Hue Spring 2015

The Magazine of the Fashion Institute of Technology

volume 8 | number 3 | summer 2015

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TRENDING NOW AT HUE.FITNYC.EDU >> Sartorial advice for men with “dad bods,” the term for a soft, slightly paunchy physique, which recently blew up on social media

The Magazine of the Fashion Institute of Technology Hue is for alumni and friends of FIT, a college of art and design, business and technology. It is published three times a year by the Division of Communications and External Relations, 227 West 27 Street, Room B905, New York, NY 10001-5992, 212 217.4700.

Vice President for Communications and External Relations Loretta Lawrence Keane Assistant Vice President for Communications Carol Leven Editor Linda Angrilli Managing Editor Alex Joseph, MA ’13 Staff Writer Jonathan Vatner Editorial Assistant Laura Hatmaker Art Direction and Design Empire Design Studio Email: hue@fitnyc.edu Get involved with FIT and your fellow alumni. Like the FIT Alumni page on Facebook and follow @FITAlumni

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Loreal Prystaj’s awesomely

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Renowned interior designer

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Renderings of FIT’s exciting

creepy stop-motion film of dolls

Tony Chi ’79 talks about his

new building, expected to open

in couture

process in a series of videos

in the 2019-20 academic year

on Twitter. Email the Office of Alumni Relations at alumnirelations@fitnyc.edu and let us know what you’ve been up to.

OUT OF THE PAST

When we chose yearbook photos from the past 70 years to fill Hue’s spring 2015 cover, we hoped our readers might recognize one or two. So we were pleased to hear from the

Printed by A.J. Bart on Mohawk Inxwell

son of Charles Weitz, Photography ’82.

Super Smooth Eco White

FSC-certified, 100% post consumer waste

touched a lot of people,” his son, also named Charles Weitz,

reclaimed/recycled fiber, made with 100%

said. “He was an amazing guy.”

renewable energy; manufactured chlorine

“My dad was really passionate about what he did, and he

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taking head shots and wedding portraits, working at a photo-

Please recycle or share this magazine.

Weitz said his father lived and breathed photography,

graphy store in Johnstown, NY, and spending untold hours in the darkroom. He died in 1999. His son remembers being surprised at how many FIT buddies came to the funeral, and still keeps in touch with some of them. “I was very excited to find out that he made the cover,” Weitz said.” Sixteen years went by and then—boom—this popped up.”

MIKI GOLOD, ILLUSTRATION MFA ’14

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On the cover: A spectacular collaboration of tiny proportions!

For the cover story, Loreal Prystaj, Photography ’13 (left), shot the ultra-glamorous doll couture of Osvaldo Vazquez, Fashion Design, in lush, haunting tableaux. See page 14.

Features 7 THE ROAD AHEAD Time to toss your blue mortarboard!

Highlights from commencement 2015

8 BUILDING FOR FIT’S FUTURE Something big is coming to 28th Street

12 SMART OUTFIT Students make dressing easy and stylish for disabled veterans

14 SMALL WORLD A weirdly wonderful doll fashion extravaganza

Departments 18 SHOW AND TELL The hottest looks from FIT’s fashion show—and the students who designed them

20 THE SOUL OF A SPACE Alumnus Tony Chi’s hotel designs offer evocative experiences

24 MADE IN NEW YORK Who says the Garment District is finished? Not these two alums

4 HUE’S NEWS 6

HUE’S WHO

10 I CONTACT: FACULTY 11 I CONTACT: STUDENT 28 ALUMNI NOTES 31 WHAT INSPIRES YOU?

26 GLOVE STORY You won’t believe how much effort went into this movie prop

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hue’s news

Stores Are Dead!

Long Live Stores!

Whether you call it merchantainment, shoppertainment, or just plain fun, successful brick-andmortar stores offer interactive experiences that immerse customers in their brand. That’s because, although more people buy with their phone than ever, physical stores are proving to be an essential component of omnichannel retailing. This was just one of the insights from FIT’s Second Annual Symposium on Omni Retailing, a key industry conference that peers into the future of retail.

At Ralph Lauren, for example, stores are decorated like luxury homes, street-facing windows can be used like a massive touchscreen, and exclusive Ralph Lauren–themed restaurants in Paris, Chicago, and New York have diners lining up to live the brand.

“We’re investing in an experience. We’re investing in something that makes you feel that you want to be part of that world,” said the conference’s keynote speaker David Lauren, executive vice president of global advertising, marketing, and corporate communications for Ralph Lauren Corporation. “And if it speaks to you and is exciting, if it’s like walking into a movie, then it’s going to have an impact on you.”

Each year, a team of Fashion Merchandising Management students is chosen to present an omnichannel case study at the conference. This year, the students offered creative ways to enliven the in-store experience at Urban Outfitters, such as an Instagram photo printer, a vending machine for bike accessories, yoga demonstrations, flea markets with local designers, and the ability to post photos when trying on clothes to get feedback from a community of Urban Outfitters shoppers.

Ensemble by Walter Van Beirendonck, summer 2006, Antwerp, Belgium.

MFIT

President Joyce F. Brown with David Lauren.

Paris, New York, Milan, London: the fashion capitals of the world, right? Maybe not for much longer. The hierarchy is beginning to explode, as fashion weeks sprout up from São Paulo to Kiev. Global Fashion Capitals, on view at The Museum at FIT through November 14, presents 70 garments and accessories created by designers around the world. The exhibition was organized by Ariele Elia, Fashion and Textile Studies: History, Theory, Museum Practice ’11, assistant curator of costume and textiles, and Elizabeth Way, curatorial assistant.

PHOTOGRAPHY MEETS ACTIVISM Renowned conservation photographer and videographer Jon Bowermaster has traveled to the most remote places on earth, documenting melting icebergs in Antarctica and polluted waterways in the Aleutian Islands. At FIT’s Ninth Annual Sustainable Business and Design Conference, Our Land: Local Action, Global Impact, he showed some of his most gripping images, many of which have captivated readers of National Geographic.

He said he has evolved into a proud environmental activist. His 2012 documentary, Dear Governor Cuomo: New Yorkers Against Fracking in One Voice, helped get a fracking ban enacted in the state. Dear President Obama, out later this year, pushes for a national ban. A Danger on Rails, his recent short documentary on The New York Times website, brought to light the risks of shipping highly explosive Bakken crude oil along the Hudson River.

Bowermaster’s presentation was a highlight in a conference that brought together sustainability thought leaders including Nancy Kohn, director of GreenThumb New York, the largest community gardening program in the nation, and Jennifer Grossman, president and founder of FarmCo New York, an organization that works to reduce the distance between farm and fork. A panel of architects and FIT representatives discussed a range of eco-friendly spaces on campus, including the new screening room and boardroom, built with nontoxic, sustainably sourced materials.

Lorenzo Ciniglio

Lorenzo Ciniglio

FAR-REACHING FASHIONS

“We continue to be a rapacious species,” Bowermaster said at the Ninth Annual Sustainable Business and Design Conference.

QUICK READ In its fourth year, Design Entrepreneurs NYC, the “mini-MBA” summer intensive for emerging designers, upped the stakes: The student who presents the most compelling business plan at the end of the program, on October 1, wins $100,000; second prize is $50,000.

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In response to a call from Mayor Bill de Blasio challenging colleges to reduce carbon emissions by 50 percent by 2025, FIT is investing in seven major projects, including a heating/air conditioning improvement that will reduce emissions by 1,500 metric tons per year.

During World Trade Week NYC, part of a nationwide celebration of import and export in May, the Department of International Trade and Marketing for the Fashion Industries was honored with the U.S. Department of Commerce Export Certificate of Appreciation.

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hue’s news

»Footprint

THE CUTTING EDGE OF ECO-FASHION

This lifelike painting Fragile by Michele Floria, Illustration ’15, won the Will Barnet First Prize, selected from undergraduate works from nine colleges in the National Arts Club’s annual student exhibition.

Floria received $2,500 and a solo show at the club’s headquarters on Gramercy Park.

Designing Sustainable, “Fashion-Ready” Textiles For the second year in a row, Kornit Digital sponsored a design challenge for fourth-year Textile/Surface Design students, judged by top industry designers, including Tom Cody, principal of Tom Cody Design; Joe Castaldo, Textile and Apparel Marketing ’73, president of the Style Council; and other FIT alumni.

Hyuna Kim ’15 won first prize of $3,000, Konchok Bercholz ’15 took second place and $2,000, and the $1,000 third prize went to Elena Kanagy-Loux ’15. Visit hue.fitnyc.edu to see their designs turned into garments.

Cody called Kim’s design “fashion-ready,” adding, “I could put it in my collection and it would sell right away.”

Lorenzo Ciniglio

From Eileen Fisher’s vision of fully sustainable operations to innovations in denim production at Levi Strauss, the second annual Summer Institute on Sustainability and Textiles, themed around Reinvention and Innovation, looked at the next big leaps in sustainable fashion. The interdisciplinary program, attended by 48 educators, entrepreneurs, and heads of corporate social responsibility, packed in lectures, discussions, site visits, and hands-on workshops, including a session in which participants redesigned existing products using the ten sustainable measures posited by TED (Textiles Environment Design), a London-based think tank.

Student Wins National Arts Club Prize

Hyuna Kim’s award-winning dimensional floral pattern employs on-trend colors.

Students printed with iron oxide (i.e., rust), a nontoxic way to dye garments and tote bags in Assistant Professor of Textile/Surface Design Susanne Goetz’s workshop.

Cuomo and Pelosi, at FIT, Promote Bill to Fight Sexual Violence on Campuses On May 11, FIT hosted a news conference with New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to promote the governor’s Enough Is Enough legislation, which requires all colleges in the state, both public and private, to adopt strict policies regarding sexual assault and to treat it as a criminal justice matter. (The bill became law in July.)

Cuomo called sexual assault a symptom of the pervasive discrimination against women throughout society. “[It] is not a campus disciplinary issue. It is a crime, and it has to be treated that way,” he said. Pelosi praised the bill as “a model for the country,” and President Joyce F. Brown pledged FIT’s support. “Enough really is enough,” Brown said.

The Accessories Council honored FIT’s Accessories Design and Jewelry Design programs with its annual Hall of Fame Award, which Dr. Joyce F. Brown accepted at an event on April 20.

In Living Color These striking portraits of people with albinism of different ages and ethnicities by Angelina D’Auguste, Photography ’15, were among the works in a wide range of media displayed in the annual School of Art and Design Graduating Student Exhibition in May. “These photographs are documentary but also highly staged,” D’Auguste said.

“I wanted to show their distinct features in a beautiful way.” See more at hue.fitnyc.edu.

WWD ran a front-page article on FIT in its Digital Daily, featuring an in-depth interview with President Joyce F. Brown, who discussed FIT’s strategic plan and its goals as the college looks toward its 75th anniversary in 2020.

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FIT has been a smoke-free campus for years, but this spring, as part of a SUNY-wide commitment to health, the college became tobacco-free, meaning no tobacco products of any kind can be used.

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hue’s who

VIPs at FIT events this academic year

FIT Gala Honors Goodman and Saks

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4 Couture Council Luncheon honoring Carolina Herrera: 1. Lucy Liu, Carolina Herrera.

2. Renee Zellweger, Seth Meyers, Alexi Ashe. 3. Ivanka Trump.

4. Star Jones. 5. Martha Stewart, Susan Magrino. 6. Gabriela Neri, Yaz Hernández*, André Leon Talley.

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1 The Future of Fashion 2015 runway show: 1. Nicky Hilton, Francisco Costa*, Nicole Richie.

2. The Blonds.

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ith more than $1.3 million raised and more than 600 people in attendance, FIT and the FIT Foundation honored Saks Fifth Avenue and FIT Trustee Edwin A. Goodman at the college’s annual gala, held on June 15, at Cipriani 42nd Street in New York. Actor Debi Mazar hosted the event.

The funds will benefit the FIT Educational Development Fund, which helps FIT cultivate the next generation of creative leaders through enhancing programs, developing new initiatives, and providing scholarship funds to the college’s most promising students.

Fern Mallis, creator of New York Fashion Week, presented Saks Fifth Avenue’s award to company president Marc J. Metrick.

“It is with great thanks and a very worn-out Saks card that I present this award to Marc Metrick,” she said.

When Peter G. Scotese, chairman emeritus of the FIT Board of Trustees, introduced Goodman, he noted that “the best decision I ever made as chairman of the board was asking Ed Goodman to replace me.”

Goodman, whose family business was Bergdorf Goodman, said he was taught many things by his family, including the obligation to give back, which he has always taken seriously.

He praised FIT’s effectiveness in educating tomorrow’s leaders.

“Since I’ve been on the board at FIT, it’s granted more than 60,000 degrees, and 85 percent of these kids find employment within the first 12 months,” he said. —Alexandra Mann Left: Elizabeth T. Peek, chair of the FIT Board of Trustees; Dennis Basso ’73; President Joyce F. Brown; and Yaz Hernández, FIT Trustee. Below, left to right: Mazar; Goodman and Scotese; Mallis and Metrick.

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1 Yves Saint Laurent + Halston: Fashioning the 70s opening: 1. Eleanora Kennedy, Valerie Steele, Anna Safir. 2. Ralph Rucci*. 3. Carson Kressley. 4. Yeohlee Teng, Patricia Mears.

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1 Dance and Fashion opening: 1. Bill Cunningham. 2. Team Vicious step dancers.

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Speakers on campus: 1. President Brown, Tim Gunn. 2. Dr. Brown, Kimora Lee Simmons. 3. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. 4. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Governor Andrew Cuomo, Dr. Brown. 5. Andy Cohen and his dog Wacha. 6. Milton Glaser. 7. Author Heidi Julavits. 8. Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney, Dr. Brown.

*FIT alumna/us

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commencement

The Road Ahead At commencement 2015, inspiring advice for life’s unpredictable journey

On May 21, Javits Center North was packed with joyful graduates and their families, celebrating the rite of passage of commencement.

This year, 4,170 students earned an AAS, BFA, BS, MA, MFA, or MPS degree from among the 48 academic programs offered at FIT. Bedecked in royal blue caps and gowns, the graduates were called to the stage individually to shake President Joyce F. Brown’s hand and receive congratulations on their achievement.

This year’s ceremony, FIT’s 70th, was an important milestone for the college, which has grown by leaps and bounds since its founding in 1944. But, as Governor Andrew Cuomo wrote in a greeting to FIT’s graduates—read by Dr. Giacomo Oliva, vice president for Academic Affairs—commencement is a day for looking to the future, not the past: “More than a triumphant conclusion, today is an exciting beginning.”

The day’s speakers celebrated the unique creativity, diligence, and professionalism of FIT students and urged them to stay true to their passions amid a future of difficulty and distraction. Actor, author, and entrepreneur Brooke Shields, who delivered the morning PHOTOS: FLAVIU NASARIMBA ’14, SMILJANA PEROS, JERRY SPEIER

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Top: Shields; Dr. Brown; architect and honorary degree recipient Daniel Libeskind; television personality Randy Fenoli ’93, honored with the President’s Award for Creative Excellence; and Elizabeth T. Peek, chair of the FIT Board of Trustees.

address to the schools of Art and Design and Graduate Studies, described not only peak moments of her acting and modeling career (of her famous Calvin Klein Jeans advertisements, she said, “We knew we were doing something important”) but also the droughts.

But by working hard when she wasn’t in demand, she wrote several bestselling books and helped create her own successful MAC Cosmetics line.

“Success comes in a myriad of packages,” she said. “Don’t ever be fooled that it does not always entail continuous hard work and tireless tenacity.”

Saks Fifth Avenue President Marc J. Metrick, who addressed the Jay and Patty Baker School of Business and Technology and the School of Liberal Arts at the afternoon ceremony, encouraged the graduates to speak their opinions confidently and admitted that he was envious of them for entering the industry during a “seismic shift” in the way customers shop.

“We, the leaders of this industry, don’t have all the answers and certainly can’t predict the future,” he said. “We need you, the next generation of leaders, to help figure it out.”

Above: Metrick; Joy Herfel Cronin ’86, group president of the Americas, Ralph Lauren Corporation, honored with the President’s Award for Creative Excellence; and Peter G. Scotese, chairman emeritus of the FIT Board of Trustees, honored with the President’s Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Left: Scotese received a standing ovation for his decades of generosity and devotion to the college. “Many CEOs give to causes,” President Brown said in a touching tribute.

“Pete Scotese gives his heart and himself.”

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Building for FIT’s Futu Ten stories of state-of-the-art academic space will strengthen FIT’s role as an education leader and a partner to the creative industries in New York City.

The photovoltaic façade will distribute light throughout the building while collecting solar energy for heating and cooling systems.

The transparent exterior opens the life of the college to the community.

The dramatic design will add an exciting architectural element to the neighborhood.

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uture The LEED-certified building includes a green roof.

FIT is set to construct a ten-story, Features include advanced technology and

state-of-the-art academic building, expected to open in 2019-20. Mayor

gathering spaces for students, faculty, and

Bill de Blasio’s executive budget, announced in May, allocated $74 million

industry to meet and collaborate.

for the project, matching a 2009 allocation from the State of New York. The first new academic facility on campus in four decades, the structure will be built within the footprint of the existing campus, opening onto West 28th Street. It will provide nearly 100,000 square feet of space for classrooms, studios, and student services. With funding now in place, one year will be spent refining the design, and construction will take about three years.

FIT’s student population has doubled over 30 years, but academic space

has increased by only 3.68 percent, creating a severe shortage that has limited the college’s growth. FIT needs not only more space, but more modern space, since its specialized fields require advanced technology and areas for students, faculty, and industry to collaborate. The building will address these needs, strengthening FIT’s role as an education leader and a partner to the creative industries in New York City.

Designed by the award-winning New York firm SHoP Architects in a

competition sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts, the dramatic structure will add an exciting element to the neighborhood and bring life to what has been a nondescript block. The innovative design incorporates environmentally friendly technology, reflecting FIT’s commitment to sustainability. The LEED-certified building includes a green roof and a photovoltaic façade that distributes light throughout the space while collecting solar energy for heating and cooling systems. The transparent exterior opens the life of the college to the neighborhood, conveying a welcoming presence and allowing a dynamic interchange between the campus and the surrounding community. —Linda Angrilli

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i contact: faculty

Matthew Septimus

CSI: FIT

Pearson is holding a Hoberman sphere, a structure that retains its shape as it expands or shrinks. It helps students understand the flexible nature of chemical bonds and the repeating, symmetrical patterns in crystal structures.

In Professor Karen Pearson’s classes, students learn chemistry through forensics What can FIT students learn from a crime scene?

According to Karen Pearson, professor and assistant chair of Science and Mathematics, the field of forensics is a compelling way to introduce students to the science they’ll need for technical roles in the creative industries.

In Crime Scene Chemistry and The Forensics of Fiber Analysis, students work together to solve problems relevant to forensics, such as how a DNA test works, how blood spatters, how to analyze color scientifically, and how to determine the lethal dose of a toxin. Along the way, they learn the scientific method: making observations, thinking critically, designing a useful experiment, and reporting their findings. They finish the class feeling empowered to learn about the chemistry and physics behind the products they create in their majors, whether it’s performance athletic gear, digital photographs, eco-friendly packaging, or age-defying face cream.

“The magic happens when the students realize there’s a connection between these fundamental chemistry concepts and their real lives,” she says.

She calls this real-world approach to science “everyday engineering”—and it’s part of the reason she’s won awards for excellence in teaching from both President Joyce F. Brown and SUNY Chancellor Nancy Zimpher. With support from a grant from the National Science Foundation, she worked with Elaine Maldonado, director of FIT’s Center for Excellence in Teaching, to train faculty in teaching these curricula. Her goal is to prepare the college’s mostly female, and often science-averse, student population for STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) careers. Despite the glamorous sheen of the fashion industry, much of the work requires a science background.

“Many of these women are planning to go into technical fields,” Pearson says. “I want to empower them to contribute.” —Jonathan Vatner

Two examples of mock crimes that students might investigate:

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ANITA RUNDLES, ILLUSTRATION ‘13

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i contact: student

Trending Now Alison Rebozo Fashion Merchandising Management ’15

You were one of four team members from FIT’s Baker School of Business and Technology who won the prestigious Retail Futures Challenge, at the World Retail Congress in Paris. What was the challenge?

We had to conceptualize the store of the future for our client, Samsung.

Our design had an open floor plan with furnished rooms, like Ikea, and tablets everywhere so you could see the products in different colors. A 3D hologram avatar, “Sammy,” the face of the brand, would guide customers through the store.

Wait, could that really happen?

We met with Microsoft. The technology is out there; it just has to be implemented.

What was the six-month research process for your presentation like?

A lot of research went into location. Samsung’s main focus was how to get customers into brick-and-mortar stores. We decided, based on their demographic—young, recently married, tech-savvy—to put the store in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where the millennials are. I was the one who focused on the financials, so I came up with the P&L [profit and loss] statement.

Why did FIT win?

A lot of the other teams were so focused on design. But the people who attend this convention are executives; they want to know how to make money. We had research and data to back up all our ideas.

After graduation, you’re starting in Macy’s executive development program, in their Merchandising Department. You chose to focus on buying over planning. Why? Planning is more about numbers and analytics, but buying is more productoriented and creative. You’re choosing which assortments go on the floor based on data from the past, but it’s also where you see trends going in the future. The hardest part is getting into the mindset of your consumer. You might be buying shirts for the 65-year-old male market. It’s really not about your own taste.

I understand you’re into powerlifting. How is that different from regular bodybuilding?

Bodybuilding focuses on physical aesthetics—getting “ripped,” sometimes for competitions. Powerlifting is more about strength. I’m way into the fitness community. I’ve done kickboxing, all of it. But I mostly lift weights now. I’m kind of like a guy when it comes to that.

MATTHEW SEPTIMUS

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SMART Outfit Technical Design students engineer garments for veterans with disabilities

BY CLAUDIE BENJAMIN AND ALEX JOSEPH

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hen asked, “How do you put on pants?” Air Force veteran Judy McCombs answered with a laugh. “In bed with a lot of wiggling. It’s like putting on skinny jeans.” Erika MoralesHernandez, Technical Design ’15, listened carefully and took

notes. McCombs, a patient at the Veterans Affairs St. Albans Community Living Center, has multiple medical problems and has been wheelchairbound for three years.

In the spring, Morales-Hernandez and four other graduating Technical Design students worked together to engineer clothing that is comfortable, stylish, and easy to put on for veterans who use a wheelchair or prosthesis.

Nastaran Rivera ’15 worked with Army veteran Pamela Winfield, who lost her left hand while saving an elderly woman in her neighborhood from a man wielding a sword. Rivera found her consultations with Winfield invaluable: “We take the fastening of closures such as zippers and buttons for granted, but amputees have to overcome such challenges every day.” At the VA center, students met with an occupational therapist and prosthetic technologists, to discuss which fabrics are least likely to snag on prosthetics made of thermoplastics, acrylic resins, and often metal.

Over the semester, students developed many design strategies. They substituted magnets or Velcro for buttons; incorporated special pleating so a skirt can expand to be put on easily but then contract and look good; and created a tailored jacket with an open sleeve that could be clipped and snapped together, an adjustable fly for a man, and pant hems that could be adjusted with magnetic closures.

The project originated in the Technical Design capstone course, taught

by Assistant Professor Luz Pascal, who says the assignment was “to engineer garments that will improve someone’s life.” (Other students in the course chose to work with Parkinson’s patients.) Department Chair Deborah Beard said the garments are more than simply one-off designs: “The students put everything they’ve learned in four years into this project. These items are ready for production and ready for wear.”

Morales-Hernandez eventually partnered with Air Force veteran Anna Smith, who uses a wheelchair. It took four separate fittings, first with muslins, before the cape, pants, jacket, and top fit right, Morales-Hernandez said.

“I had designed the cape to be shorter in back to avoid bunching in the back of the wheelchair, but now I understand it has to be shorter in front as well to ensure freedom of movement.”

The veterans came to the capstone presentation and modeled the clothes.

Smith said she was delighted with the whole outfit. Regular pants tend to cut in at the waist and ride up, but Morales-Hernandez’s design didn’t, she said. The inside seams were covered with fabric so they didn’t rub against her skin, causing blisters. “There’s even a pocket for my iPhone 6 Plus!” she said. If these designs ever become an actual line, Smith is ready with a name: Options. “It should be available for all people with disabilities,” she said.

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ERICA LANSNER

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From left: Morales-Hernandez, Smith, Rivera, and Rivera’s fit model, Sam Poulis. Smith’s jacket, designed by Morales-Hernandez in polyester with netting for a sporty, urban look, is made to fit over a back brace. Poulis wears the outfit Rivera designed for Pamela Winfield, who could not attend the photo shoot. The leather sleeves attach to the cotton/spandex bodice with magnets, and the neoprene pants incorporate a zipper in the inseam to ease dressing.

“Fashion can make a huge difference in your demeanor, self-esteem, and even personality,” Rivera says. “The vets were a great inspiration. I was honored to work with Pamela on this project.”

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OSVALDO VAZQUEZ, FASHION DESIGN, IS A DESIGN STAR IN THE DOLL REALM

WORLD SMALL

By Jonathan Vatner

These are not Barbies. They’re 12-inch jointed models called Fashion Royalty, created as the ultimate clotheshorses by designer Jason Wu when he was a teenager. They cost about $100 unadorned and are prized by a subculture of passionate collectors. Their fabulous gowns were created by Osvaldo Vazquez, Fashion Design, who has specialized in diminutive couture since the ’90s.

To celebrate this pint-size corner of the fashion industry, Hue arranged a collaboration between Vazquez and visual artist Loreal Prystaj, Photography ’13, who enveloped the ultra-glam dolls in lush, dreamlike environments drawn from her brilliant, twisted mind.

Vazquez takes his inspiration from the theatricality of Bob Mackie and the boundless imagination of Alexander McQueen. He uses high-end fabrics, making sure sequins, feathers, and any other embellishments are tiny enough to look proportional on a doll.

“I would never create something that looks like a doll dress,” Vazquez insists. “For any of my designs, a person could wear that design.”

He’s also a plastic surgeon, as it were, molding each doll to match the outfit. He boils the head until it softens enough to sew in synthetic hair extensions. He wipes off the painted lips and eyes with a solvent and creates them anew with brushes and colored pencils. He also fabricates his own hats and handbags and deconstructs human-size jewelry to make on-trend earrings.

Although most of his gowns are original designs, in 2002 he recreated every one of Bob Mackie’s costumes for Cher’s first farewell tour as doll clothes. Not only did the glamorous replicas ignite bidding wars on eBay, but the singer’s team gave him a front-row seat at her concert and invited him backstage to meet her and see her costumes in person.

“She was very excited,” he recalls, “and I was more excited than she was.”

He also sells his made-over dolls, complete with one-of-a-kind gowns (OOAK, in industry parlance) and accessories, for $300 to $400 apiece at a four-day annual convention produced

by Integrity Toys, the maker of Fashion Royalty and other high-end doll lines. Hundreds of collectors gather each year to catch the latest looks, study doll enhancement and styling, and, of course, buy limited-edition lines and OOAK gowns like those created by Vazquez. In the market for a pair of microscopic pumps, screw-in gloved hands, or a book the size of a postage stamp? Some vendors at the show specialize in accessories, makeup, or dioramas.

Many collectors are fiercely loyal to one type of doll: 12-inch, 16-inch, ball-jointed resin, antique, porcelain, and of course, Barbie—and the adherents of one type often won’t associate with those who collect another. Some collectors buy hundreds of dolls and never remove the packaging; others “debox” them and actually play with them.

The conventions build Vazquez’s client base, but by now, his work is mostly snatched up by loyalists before it debuts on his website. His top customer, a doctor in Ohio, buys 15 to 20 every year. In fact, she bought all the looks created for this feature.

Vazquez has designed dresses on a human scale, too, but he prefers the miniature world.

“It’s easy to work with dolls,” he declares.

“They don’t complain.”

Discover more of Vazquez’s work at ovazdesigns.com.

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THROUGH A LENS DARKLY

“It’s easy to work with dolls. They don’t complain.”

—Osvaldo Vazquez

LOREAL PRYSTAJ’S PHOTOGRAPHY, like her personality, is exuberant, playful, surprising, and often devilishly dark. Her work has been exhibited in California, Vermont, and New York, and is in the permanent collection of the Erie Art Museum in Pennsylvania. In February, her first solo show took place at Gallery Sensei on New York’s Lower East Side, and Adrian Grenier, star of HBO’s Entourage, bought one of her pieces.

Considering that Prystaj understands the personality of dolls so well, it may come as a surprise that she didn’t play with them as a child. That changed at FIT. Trying to keep busy while laid up with a broken leg in 2012, she entered a contest sponsored by Mattel to photograph Barbies. She won first prize, and it opened up a new vein of possibility in her work.

She imagined Vazquez’s dolls as “almighty queens of the jungle,” and surrounded them with doll parts, dead flowers, moss, copper toys, clock gears, vintage photo albums, and whatever else she dug out of her “prop shop,” as she calls her bedroom. “I’m a hoarder in the making,” she admits. A daylight spotlight illuminated her subjects, and lots of hidden lights added warmth in dark corners. She used very little Photoshop.

As she worked, the dolls took on a life of their own. “They definitely have some attitude, dare I say! They usually like to cooperate, but some of them have their own schedule going on.”

Check out Prystaj’s riveting stop-motion video of the dolls at hue.fitnyc.edu.

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LISANEYLA ALMONTE

SHOW AND TELL

SPECIALIZATION: Special Occasion HOMETOWN: Santiago, Dominican Republic CRITIC: Reem Acra ’86 GARMENT: Silver cut gold chain evening gown INSPIRATION: The traditional beaded corsets of the Dinka people in Sudan.

TECHNIQUE: Thinking through the engineering process that this garment required was a collective effort for me and my professor. Around 2,500 metal chains had to be separated, counted, draped on a form, and then hand sewn on top of a sheer foundation. The resulting dress is molded to the body.

TOP SELECTIONS FROM THE FUTURE OF FASHION SHOW

ESMERALDA FYHR SPECIALIZATION: Intimate Apparel

TING HE SPECIALIZATION: Knitwear

CRITIC: Morgan Curtis GARMENT: Black/beige bustier with alençon lace, fan lacing, and double-helix bone channeling with panty INSPIRATION: My senior thesis collection is inspired by DNA. I believe true beauty comes from a level of confidence that is present inside everyone. This quality is innate; it is coded in our DNA. FUN FACT: I often contemplate just becoming a yogi and opening a healthfood shop/gluten-free bakery. Other dreams include getting my master’s in anatomy and kinesiology because I often dream of designing clothing that functions in a subtle way to improve posture.

JOSE CAMACHO

HOMETOWN: Vancouver, Canada

SPECIALIZATION: Sportswear

CRITIC: Tess Giberson

HOMETOWN: Manila, the Philippines

GARMENT: Black and gray crocheted oversize top with white pleated skirt

CRITIC: Azede Jean-Pierre

INSPIRATION: The irregular shape and gradient color of landscape inspired me to create this look.

DESIGN INTERNSHIPS: Interning at The Row influenced me a lot when I was working on my thesis collection. I started realizing that knitwear should be about the fabric, the yarn, and the texture. It is different from wovens. It does not need any crazy shapes; you just let the fabric work the way it wants against the skin.

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HOMETOWN: Cranford, New Jersey

GARMENT: Gray wool drop-shoulder coat with hand embroidery, knit turtleneck, and gray wide pant INSPIRATION: I grew up in the Philippines where traditional art was everywhere. I have always been amazed by craftsmanship that is both functional and multipurpose. When I moved to New York, I initially wanted to do fine arts, specifically wearable art.

FUN FACT: I lived on a farm when I was young, and wanted to become a veterinarian.

All photos by Lorenzo Ciniglio

Each year, noted designers lend their expertise to graduating BFA Fashion Design students during their final semester as they prepare for the annual runway show. These professionals work with the students in their classrooms throughout the semester to critique their work and to select the most exceptional garments for coveted Critic Awards. Here are this year’s winners. To see all the garments that were featured in the Future of Fashion runway show, hosted by Nicole Richie, visit fashionshow.fitnyc.edu.

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LUIS PERALTA

VERONICA ROMERO SCHON

SPECIALIZATION: Sportswear HOMETOWN: Queens, New York

SPECIALIZATION: Sportswear

CRITIC: Phillip Lim

HOMETOWN: Mexico City

GARMENT: Blackish-green sculptural top over pant with navy nylon short jacket

CRITIC: Victoria Bartlett GARMENT: Gray wool vest, black wool and organza lenticular/suede embellished skirt

INSPIRATION: The relationship between nature and architecture was my focus for this collection—how modern architects are adapting patterns in nature to create infrastructures of buildings.

INSPIRATION: Last year I decided to collaborate with the artist Juna Skenderi on a wearable art project. We were inspired by lenticular prints [which create the illusion of depth] and have been working with this material ever since.

WHAT I’VE LEARNED: I’ve learned about the great power of fabrics, and how they can elevate any design. Textiles really make it or break it in this industry.

FUN FACT: I’m collaborating with Juna on a wearable art line named Nous. It is entirely handmade in Brooklyn with a few custom-made pieces.

FUN FACT: On the first day of interning, I received a high five from Oscar de la Renta after I was introduced as the “Dominican intern.” My life has never been the same!

ANJANI YARLAGADDA

CHANAN REIFEN

SPECIALIZATION: Children’s Wear

SPECIALIZATION: Knitwear

HOMETOWN: Shelton, Connecticut

HOMETOWN: Tel Aviv

CRITIC: Bonnie Young

CRITIC: Annalise Frank ’09

GARMENT: Gray neoprene and wool sweatshirt with neoprene laser-cut skirt

GARMENT: Yellow with pink/mint jacquard oversize T-shirt, high-waist jacquard skirt

INSPIRATION: I was inspired by different forms of yarn art, from weaving to braiding.

I passed by “graffiti” yarn art on Spring Street by the artist HOTTEA and loved how the yarn was woven through the chain fence, creating a 3D element.

INSPIRATION: We are all a manifestation of our personal and cultural identity. I wanted to express the idea of carrying our identity through knitted textiles. I’m using tribal symbols and de-contextualizing them through color, texture, and basic shapes.

DESIGN INTERNSHIPS: Jonathan Simkhai, Honor, Pastourelle, Andy and Evan, and Parigi. The designers have taught me to create looks that have something special, but can be mixed into everything the customer wears.

FUN FACT: I’ve lived in five countries so far and plan on doubling that number.

SOFIA MENASSE SPECIALIZATION: Sportswear HOMETOWN: Mexico City CRITIC: Nicholas Kunz ’95 and Christopher Kunz of Nicholas K GARMENT: Black cashmere/wool and silver fur “samurai” jacket, cream transparent striped tunic, and black pant DESIGN INTERNSHIPS: Zac Posen, design and development; Bullett magazine, fashion department; Alexander Wang, technical design All photos by Lorenzo Ciniglio

FUN FACT: Being Mexican and Jewish, coming from a multinational heritage, has always made me adapt to a new place.

I have lived in four exceptionally exciting cities, which have taught me about other traditions, cultures, and history.

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THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN Couldn’t get a ticket for the fashion show?

You weren’t alone. But there was another way to make your presence felt: This year, for the first time, FIT held a People’s Choice Award competition. Visitors to the website chose from among 27 student designs selected by Fashion Design faculty. Over the course of the two-day poll, 17,500 votes were cast. Caroline Vagnone from Wantagh, NY, received the most—3,800— for her ostrich-feather dress with a net bodice of handmade French knots and beading. The contest drove up site traffic to 25,400, and Vagnone’s dress was a bold vision in resplendent white on the runway.

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T HE

SOUL OF A

Renowned hospitality designer Tony Chi, Interior Design ’79, enriches guests’ inner lives

by Alex Joseph

Visit hue.fitnyc.edu to see video of Chi describing his work.

E

very building has some soul in it,” Tony Chi ’79 says. “When you go in, the building will tell you what it wants to be.” An internationally celebrated hotel and restaurant designer, principal and founder of TonyChi and Associates, Chi brings an unusual depth of insight to restaurant designs for such top chefs as Alain Ducasse and Wolfgang Puck, and hotel interiors for the Mandarin Oriental and Park Hyatt, among others. He was selected for Interior Design magazine’s hall of fame in 2009, and in April he received the FIT Interior Design Department’s prestigious Lawrence J. Israel Prize. Assistant Professor Johannes Knoops described him as “a potent mix of raw talent, tenacious drive, and ambition” who maintains “notorious control of the work.” Hospitality is Chi’s forte, yet he’s redefining the word: “I’m creating experiences,” he says.

“When people say, ‘This room looks nice,’ I say, ‘So what? How does it feel?’”

Rosewood London/Durston Saylor

SPACE

In person, Chi is equal measures charm and certitude, with a soupçon of genius. The light-filled offices of his eponymous firm in Tribeca emit a soothing buzz of conferring associates, and Chi circulates, pausing to make notes on a blueprint or pet one of the two office cats. After 31 years in the business, his reputation allows him to work with an extremely select clientele—only three or four projects at a time.

That’s been his goal ever since his years at FIT, when he studied with pioneering faculty members Julius Panero, Nicholas Politis, and Martin Zelnik. “I don’t do volume work,” Chi says. “I could commercialize this business and take on as many projects and make as much money as I can. I prefer to do what I have been trained to do, and do it well.”

Nothing is quite as it seems in Chi’s designs. While he uses the highest quality materials, and incorporates the finest of fine art, a certain aspect remains mysterious.

“It’s not about what you design,” he says. “It’s what you don’t design.” His recently completed Rosewood Hotel

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LONDON

Rosewood London/ Durston Saylor

Facing page: “I’m a vestibule guy,” Chi says. “When most people go through a vestibule, they don’t give it a second thought.” At the Rosewood London Hotel, Chi makes sure they do. The designer pays close attention to such in-between spaces as hallways and elevators. People tend to ignore the means of conveyance, he says, “but I think that’s wrong, don’t you? I think the space between A and B should be beautiful.”

Left: For the Rosewood London, Chi based his concept around the theme of “Britishness.” That includes the tchotchkes the designer found on his travels.

Here, in the lobby, he placed a model of an Aston Martin and figures of the Beatles.

CHI’S WORK HA S GLOBAL RE ACH EUROPE

ASIA

Courtesy of Mandarin Oriental Taipei

Andaz 5th Avenue

Rosewood London/Durston Saylor

AMERICAS

“It’s not about what you design, it’s what you don’t design.”

NE W YORK

“Who says a bar has to look like a bar?” For the Andaz 5th Avenue, Chi upended expectations for a typical watering hole by concealing the bottles. The hotel is located across the street from the New York Public Library’s Mid-Manhattan branch, so Chi devised a collaboration; the books can be checked out from Andaz’s front desk.

A recent portrait of Chi. At FIT, he roomed with future Nautica founder David Chu, Fashion Design ’77. The two remain friends.

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TOK YO

To explain his concept,“memory,” for the Andaz Tokyo to the hotel’s owner, Chi gave him a piece of washi—a kind of Japanese paper, painstakingly created, one layer at a time. “I say, ‘This paper contains great memories.’ Then I fold it, and I say, ‘When your building opens, just like this piece of paper, it will be folded and new memories will form.’”

Sliding panels of white washi paper allow the lobby to be transformed throughout the day.

Michael Moran

Everything in the Andaz Tokyo was crafted in Japan, with one exception. British artist Charlie Whinney created the bentwood sculpture, The Rhythm of Life, for the hotel’s restaurant (below).

“To bend the wood, it needs to have memory,” Chi says. “You have to hold it long enough for the wood to remember the shape.”

in London features a logo of two mirrored “C’s”, a reference to the luxury hotel’s previous iteration, Chancery Court. Charles Dickens once lived near nearby, and Chi enjoyed keeping the historical reference. The gesture evokes the past, yet the brand-new environment isn’t beholden to it: “I just wanted that little bit of history, not to prostrate to Charles Dickens.” (His fellow alum Robert Louey, Advertising Design ’79, created the logo, and does all the firm’s graphics.) For Ducasse’s Spoon restaurant in the InterContinental Hong Kong, Chi had 550 hand-blown Venetian glass spoons affixed to the ceiling. For another restaurant, he impishly proposed putting a maze in front of the entrance, so patrons would arrive extra hungry. (The client laughed, but didn’t go for it.) Exacting details and idiosyncratic touches add up to an experience that Chi calls “invisible design”—uplifting, in hard-to-pinpoint ways.

Chi breaks boundaries in his work for hotels, such as the Park Hyatt branches in Shanghai and Washington, or the Mandarin Oriental in Guangzhou. He is known for putting kitchens in lobbies or ballrooms, taking them out of their usual cloistered, private spaces and transforming them into hubs of conversation and inspiration. “The kitchen is not to be ‘shown off,’” he explains.

“It’s to embrace people. All your senses come to life there.” In an unusual, open-plan bathroom, he’ll create a place for a woman’s desk. “A woman will say she doesn’t work in the bathroom, but if you don’t call it a bathroom, you can get away with it,” he says.

He always commissions artwork for his restaurants, although that can make clients uncomfortable: “They’ll say, ‘But this is a commercial space.’ I always like to blur the line between commercial and fine art.”

For each project, Chi distills his theme into a single word. For the Rosewood London, it was “Britishness”; for the Park Hyatt Shanghai, it was “silence,” rendered in creamy whites and browns, using the most luxurious materials imaginable. He explains: 22 hue | summer 2015

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SHANGHAI

Though raised on New York’s Lower East Side, Chi is a native of Taiwan and now does a fair amount of work in Asia. He created a “very Chinese” design, using the theme of “silence,” for the Park Hyatt Shanghai (right and below), then the tallest building in the world. The project took nearly ten years.

Michael Moran

The most elegant stairway in the Rosewood is for housekeepers and room service.

“Shanghai is noisy, dirty. When the guests come to the Park Hyatt, they get the best of both worlds.” Discerning the essence of a project can take a lot of work, he says: “You draft, and then you edit, edit, edit.” Yet it is precisely this process that he enjoys the most. “I don’t care about the end result,” he says. “I don’t know what the end result will be.”

The governing impulse in all of the work stems from the term “hospitality,” which has endlessly mutating meanings for Chi. Sometimes he compares it to housekeeping—making spaces comfortable, welcoming; other times, he describes it as an aesthetic—natural, not fabricated; contemporary, yet venerable. He says he always starts designing the same way: “The first thing I do is to make sure the people and the spaces are related,” meaning not just guests, but employees as well. The most elegant stairway in the Rosewood London is reserved for housekeepers and room service. To Chi, hospitality is far more than organizing space: “I use it to touch the subconscious, right?” Using the tools of his trade, he helps people compose their inner lives.

GENE VA

“Where does my job stop?” Chi asks. “Does it stop inside the glass?” The designer is always thinking about the view. For the InterContinental Geneva, 12 years in the making, he says, “I sort of grabbed Lake Geneva and brought it into the room.”

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The Lawrence J. Israel Prize has been given annually since 1998 to an individual or firm whose ideas and work enrich FIT Interior Design students’ course of study. Past recipients include Jamie Drake and Diller Scofidio + Renfro. hue.fitnyc.edu 23

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MADE IN

NEW YORK A grant from the CFDA helped these alumni upgrade their Garment District factory

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BELIEVE IT OR NOT, the factory pictured here is just up the street from FIT, on 38th Street in the Garment District.

Sunrise Studio takes on small production runs—generally a couple hundred units—for such established designers as Calvin Klein Collection, Donna Karan’s Urban Zen, and Marc Jacobs, as well as emerging designers including Jonathan Cohen and Creatures of the Wind. Its 70 employees can churn out orders in just a few weeks, a fraction of the time needed to produce overseas.

Its owners, Peter Chan and Terri Huang, are

intimately connected with FIT. Chan has three FIT degrees—Production Management: Textiles ’92, Production Management: Apparel: ’89, and Fashion Design ’87—and is an assistant professor of Production Management, teaching students in the Fashion Design and Textile Development and Marketing departments.

Huang graduated from the Fashion Buying and Merchandising program in 1998. They met at Huang’s previous job and started the business in 2004.

Chan and Huang believe that local manufac-

turing is essential to a thriving fashion industry, and so does the Council of Fashion Designers of America. This year, the CFDA and the New York City Economic Development Corporation awarded Sunrise a $100,000 grant from their Fashion Manufacturing Initiative, a $3 million program to sustain top-notch facilities in the city.

With those funds, plus a matching investment

of their own, Chan and Huang have already upgraded their sewing machines and brought in equipment that creates the specialized stitches high-end designers want: a flat fell, pick stitch, and zigzag, to name a few. The machines allow Sunrise to take on larger orders and more complex work.

It’s expensive to operate in a city with

skyrocketing real estate costs, but Chan and Huang believe it’s worth it. Access to local production, Chan says, lowers the barrier to entry for emerging designers, as overseas factories generally demand high minimum orders. It also gives them more control over their lines.

And then there’s the matter of homegrown

pride, which translates into dollars for many designers. “I believe Made in the USA has a value to it,” Chan says. “Manufacturing in China doesn’t reflect the American dream.”

MATTHEW SEPTIMUS

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—Jonathan Vatner

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Glove Story When a big-budget movie needed a high-tech glove, Stacia Lang ’84 lent a hand

BY JONATHAN VATNER

A skilled artisan can make quality gloves in a few hours. Building the custom-designed pair for Jupiter Ascending, the Wachowskis’ 2015 tentpole, on the other hand, took two months, enlisting ten people. Stacia Lang, Fashion Design ’84, a top specialty costumer in Hollywood, was in charge.

The gloves, worn by Channing Tatum’s werewolf character, perform two major functions: operating his anti-gravity boots, which enable him to surf through the sky, and launching his energy shield, which blocks bullets and knocks out the swarms of baddies sent by the villainous House of Abrasax.

“Since the gloves were such an important part of the storyline, every piece had to have its purpose,” Lang says.

Lang fabricates otherworldly suits for bigbudget films according to a costume designer’s vision. She had a hand in creating the space suits for the 2014 sci-fi epic Interstellar, the bejeweled showgirl outfits for the Cher/Christina Aguilera vehicle Burlesque, and the red muscle suits for the 2000 psychological thriller The Cell, starring Jennifer Lopez. For Superman Returns, she worked on capes of various widths for flying, fighting, and posing. But she’s known for gloves, which have been used in The Amazing SpiderMan, Star Trek: Into Darkness, the Halle Berry TV series Extant, and more.

“I want my costumes to look and feel real and have a humanity to them,” Kym Barrett, Jupiter Ascending’s costume designer, says. “I often put Stacia on a prototype of something because she’s very meticulous, almost scientific in her method.”

Lang has had a long career of crafting one-ofa-kind costumes. After FIT, she sewed specialty costumes for Broadway shows, dance performances, and the circus. Next, she designed stage costumes for Prince and Dolly Parton—in fact, she’s probably best known for creating Prince’s headline-grabbing, buttock-exposing pants for the 1991 MTV Video Music Awards. (It was his idea, she says, but her design.) She moved to L.A. in 1997 to work in film, and she hasn’t looked back.

Lang in her Los Angeles studio.

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VERN EVANS

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Here’s how Lang made the Jupiter Ascending gloves, step by step.

1

1 Lang started with a lifelike digital illustration created by Keith Christensen and Ed Natividad, based on specifications from costume designer Kym Barrett.

2

4 To speed up production, Lang patterned a stretch base glove onto which the leather would be applied.

She enlisted a small manufacturer in London to construct multiple copies in various sizes, to fit all the glove-wearing actors and the stunt performers. “The general public doesn’t know how many copies we have to make,” she says. “We had at least five pairs just for Channing.”

2 She created hand and forearm forms from armature wire, industrial felt, and batting, using a tracing of Channing Tatum’s hand. For some movies, she can take measurements of each knuckle and the wrist and forearm, to create a more precise fit.

“The gloves have to feel like they’re a part of him, but they can’t restrict him in any way.”

3

3 Lang draped the glove onto the dummy hand with muslin and drew the “style lines”—the planned stitches—for Barrett to approve.

4

5

8 At a few points in the film, a computer-generated shield pops out from a slit in the glove—so Ironhead created one from flexible urethane foam.

7

9

8

6 Lang and her stitcher quilted the leather with a thin, dense foam, to give parts a raised effect. These represented energy pathways that communicated Tatum’s hand movements to the boots.

10

9 To ensure safety in fight scenes, most of the “metal” parts were actually molded urethane. The glove on the left shows the unpainted knuckle pieces; on the right, the pieces are painted silver. But the long springs that decorate the back of the hand are metal.

7 Ironhead Studio, a costume fabrication firm in Los Angeles, crafted the metallic and urethane elements, including buttons cast from computer keys that were used on the palm. Tatum’s werewolf character pressed the buttons to activate his anti-gravity boots.

5 Barrett chose a supple cowhide with a lot of texture, to look rugged and masculine.

6

10 The buckle on the gauntlet was also metal, inspired by a boot buckle.

13

12

© Warner Bros. Pictures/courtesy of the Everett Collection

11 Lang found a hand model with similar measurements to Tatum’s to help perfect the gloves. Here he shows how the right glove looks with a cardboard mock-up gun.

11

12 From the finished prototype, a mold was created using 3D printing, from which sprayable polyurethane replicas were cast.

These gloves were used in fight scenes.

13 At the final fitting with Tatum on set in London, Lang’s careful sizing paid off. “It fit—well, it fit like a glove!” she says.

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alumni notes

1955 Lucy Balsamo, Apparel Design, is a retired patternmaker who worked for designers Stan Herman, Anne Cox, and David Morris. She also had a stint with legendary couturier Charles James for six months in the late ’50s. “He was insane and impossible to work with and he didn’t pay, so it was short-lived,” she says.

1977 Renee Stillmank Kapinus, Textile Technology, manages Vera’s House of Bridals, an award-winning bridal atelier in Madison, WI, founded by her parents in 1964. She oversees all aspects of the business—buying gowns, supervising a staff of 39, advertising, even landscaping—while her mother Vera, at 85, still helps dress the brides. It was a hard decision to leave New York after graduating from FIT to work in the family business, but Kapinus is grateful for the independence and the authority to “bend the rules to make sure every customer is happy.”

1988 Karin Neff Buynie, Textile Development and Marketing, monitors three bald eagle nests for the Division of Fish and Wildlife of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.

She and her husband watch the nests a few hours a week from when the eggs are laid in January to when the chicks fledge, or leave the nest, in the summer.

They wait until both the male and female incubate the eggs—bald eagles take turns—and they count the eaglets, flapping around in the nest, trying to get air under their wings. If the birds feel threatened by humans, they’ll abandon their offspring, which become easy prey for hawks, owls, or raccoons.

Watching the nests often takes superhuman patience, but Buynie doesn’t mind. “When you’re sitting out there and nobody’s bothering you, it’s almost like free therapy.” Bald eagles were delisted federally as an endangered species in 2007, but not in New Jersey, home to 152 breeding pairs.

Hannah Engel, Apparel Design ’52, remembers FIT back in the day When I went to FIT, it was on the top floor of the Central Needle Trades high school. The “ruler” of the school was a small woman, Estelle Stern. I got her as the teacher of my draping class my first semester, four hours with her every day. She spoke and drew her lines very quickly.

The fabric manufacturers gave us a choice of fabric to use in our designs.

I picked a striped one with classic colors, mitered the corners, and designed it very classically, meticulously making sure that the stripes met. Mrs. Stern said, “That’s much too plain. You’ve got to give it a peplum. You’re not taking it off this dummy until you add something.”

I refused to alter it. Later, two of her friends in the industry complimented two of my projects hanging in the classroom, and she ended up apologizing to me for being harsh.

There was a room at FIT where you could go to have a smoke and talk to each other between classes. I met a girl named Arpy Chakerian there and befriended her because she seemed so shy. I always felt like a big sister to her. She later married Bob Shepard, nephew to Estée Lauder.

My first job was at Cute Kitty Coats, for $30 a week. I later designed boys’ knit tops for Rob Roy, sleepwear for a Playboy licensee, underwear for children, and a line of Barbie-themed children’s wear for Mattel that never got off the ground. In 1991, I retired and moved to Taos, NM. Arpy lives in New York, but we still talk on the phone every other A gold lamé dress Engel sketched at FIT. Saturday.

A LASTING FRIENDSHIP

Vera’s House of Bridals.

After 37 years, a graduate and her professor still meet

1985 Auden Grogins, Marketing: Fashion and Related Industries, was appointed as a Connecticut Superior Court judge in January. Currently she hears domestic violence cases. Before her appointment, she was a criminal defense attorney for 23 years, focusing on serious felonies, including capital cases, which carried the possibility of the death penalty (capital punishment was repealed in Connecticut in 2012). She also served on the Bridgeport City Council from 1991 to 2003, on the Bridgeport Board of Education from 2003 to 2007, and as a state representative in the Connecticut General Assembly from 2008 to 2015. “I always wanted to help people that needed a voice,” Grogins says. “I’m not an advocate anymore, but I make decisions which I think can help people in their lives.”

MEMORIES OF FIT IN THE ’50S

Eagle nests can be more than 6 feet across.

Ramona Sachs Fritschi, Marketing: Fashion and Related Industries, is web services manager for Messiah College, a Christian liberal arts school in Mechanicsburg, PA, with just under 3,000 students. She builds and maintains the college’s websites and trains others how to update their pages. Fritschi relaunched Messiah’s website in July 2014 to be responsive, to provide optimal viewing across devices. In her spare time, she leads a 25-student troupe of clowns, entertaining at a nursing home and at the local Special Olympics.

Sibylle-Maria Pfaffenbichler, Product Design: Textiles ’78, wrote to Hue about a recent meeting with Professor Miriam Russo Enders, one of her textile design instructors at FIT nearly 40 years ago.

The two reconnected a few years back when Russo Enders, at 90 years old, sent a Facebook friend request. “Professor Russo and I met on Friday for a lovely lunch at the Viennese restaurant in the Neue Galerie on 86th and Fifth,” Pfaffenbichler wrote. “We never got to explore Schiele and Klimt in the upstairs galleries as we had too much to talk about while also enjoying kaiserschmarrn and palatschinken. That is on the agenda for next time!”

Have you kept in touch with faculty or friends from FIT? Let us know at hue@fitnyc.edu.

Top: Retired Professor Russo Enders, 93, displays a sketch by Pfaffenbichler. Above: Pfaffenbichler toasts to her professor.

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alumni notes

1 999

Jennifer Lilya, Illustration, paints lively fashion illustrations, usually in black ink and diluted acrylic, for editorial, designers, and special events. She has illustrated features for Elle and Cosmopolitan, done preliminary sketches for Katy Perry’s costume at the 2010 American Music Awards, and drawn guests at the CLIO Image Awards as party favors. Her book, Fashion Illustration Art: How to Draw Fun & Fabulous Figures, Trends & Styles (North Light Books, 2014), provides stepby-step instructions for creating natural poses, proper fabric drape, and lifelike skin tones.

Legs Go Crazy!

by Lilya.

1993

Mark Knoerzer, Fine Arts, is under contract with the Bertrand Delacroix Gallery in Chelsea to show his abstract, minimalist paintings, inspired by the landscapes and atmospheres of outer space. He has also exhibited at group shows in Brooklyn, and one of his light sculptures appeared prominently in Évocateur: The Morton Downey Jr. Movie, released in 2012.

1997 Dawn Michelle Hardy, International Trade and Marketing, is an associate agent with Serendipity Literary and runs a book publicity company, Dream Relations PR. She has brokered deals for a biography of Nicki Minaj and a memoir of a paranormal experience that helped solve a cold case in California. A recent project, Not a Game: The Incredible Rise and Unthinkable Fall of Allen Iverson by Kent Babb (Atria Books), debuted in June.

Stella 2; oil, acrylic, and epoxy on wood; 49 by 49 inches; 2015.

Josue Asselin-Bienvenue, Fashion Design, is senior design manager of women’s wovens, soft accessories, and swimwear at Banana Republic. His inspirations range from flea markets to Fellini; designing the fall collection brought him to Stockholm to soak in the city’s architecture, café culture, museums, colors, and style. He also loves interior design, and his new Brooklyn home was featured in The New York Times this spring.

Simon Doonan taught Brian Landman the concept of brand storytelling at Barneys, where the FIT grad interned and was subsequently offered a job in visual merchandising. Every aspect of a store’s look, from the windows to the mannequins to the merchandise, needed to send the same message, whether it was a new product line or a seasonal theme. “I didn’t fully understand it at the time,” he says, “but Simon was always asking, ‘What is the whole story? What are we trying to say?’”

In the following years, Landman climbed the ranks at Barneys, Nautica, Calvin Klein, Ermenegildo Zegna, and Cole Haan, redesigning stores, opening outlets, building brand consistency through retail displays, and connecting the stories told through merchandising to the company’s monthly sales goals. In the three years he worked at Calvin Klein, he helped design 52 new outlet stores, bringing the total from 11 to 63.

In 2012, Foot Locker recruited Landman to be director of visual marketing and in-store experience for Foot Locker and Kids Foot Locker, in charge of visual merchandising for almost 2,000 stores. Since then, Landman has steadily worked to tell the company’s brand story through its visual displays, designing light boxes to highlight new shoes in stores and creating enticing Landman in his living room in Murray Hill. He window displays that echo the TV collects rare fashion and art coffee table books for inspiration in his work and personal projects. commercials. —Katharine Reece

2004

Nicki Minaj: Hip Pop Moments 4 Life

by Isoul Harris (Omnibus Press, 2012) is one of the first books Hardy sold.

Brian Landman, Display and Exhibit Design ’00

For this Calvin Klein display, Landman brought in a holiday story without relying on the typical red and green.

2001

Vanessa Richardson, Advertising and Communications, writes about personal finance and tech startups for Entrepreneur, Money, and Inc.com. She worked for Vogue and Self upon graduation but now prefers the practicality of finance and the audacious personalities of the tech industry.

THE VISUAL FIELD

Looks from Banana Republic’s Fall 2015 collection.

Shani Perez, Fashion Design, teaches art to pre-K through fifth grade students at PS 51 Elias Howe in Manhattan. She introduces them to the work of great artists and fosters an environment of exploration, curiosity, and discovery in which every child can identify as an artist. Every year, she also brings her classes to FIT to show them student work and exhibitions at the museum.

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Evan Sung

1992

Perez with her students.

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alumni notes

2007

2011

Rachel Burrell Smith, Advertising and Marketing Communications, is senior membership director for Bristol Who’s Who, an executive networking company and directory. She sells memberships and oversees the company’s social media presence, posting motivational quotes and networking tips on Facebook and Twitter.

Jennifer Mennella, Advertising and Marketing Communications, is a marketing executive for Visit Wales. She helps travel agents and tour operators build vacation packages and promotes them to consumers through ads and direct mail. She also helps develop story ideas for the media, such as “Ten Welsh words NATO delegates should know,” pitched in advance of the 2014 summit in Wales. And A recent ad that Mennella she trains worked on. travel agents on the appeal of the country, for example, its farm-to-table cuisine and its 641 castles, more per square mile than

Daniel Reyes Mozeson, Illustration, is a photographer who focuses on murals in New York City. His work helps street artists promote theirs, and he was instrumental in documenting 5Pointz, an outdoor graffiti gallery that was destroyed in 2013. He is the lead photographer of StreetArtNYC. org, and his photos have been exhibited in various nontraditional galleries, as well as at New York University’s Bronfman Center.

A MAN’S WORLD Sharon Hecht, Fashion Merchandising Management ’07 Sharon Hecht is loving menswear.

As the senior merchandise manager at Original Penguin, a division of Perry Ellis International, she supervises a team of five and oversees global merchandising and product development for the playful menswear brand. Having worked on women’s wear for Calvin Klein Underwear and on accessories for Coach, she knows menswear is where she wants to be.

“I remember thinking at Calvin, why is men’s so fun, and why is women’s so complicated?” Hecht says.

“Sometimes men are more drama-free, and that carries over when you’re creating products to wear.”

Hecht offers her thoughts on what’s happening now in menswear.

anywhere else in the world.

2012 Latrice Lewis, Fashion Design, works as a technical designer at Yummie by Heather Thomson, a shapewear company. The final garments she created for her BFA were featured in the November 2014 issue of Tantalum magazine and the fall 2012 issue of Rêver magazine. She didn’t realize her jumpsuit had also made the cover of Tantalum until she was scrolling through Instagram. “I was like, oh my God, that looks very familiar!”

Mozeson shot fellow alumnus Jonathan Meres Cohen at 5Pointz.

2008 Luis Martin, Fine Arts, is an artist and educator who specializes in painting, manipulated photographs, and collage.

He is director of programming for Brooklyn Brush Studios, artist workspaces in Bushwick, and chief curator of Parenthesis Art Space, a gallery and gathering spot within the studios.

Smarter shoppers. “The American

male customer is becoming more of a fashionista,” Hecht says. “This is not just an urban thing—it’s happening in most markets in the U.S.” A more stylish customer lets designers make more colorful, trendier pieces. On the flip side, prices need to represent a good value, because this shopper knows when he’s being overcharged.

P55 is Original Penguin’s core assortment, rooted in vintage and Americana, that hasn’t strayed far from the brand’s origins in the Midwest in 1955.

Less is more. When Hecht arrived at Penguin, she worked closely with her

design and sales teams to determine that the number of products they offered could be significantly decreased while still growing their market share.

Reducing the number of SKUs created a more focused collection that appealed to the company’s global audience, and it increased profit margins.​​After she trimmed the holiday product line last year by 20 percent, profits at the company rose almost 3 percent for the whole year. For 2016, she’s reducing it even further.

The rise of “athleisure.” Hecht sees the merging of athletic and leisure clothing as the most important trend hitting the men’s market now. Men want to be able to wear the same sporty performance gear to work, to the gym, and on weekends.

“Is it casual? Is it dressy? Now it’s somewhere in between,” she says.

Nick Parisse

2013

Martin’s mural, Alchemy in Revolution, depicts the tumultuous birth of an artwork.

Tantalum’s cover model in a jumpsuit that Lewis made from silk wool, cotton lace, cotton organdy, an illusion tulle, and Swarovski crystals.

Jinbi Park, Jewelry Design, won the Future of the Industry Award from MJSA, a national jewelry design association, for Cacophony of Harmony, a resin necklace she made in an alternative-materials class at FIT. Her current work, available on jinbidesign.com, is mostly silver and gold in organic shapes inspired by the natural world.

Cacophony of Harmony, resin, rubber, sterling silver, and cubic zirconia.

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what inspires you?

Family Business Frank Fontana, Pattern Drafting and Design My mother, Anita Fontana, designed evening wear and bridal gowns on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx. She made dresses for the wives of the prizefighters Jack Dempsey and Rocky Marciano, and for actor Robert Alda’s wife—the list goes on. Wherever she was, she’d have a sketchpad with her.

I worked at Fontana Couture when I grew up, and I went to FIT at night in the ’60s to learn draping and patternmaking.

I wasn’t a great designer, but I enjoyed picking out styles that I thought people would like. It’s in the genes, I guess. My family has been in the garment industry for well over 100 years. My grandfather came from Italy and designed coats in the Garment Center.

Eventually my mother got arthritis in her hand and stopped making gowns. Getting fabric was more difficult, too—the fabric stores in the Garment Center had mostly disappeared. So we phased out the custom gowns and did ready-to-wear. I did the buying, and she oversaw 25 employees in the alterations department. She worked till she was 95, and she passed away two years ago at 97. My son took over Fontana Couture and moved the showroom to Greenwich, CT. I was so proud that he stayed in the family business.

Technically, I’m supposed to be retired, but I still help out.

We’re all devoted to the legacy that my mother left us.

From top: Frank and Anita Fontana, seated, with friends including actor Robert Alda (above Anita), c. late 1950s; Anita Fontana with the store manager showing her gowns, c. early 1990s; the front window of the Bronx store, in business until 1977; Anita Fontana with a model at a 1970s Fontana Couture bridal show.

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227 West 27 Street New York, NY 10001-5992 return service requested

MENSWEAR’S BEST FRIEND

From Menswear Dog Presents the New Classics (Artisan) © 2015.

Photos: David Fung and Yena Kim.

We’ve heard of a wolf in sheep’s clothing, but Menswear Dog, an Instagram sensation with more than 200,000 followers, is a whole other animal (in a way cooler wardrobe). In 2013, Yena Kim, Fashion Design ’11, and her husband, David Fung, landed a record number of Facebook likes for a shot of Bodhi, their shiba inu, wearing one of Fung’s cardigans.

They launched a Tumblr account with more photos, and queries from magazine editors and TV producers flooded in. “He’s always had a confident air about him, but it wasn’t until we stuck a camera in his face that he really lit up,” they say. Their new book, Menswear Dog Presents the New Classics: Fresh Looks for the Modern Man (Artisan Books, 2015), pairs adorable photographs of Bodhi with sensible tips for the well-dressed gent. The dapper dog has been featured in The New York Times, Esquire, Harper’s Bazaar, and GQ.

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