This September in New York brought a seamless transition from New York Fashion Week to Climate Week, the prelude to UNGA78.
As the fashion sector’s cognizance rises from collective awareness to action, the eclipsing calendars blended creativity and design with climate and social justice-centered convenings, events, and agendas city-wide.
Through these sliding doors were the 2023 collections of the graduate talents from Parsons’ MFA Fashion Design & Society and FIT’s MFA in Fashion Design. The shared mindsets resonated as portraits of work reflective of this generation, and the current time against the backdrop of the future.
The talent presented beacons of hope, urgency, and optimism as they leap into the fashion landscape, perhaps energized by the unknown.
At Parsons, the Brooklyn Museum set the perfect stage for “WE DEM KIDS,” an activation representative of the MFADS’ 12th generation, “who reflect on the beauty of shared experiences, the resilience of heritage, and those unshakable bonds that tie us to the past and propel us into the future.”
There was upcycled puppetry by Anna Roth, sugar-cast accessories and fashion activism by 2022 CFDA Scholar Mel Corchado, and co-created handmade textiles engineered by Chang Lu.
The 15-member cohort theses include venture-ready, viable business model prototypes by working with systems, social innovation, and entrepreneurship.
With School of Fashion (SoF) faculty member Jeff Karly Drouillard’s creative direction and storytelling, Tiffany Webber’s production, and a team of students from across programs at the SoF assisting, “WE DEM KIDS” invited viewers to rethink the times and places where fashion is experienced: an invitation to engage with fashion as visual art and performance.
Presented at Spring Studios, FIT’s UNI/ VERSAL introduced its 2023 graduates “celebrating their limitless creativity, drive, and spirit as they prepared to launch their careers and help define the future of the fashion industry.”
“Together,” according to a collective statement by the FIT MFA cohort, “the designers developed an artist/creative statement in support of their work: ‘We believe that what sets our class apart is the diversity we represent in our various backgrounds, styles, and concepts. Yet despite this breadth, we support each other as a unified body. When naming our collective show, we wanted to find a title that represented this symbiosis of people and passions. We decided that the theme UNI/VERSAL (Uni: derived from the Latin word unus meaning ‘one,’ and Versal: an archaic term for ‘entire’ or ‘whole’) best represents our individuality as well as our cohesiveness. Each of us has a unique creative universe that brings inspiration to all of us. Each collection that you see today is derived from these spaces of self-exploration.”
Mastery of creative technical processes and innovation were threaded throughout the 14 collection which included Morgan Cardwell’s biophilic and typographic textiles, technophile Lilach Porges explorations of sustainable making systems using robotic arms and 3-D Printing methods, and Deborah Won’s futurist explorations of zero-gravity fashion designed for flotation and movement.
“I am so proud of this class’s resilience, determination, and unconventional creativity in their storytelling,” said FIT School of Graduate Studies interim dean Dr. Brooke Carlson.
Last week, we caught up with the creative forces of the two graduate programs that are mentoring fashion’s change champions of the future: Lucia Cuba, Donna Karan Director of the MFA Fashion Design and Society at Parsons and Cathleen Sheehan, Professor Chair of the MFA Fashion Design at FIT.
Cuba shared her insights on the collective identities and creative journey of Generation 12 amalgamated with reflections on her new role leading Parsons MFDADS’ new chapter. With Associate Director Sariah Park, they share a vision for fashion education standing at the intersection of social justice and expanded fashion practices, marking a new approach for the MFA Program centered on the designer’s role, agency, and power to impact society and the planet.
“This is a cohort of designers who have come together to support one another and grow in their community of practice. Their works explore a variety of dimensions related to self, time, and place. Their projects place in conversation fashion and identity, politics, performance, and materiality. Their works are aimed at transitioning; they are exploratory and hopeful,” Cuba said. “As a program, we understand the importance of critically approaching fashion and creative practices- considering our role and impact on people, communities, and the environment. Gen12 designers bring hope and joy to wearable forms and are eager to learn and grow.” “The MFA Fashion Design and Society’s Generation 12th journey is one marked by transitions, both internal, related to the university and the program, and external, related to society, the planet, and, in particular, to a fashion system in constant movement.”
For Sheehan, collaboration, community and unity are hallmarks of the FIT Class of 2023 as is a pragmatic industry ready approach to design practice.
“From their first day on FIT’s campus, these students showed exceptional clarity in their individual identities as designers, as well as their commitment to making a positive impact on the world. From the start, the faculty and I were struck by their collaborative spirit and how they truly supported each other as a creative collective,” Sheehan said. “Together, they nurtured a safe, creative environment that allowed for personal risk-taking, experimentation, and innovation. Throughout their two years in the program, they were guided by a gifted, experienced, and encouraging faculty of creatives and industry professionals that includes threeASFOUR co-founder Gabi Asfour, among others. Having the support and freedom to be themselves really shows up in their work. Each of them created their collections from a deeply personal, and highly individual, point of view.”
We agree, and while we have many ESG challenges to tackle, there is much to be optimistic about as we entrust this new generation whose collective creative capital is among our greatest assets in designing our future.
