion collections. Newsroom: How did you become involved in curating this exhibition? Melendez-Escalante: I really like installing shows. In my current role at MFIT, I hadn’t done installation in a really long time. I forgot how much I loved it, being able to touch garments, and being hands-on. The similarities between my job at MFIT and my role as curator for the exhibition is that I am always thinking about the audience. How is the public going to receive it? Are we serving all of the audiences and connecting people to the content? I approach the museum’s Fashion Culture series and our symposia through that lens, while thinking about how to attract new audiences. I’m always thinking about the person who is new to the subject matter as well as the scholar. You want to educate, inform, and delight. It’s important to give everyone points of entry, make the content accessible. Giving people interesting bits that spark their curiosity and make them want more. In 2019, I attended a program at MAZ for an exhibition on Rei Kawakubo, of Comme Des Garçons and interviewed Julia and Renata as part of a panel discussion. Afterwards, it was Vivianna Kuri, the MAZ museum director, who thought it would be a great idea to have me curate an exhibition about their label, Julia y Renata. Everyone was on board. MAZ is a contemporary art museum in Zapopan, a small suburb of Guadalajara, which itself is the second largest city in Mexico and is known as a creative hub—home to architects, designers, musicians, painters, and curators. What was it like to bring this exhibition to life?   I like being the bridge between designers and curators; I see that as part of my job. Julia, whose personality is more intuitive, is the draper, and Renata, who is more analytical, is the patternmaker. Their contrasting strengths are reflected in their designs. When they first launched in the ’90s, they were seen as avant-garde because they developed their business on their own terms. From the very beginning they included artists and curators in their shows instead of working with fashion producers. Their commitment to their own vision paid off, and by the 2000s, they were popular among press and fashion fans alike. The exhibition, which opened in November, was organized and designed entirely by women. The exhibition designer, Karla Vasquez, is also a furniture and interior designer, and a fashion collector. How important was it to you to highlight the role of women in Mexico? Organizing the sections of the exhibition allowed me to show the designers’ strong feminist point of view. Julia and Renata are known for their play with silhouettes and shapes, structure and drape. To capture their artistry, which is the root of their work, multiple garments were displayed as flat, like paintings on the walls, instead of entirely on dress forms. I met Julia and Renata when I was facilitating an acquisition for a pink dress to be featured in MFIT’s spring 2019 exhibition, Minimalism/Maximalism. I had been a longtime admirer of their aesthetic, and the relationship blossomed from there. The collaboration across the board was a lucky coincidence. All the women involved shared the same fondness and respect for the designers, and we were all on the same page in terms of execution and outcomes. We have all been lucky to be in leadership roles in our fields, which was instrumental in bringing this exhibition to life. The more women that have the opportunity to be leaders in their profession, the more women can collaborate across all industries. How did the COVID-19 pandemic affect your process? Though the curation process began in 2019, the heavy lifting started at the beginning of 2020 and continued through the pandemic that affected New York City as the epicenter in March. Curating an exhibition in the midst of a pandemic came with many challenges. MAZ is a government-funded institution, and prioritizing COVID-19 needs was a top priority. Garment selection was done through Zoom; garments on loan could only be accepted from local lenders and collectors. In late October, I traveled from New York City to Guadalajara to oversee the final stages of the installation. While I was there, there was a statewide curfew issued to the state of Jalisco, where Guadalajara is located. Working under new, but crucial, constraints meant added pressure to complete the work by Nov. 6, the opening date. The hard work paid off and the press preview was well attended by both the press and government officials, like the mayor of Zapopan, his wife, and the secretary of culture of Jalisco, Mexico. Guided tours were limited due to occupancy rules. Still, despite the newly placed restrictions, the opening was considered a success. Julia y Renata: Moda y Transformación is on view at the Museo de Arte de Zapopan through Feb. 14, 2021 and will remain available online through the museum’s website.   Click here to read the original article 

JANUARY 19, 2021     The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way we buy, the way we dress, even the way we design our homes. Several FIT faculty have weighed in on recent trend reports; here are six highlights, placed by FIT’s Media Relations.     Fuzzy slippers are having a moment. Ellen Lynch, professor, Accessories Design, spoke with The New York Times about the history of the fuzzy slipper. She said faux-fur footwear was popular in earlier decades but in fancy shoes. Only recently have these materials “reinterpreted themselves into a more comfortable, durable, but not work-related kind of shoe.”     Clothing retailer bankruptcies will slow. So said Vincent Quan, associate professor of Fashion Business Management, in a short and pithy interview with KCBS Radio Los Angeles. He pointed out that more than 30 retailers filed for bankruptcy in 2020, which surpassed the previous record held in 2019. “I see 2021 ebbing, because if you would have filed, you would have filed this year.” Another ray of hope: after more than a year of sweatpants and pajamas, Quan expects tailored looks to return by Q4 2021.     Cut-outs are in. Refinery29 examined the trend of artfully cut out areas of garments. Valerie Steele, director of The Museum at FIT, said that cut-outs are “playing with that issue of hiding and revealing.” She added, “Skin implies nakedness and therefore, as Barthes said, eroticism is where the garment gapes, where suddenly you’re showing a flash of skin … If you cover it up and you show a piece of skin then that’s an exciting revelation.”     Post-pandemic, expect a return to pre-pandemic trends. In Fast Company, Dr. Steele discussed how simple white gowns became popular during the French Revolution because women could be attacked for looking like an aristocrat—but these simple gowns had emerged the decade prior. “If these historical examples are useful to us, then we would not expect a completely new fashion once we come out of COVID, but rather an exaggeration of trends that were already in existence before March,” she said.     The comfy-cozy couch makes a comeback. Phyllis Harbinger, a faculty member in Interior Design, spoke with New York magazine about the resurgence of the slipcovered white couch. “These couches are like comfort food for the external body,” she said.     Interior designers are rethinking the environmental cost of marble. It’s not a sustainable choice, Grazyna Pilatowicz, associate professor of Interior Design, told CNA Luxury. “For many years [interior design] was considered a luxury item, and being luxury, it wasn’t considering any kind of responsibility to the public.”

DECEMBER 21, 2020 This past year has been challenging, frightening, and inspiring, sometimes all at the same time. Our most-read articles of the year speak to these unprecedented times, with an uplifting story about alumni working to provide masks to hospitals coming in at number one. On the other hand, despite our community working and studying remotely, much of the year unfolded as usual: students won major awards and scholarships, faculty continued to devote themselves to teaching and research, and alumni found innovative ways to advance their careers. Here’s hoping our school, our city, our state, our country, and our world all reach a sense of normalcy in 2021.     1. FIT Alumni and SUNY Rising to the Call When the pandemic first hit and personal protective equipment was scarce, a pair of alumni started Sew4Lives, a New York–based nonprofit to sew medical-grade PPE for hospitals. They made a significant impact at a pivotal moment in our nation’s history. Image from movie poster for 1963 film Cleopatra starring Elizabeth Taylor     2. Fashion History Timeline Justine De Young, assistant professor of History of Art, created a scholarly web resource that chronicles fashion history from ancient times to the present. Hundreds of students from 42 majors created content that has already been referenced by fashion historians. In a feature on the new Hue website, we examined five diverse entries.     3. Fashionista Names FIT Among the World’s Top Fashion Schools Yet again, FIT earned a spot in this important ranking of global design programs. For more rankings, check out this roundup. Seven images of clothing and accessories on models     4. FIT Kicks Off Design Entrepreneurs 2020     Over the past decade, the FIT Design Entrepreneurs program helped more than 200 companies grow their businesses. In 2020, the program concluded. The kickoff announcement became one of the top stories on Newsroom this year. A retrospective story about the impact of the program didn’t quite make the list—but it provides testimonials from distinguished alumni of the program.     5. FIT Takes Five Spots in Met Museum Competition Fashion Design students excelled in this year’s Costume Institute competition, themed after the blockbuster exhibition About Time: Fashion and Duration. The assignment was to “create one design expressive of fashion as an acutely accurate and especially sensitive timepiece” and “generate temporal associations that conflate the past, present, and future in one ensemble.” deco style drawing of a woman's head with jewelry radiating from it     6. The Evolution of Fashion Through Illustration This spring, FIT’s renowned Special Collections and College Archives brought selections from its Frances Neady Collection of fashion illustrations to the Society of Illustrators for a seminal exhibition. The exhibition has ended, but you can still take in our slide show of sumptuous highlights. Elisabeth Moss and Alexis Bledel in The Handmaid's Tale     7. An FIT Guide to Binge-Watching At the start of the year, no one could have guessed just how much time they’d be spending at home, and in the first months of the pandemic, Americans watched a record amount of TV. Given that numerous alumni are established in costume design, producing, acting, and other essential parts of the TV biz, we listed some of the shows they worked on.     8. Three FIT Students Awarded Gucci Changemaker Scholarships To help increase diversity in the fashion industry, Gucci launched a major scholarship program that provides funding and mentorship to 20 fashion design students of color per year. FIT students won three in the first year.     9. FIT and Yellowbrick Launch Gaming and Esports Online Education Program As part of an expansive effort to create programming for diverse, nontraditional learners, FIT collaborated with online education provider Yellowbrick to debut a gaming and esports certificate.     10. How Will the Pandemic Change the Fashion Business? This story from the new Hue website brought in faculty and alumni experts to address the big question on everyone’s minds since COVID-19 triggered a global shutdown. Will the fashion industry survive? Editors’ Choice: Girl Scouts Enlists FIT Fashion Design Students for Uniform Redesign and New Apparel Collection The Girl Scouts uniform was in need of an update. FIT’s DTech Lab partnered with the Girl Scouts of the USA and brought together FIT students to design looks that would appeal to today’s kids. The makeover made national news.

August 25, 2020     Internships, a signature component of the FIT experience, are still going strong during the pandemic—albeit remotely. According to a recent survey, 93 percent of FIT’s summer interns reported that they achieved their learning objectives, and 83 percent would recommend their internships to other students.     “There’s a myth out there that everything has shut down,” says Tardis Johnson, associate dean for Student Academic Support. “Everything hasn’t shut down—it’s migrated remotely.”     When the pandemic put the city on lockdown, the tools for remote learning were already in place, though not at this scale, says Frantz Alcindor, director of Career and Internship Services. In moving internships online, he has educated employers on which tasks, like social media outreach and writing, can be done online.     To those struggling to find internships or jobs right now, Marjorie Silverman, chair of Internship Studies—a department that offers courses that help prepare students for their internships—says to keep learning. “Employers are going to know what it meant to be a student in 2020,” she says. “How do you use this time to develop your skill set, whether it’s learning a foreign language or serving your community? How do you use this time to show that you are relevant to industry?”     We spoke with four students about how their summer internships played out.     Hoover Yu Hau Chung, Menswear ’20 “I am a pro-online learning person,” says Hoover, who had a career in advertising before coming to FIT. He finds he can focus better in video meetings, and if he doesn’t understand a term—he grew up in Hong Kong and his first language is Cantonese—he can unobtrusively look it up.     His summer internship, which took place after he completed the coursework for his degree, was with an avant-garde, gender-fluid label called Linder. Previous internships at Derek Lam and Eckhaus Latta were more structured; for Linder, Hoover helped the two owner/designers complete their spring 2021 collection, which involved lots of sample-making on his home sewing machine.     He missed the in-person interactions with more experienced artisans that might have improved his own skills, but he learned what he’d hoped to: “How artistic brands create their DNA and come up with their clothing—that is something that cannot be taught.”     As a graduate, he is still looking to build skills, to give him an edge in the job market during this historic recession. He plans to study 3D design and intern in performance wear, and will look for a full-time position next year.     “It’s going to be a long haul,” he says. “I just have to be a renaissance man right now.”     Apoorva Grover, Advertising and Marketing Communications ’21 Apoorva, a student from Nigeria, had a seven-week marketing internship with Carol Hannah, a luxury bridal company. Each morning, her supervisor would lay out the day’s tasks in a Google Doc, and they would talk them through on the phone or a video call. She carried out market research on the brand’s competitors, bolstered traffic to the website using search engine optimization (SEO), drafted blog posts, and ran social media analytics.     Toward the end of her internship, restrictions in New York City relaxed, and she was allowed to work in the store. She finally met her supervisor and Carol Hannah in person, and she worked on an in-house photo shoot and mailed out sample gowns for brides to try on.     She says that working remotely could have been demotivating, but she had a great relationship with her supervisor and felt that her work mattered (she was the company’s only intern).     “Knowing that sitting behind my laptop and making a few tweaks is making a huge difference for Carol Hannah was a really good feeling,” she says.     Jay Son, Fashion Business Management ’21 When Jay’s prestigious summer internship with Ralph Lauren was canceled, he scrambled and found one at La Perla, an Italian luxury intimates brand. He couldn’t be happier with how it turned out.     Monday mornings, his supervisor, a merchandising manager, gives him a project for the week, and Monday afternoons, he attends a corporate videoconference to hear about the state of the brand. His work mirrors what he studied at FIT: organizing data to make a report of each week’s sales trends, creating line sheets to help sell the products to each store, and assisting with buying and replenishment programs.     “I’m really excited, because this is exactly what I wanted to learn,” he says.     Jay also enjoys the work-at-home lifestyle. He doesn’t have to wake up early, he saves money on lunch, and he records every conference with his boss so that he doesn’t have to keep following up. He does miss face-to-face interaction, though: “That is not something you can achieve from a video chat.”     He plans on continuing the internship through the fall semester, and he looks forward to the going into the office.     “Before I started, I was worried—I thought it would be ridiculous to work remotely,” he says. “But surprisingly it has been going really smoothly.”      Kia Ward, Textile/Surface Design ’21 Kia interned with Fashion Fights Cancer, a nonprofit that offers fashion- and design-related activities to those who have been affected by cancer.     “My aunt passed about five years ago from ovarian cancer,” Kia says. “When I saw the opportunity, I knew I had to give something back.”     Every morning, she logged into the organization’s project-management system to see her assignments, which included asking established designers to donate clothes or their time. Some designers taught classes to cancer survivors; others appeared in photos to promote the charity.     Adjusting to remote work was not easy, and Kia wished she had gotten to meet her team in person and see the facilities. With two weeks left in the internship, she hit upon a project she became passionate about: working behind the scenes on the Fashion Fights Cancer’s Therapy Podcast, which featured FIT alumnus Byron Lars, Jason Wu, and other designers talking about current issues, such as the impact of COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter movement. One episode was a conversation about natural hair in the Black community. She loved working on the podcast so much that she extended her internship.     Kia is nervous about the job market; she sees companies laying off their workforce and hopes the industry will rebound by the time she graduates. Ultimately she wants to open a boutique where she can sell African-inspired prints that she designs.     “I’m praying and hoping that there will be opportunities for me,” she says.     Click here to read the original article