Hue Fall 2016

The Magazine of the Fashion Institute of Technology

volume 10 | number 1 | fall 2016

ON THE COVER

CONTRIBUTORS Lights, glamour, action! This

The Magazine of the

Future of Fashion runway show

Fashion Institute of Technology

was created by faculty member and alumnus Bil Donovan. He

Hue is for alumni and friends of FIT, a

paints quickly and with a light

college of art and design, business and

touch, then scans each layer and

technology. It is published three times a

assembles them in Illustrator.

year by the Division of Communications and External Relations, 227 West

The resulting composites vibrate

27 Street, Room B905, New York,

with spontaneity and exuberance.

NY 10001-5992, 212 217.4700.

See more of his dynamic scenes in “Future of Fashion, Reimagined,” on page 12.

Vice President for Communications and External Relations Loretta Lawrence Keane

Dario Calmese

brush-and-ink drawing of FIT’s

Bil Donovan ’78, adjunct associate professor of Illustration, is one of today’s most accomplished fashion illustrators, whose clients include Vogue, Vanity Fair, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The New York Times, St. Regis Hotels and Resorts, and the CFDA. Donovan is also a fine artist and author, and he has been Dior Beauty’s artist in residence since 2009.

NOW PLAYING AT hue.fitnyc.edu

Assistant Vice President for Communications Carol Leven Editor Linda Angrilli

Richard Howard is a Boston-based freelance photographer whose work has appeared in Smithsonian, Time, Life, People, Fortune, and other magazines. For the past 20 years, he has worked for colleges and nonprofits around the country.

Managing Editor Alex Joseph, MA ’13 Staff Writer Jonathan Vatner Editorial Assistant Laura Hatmaker Art Direction and Design Empire Design Studio Hue online: hue.fitnyc.edu Email: hue@fitnyc.edu Get involved with FIT and your fellow alumni. Like the FIT Alumni page on Facebook and follow @FITAlumni on Twitter. Email the Office of Alumni Relations at alumnirelations@fitnyc.edu and let us know what you’ve been up to.

>> WATCH: In an exclusive video, FIT Designer of the Year Dennis Basso ’73 (above) discusses his love of fur, his education, and the greatest celebrity he ever dressed.

>> WATCH: Get a tour of Bil Donovan’s studio and take in some of his coolest illustrations.

Printed by Cohber Press on Rolland Enviro™ Print. The Enviro family has the lowest environmental footprint in North America due to its FSC certification and Ancient Forest Friendly policy, a 100 percent post-consumer waste fiber composition, biogas energy and processed chlorine-free manufacturing.

Environmental Savings as compared to paper using 100 percent virgin fiber.

95 trees preserved 91,427 gallons of water saved 9,354 lbs of waste not generated 30,682 lbs CO 2 not generated 79,000,000 BTUs of energy not consumed 40 lbs nitrous oxide gas prevented Please recycle or share this magazine.

>> WATCH: A mesmerizing video by the student winners of the

Amy Lombard ’12 is a photographer in Brooklyn, NY. Her bold and colorful work has landed her such clients as The New York Times, VICE, New York, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, WWD, Time, Wired, Bloomberg Businessweek, Refinery29, Samsung, Facebook, Barneys New York, and Swatch.

first Biodesign Challenge showing how an algae-derived fiber is extruded.

INTRODUCING FIT NEWSROOM Check out news.fitnyc.edu, FIT’s online ground zero for features and breaking stories about students, faculty, trends, and college initiatives. With its incisive writing and lively multimedia, FIT Newsroom is a place to discover the college in a fresh new way.

Constance C.R. White, a former style reporter for The New York Times and editor in chief of Essence, is the fashion features editor for the online magazine The Impression. A sought-after consultant, she has appeared on The Today Show and CBS’s The Couch and is the author of StyleNoir, a book on black style.

A turtle peers through a Central Park fence in this shot taken

by Sam Tamborello, Photography ’18, for a new course that brings students into the wilds of New York to tell visual stories about environmental issues. See page 30.

Departments

Features 10 COMMENCEMENT BY THE NUMBERS Two ceremonies, 4,247 grads, and one killer selfie

12 FUTURE OF FASHION, REIMAGINED FIT’s own Bil Donovan ’78 illustrates the process of putting together the BFA runway show

17 IT’S ALL IN THE DETAILS Striking a delicate balance between beauty and profit

18 THE PERFECT FIT A Technical Design student brings her education home

21 A CHAMPION OF DIVERSITY IN FASHION Harlem’s Fashion Row gives designers of color a leg up

24 CROWN JEWELS

Cloche encounters with the alumni in the Milliners Guild

26 QUALITY CONTROL Investing in housewares? Ask former faculty member Pat Breen!

4 HUE’S NEWS 7 FOOTPRINT 8 HUE’S WHO 32 ALUMNI NOTES 35 WHAT INSPIRES YOU?

27 SIX DECADES OF DESIGN This faculty veteran continues to inspire students

28 MR. PERSONALITY Catching up with Dennis Basso ’73, founding father of fashionable fur

30 HUMAN/NATURE In an interdisciplinary course, student photographers explore New York’s natural side

ed Hue was nam

BE S T M AG A Z I N E UAD 2016 SUNYC r fo Awards E xcellence

The competition recognizes communications materials from State University of New York campuses.

The judges called Hue “lively and engaging” with “powerful illustration and photography” and “creative storytelling.”

hue’s news

SUMMER INSTITUTE TEACHES BEST PRACTICES IN SUSTAINABLE FASHION

Jerry Speier

SHoP principals Coren and William Sharples accepted the Israel Prize, which is shaped like a drafting triangle.

FIT Honors SHoP Architects

Smiljana Peros

Smiljana Peros

Now in its third year, the Summer Institute for Sustainability in Fashion and Textiles, held June 6-9, brought together 41 global sustainability leaders from universities, corporations, and startups for four days themed around “systems disruption”: the ways innovators are challenging current wasteful practices to create a sustainable future.

“The system of fashion has been broken for a long time, in where we produce, how we produce, and what we produce,” said Sass Brown, acting associate dean for the School of Art and Design, who spearheads the conference each year. “The intent of this year’s Summer Institute was to highlight a diversity of responses from people in the industry, from the maker community to emerging designers to the corporate and brand space.”

Panel discussion themes included the hidden environmental costs of fast fashion, efforts at transparency in the supply chain, and the improved quality of recycled materials.

Workshops gave attendees the opportunity to work with mineral and plant dyes and microbial leather. Field trips brought participants to nearby sustainable design studios including Artemas Quibble, 3x1, and Nudie Jeans.

Brown planned the 2016 conference with Jeffrey Silberman, chair of the Textile Development and Marketing program; and Susanne Goetz and Nomi Kleinman, assistant professors of Textile/Surface Design.

Above left: Participants practiced dyeing with indigo and other natural dyes, producing a vibrant range of colors.

Above right: Microbial leather made from a kombucha colony, molded around a shoe last.

Smiljana Peros

WORKS OF HEART From May 11 to 19, FIT became a massive exhibition space, showing final projects by more than 800 graduating students from 16 majors in the School of Art and Design. The Photography BFA portfolios were displayed in an immersive gallery (left) in the Dubinsky Student Center lobby.

The Lawrence J. Israel Prize, a notable industry honor given annually by the Interior Design Department, was awarded to SHoP Architects this year. The New York City–based firm is known globally for its innovative, meticulously considered work on the Barclays Center in Brooklyn; the “world’s skinniest skyscraper,” under construction on West 57th Street; and the planned redevelopment of LaGuardia Airport. But it also is playing a role in FIT’s future, as the architect of FIT’s new academic building, expected to break ground in 2017.

The winner of the Israel Prize traditionally delivers a public lecture at FIT. Coren Sharples, one of SHoP’s five founding partners, spoke on April 14 about the firm’s key projects, giving special attention to FIT’s new building. The firm’s original design won the college’s design competition in 2003; when funding was finally secured in 2015, SHoP revised the plans to meet FIT’s evolving needs. “At the time, it was the largest and most important project our office had taken on,” Sharples said. Years later, she added, “we have to remind ourselves, ‘What were the things that inspired us?’ FIT is a Brutalist campus, but it has amazing textures and colors, and you have to celebrate those moments.”

QUICK READ Akris Creative Director Albert Kriemler was honored with the 2016 Couture Council Award for Artistry of Fashion on September 7. Kriemler’s tailored, functional designs have been worn by Angelina Jolie, Princess Charlene of Monaco, and Condoleezza Rice.

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hue | fall 2016

Professor Judy Ellis, founder and chair of the Toy Design Department, was named Distinguished Teaching Professor, the highest honor SUNY confers on faculty.

She is FIT’s second Distinguished Professor; Science Professor Arthur Kopelman earned the honor in 2010.

Joanne Arbuckle, who retired as dean for the School of Art and Design, was named deputy to the president for Industry Partnerships and Collaborative Programs.

In her new role, she cultivates external relationships to support FIT’s mission and the goals of the strategic plan.

hue’s news

STYLE BY THE BOOK

MEMORIES OF DESIGNING FOR PRINCE

© L. Degrâces et Ph. Joffre/Galliera/Roger-Viollet

© Nadar/Palais Galliera/Roger-Viollet

Stacia Lang, Fashion Design ’84, created some of Prince’s most legendary stage outfits, including the notorious yellow buttless pants he wore at the 1991 MTV Video Music Awards. In the wake of his death, she sent Hue a tribute to the inimitable artist.

“With his loss, I’m reeling, just like the rest of the world,” she wrote. “But the richness I feel, in having shared a moment with him, is priceless to me, and will forever inform my work.”

Read the full text at hue.fitnyc.edu/prince.

Above left: This silk charmeuse jacket, sketched by Lang, was printed with photos of the New Power Generation. “He had a period where he loved to wear pajama fabric like a suit,” Lang says. “He had very little distinction between daywear, eveningwear, and clothes for concerts.” Above right: A note from Prince to Lang reveals his involvement in the design process.

FIT EXCELS IN 2016 COLLEGE RANKINGS Fashionista.com ranked FIT number seven on its list of the “25 Best Colleges in the World in 2016.” The college is one of only two U.S. schools to make the Top Ten.

Top: The fashion-forward princess line of the black velvet “Lily Dress,” by the House of Worth in 1896, flattered the countess’s figure. Above: She turned heads at her daughter’s wedding in the “Byzantine Gown,” a 1904 gold lamé, fur-trimmed, pearl-encrusted robe de cérémonie by the House of Worth.

Élisabeth de Caraman-Chimay, known as the Countess Greffulhe, was the inspiration for the witty and fashionable Duchesse de Guermantes in Marcel Proust’s early 20th-century masterpiece In Search of Lost Time. Proust’s Muse, the Countess Greffulhe at The Museum at FIT examines her legendary wardrobe in lavish detail.

“The Countess Greffulhe believed in the artistic significance of fashion,” said Valerie Steele, director and chief curator of The Museum at FIT, who organized the exhibition with Olivier Saillard, director of the Palais Galliera in Paris, where a version of the show first ran. “And although she patronized the greatest couturiers of her time, her style was very much her own. Today, when fashion is increasingly regarded as an art form, her attitude is especially relevant.”

Viewers will be treated to 28 of CaramanChimay’s sumptuous dresses, designed by the House of Worth, Louiseboulanger, Nina Ricci, and Jeanne Lanvin. Her accessories will be on display as well, including the red velvet high heels featured in the novel in an indelible, heartbreaking scene.

Proust’s Muse will be on view from September 23 to January 7, 2017. Steele and Saillard will discuss the exhibition on October 11, and the show will be the focus of the museum’s annual symposium on October 20. Register at fitnyc.edu/ museum/events.

Animals to the Rescue!

Business of Fashion rated FIT number six in its 2016 Global Fashion School Rankings.

Payscale.com ranked FIT number one on its list of “Best Value College for Art Majors” who live in New York State, number three for “Best Value College for Art Majors” who live out of state, and number four in the “Best Value College for Art Careers” category.

Payscale.com also ranked FIT number two in the nation among community colleges for alumni median early career salaries ($41,500) and median mid-career salaries ($72,100).

Yura Yang, Fashion Design ’17, won the prestigious $25,000 Liz Claiborne Design Scholarship Award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America. The award is given annually to a student whose portfolio best addresses the lifestyle and needs of women.

Juliana Mazza ’18

BackgroundChecks.org, a public safety–focused organization, ranked FIT number eight on its 2016 list of the “50 Safest Colleges in New York State.”

FIT’s Style Shop—which is run by the Merchandising Society, a student club with 180 active members—grossed a record $120,298 over the 2015-16 academic year.

To help students de-stress during finals last spring, the Counseling Center and the Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society organized a pet therapy event in the Gladys Marcus Library.

Students got to play with friendly dogs brought by volunteers from the ASPCA .

Uniformity, The Museum at FIT’s exploration of the social role of uniforms and their influence on high fashion, runs through November 19.

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Professor Petrunia’s Five Tips for Better Presentations Fear of public speaking is an almost universal human trait. Which is unfortunate, considering that presenting one’s ideas verbally is vital for many careers, especially those in the creative industries.

When students are losing sleep about their speeches and presentations, they turn to Matthew Petrunia, associate professor and acting chair of English and Communication Studies. The specialist in public speaking, argumentation, and persuasion not only teaches courses in these topics, he also encourages students to seek him out when faced with daunting presentations at FIT and beyond.

“I tell my students, I’m your professor for life,” Petrunia says. “I’m always happy to help.”

Business Students Win Major Retail Contest For the third time in four years, FIT’s team of students from the Baker School of Business and Technology won the Retail Futures Challenge at the World Retail Congress, held this year in Dubai. The four students, from Fashion Business Management, Advertising and Marketing Communications, and Cosmetics and Fragrance Marketing, developed a plan for an omni-channel retail business called Fora., a millennial-focused retail concept (diagrammed above) that brings e-commerce into the brick-and-mortar store. They competed against teams from schools in England, Hong Kong, Italy, and Portugal.

1. Go easy on yourself. “Give yourself permission to make mistakes. In your head, you might be having a meltdown— ‘I can’t believe I phrased it this way!’—but to the audience, the speech went exactly as planned. If that doesn’t help, remember that most of what you say will be forgotten 10 minutes later.”

2. Gesture sparingly. “People gesture to emphasize something important, but if everything is important, nothing stands out. For hand gestures to be seen, make sure they occur above the waist.

And it’s perfectly OK to let your hands hang at your sides.”

3. Take control of your visuals. “When you have finished discussing a slide but aren’t ready to show to the next one, switch to a blank slide. Otherwise, people will continue to engage with the previous slide after you’ve moved on to new information.”

4. Use humor carefully. “If you’re going to tell a joke that teases Smiljana Peros

someone, always aim it at yourself. Give people an opportunity to

MARKET-READY WOVENS

laugh with you. Singling out audience members may make them uncomfortable, and they may stop listening.”

5. Leave out the inside knowledge. “Colloquialisms, humor, and euphemisms might not translate well with diverse audiences.

Textile/Surface Design students Francesca Genovas, Cara Yacovone, Yufu Hanai, and Hyojin Noh showed off their winning upholstery designs for a new competition for sixth-semester students enrolled in Fundamentals of Jacquard Design. Wearbest Sil-Tex Mills, one of the last woven mills in America, sponsored the contest. The student designs were woven with sturdy, recyclable Bella-Dura yarns, made from a byproduct of post-industrial waste.

Instead of listening more intently, they may disengage because they don’t understand what was said. The larger the audience, the more conservative to be with your language choices.”

QUICK READ Antonio Lopez ’63 (1943-1987), one of the most influential illustrators of the 20th century, is the subject of a highly acclaimed show at El Museo del Barrio in Manhattan through November 26.

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hue | fall 2016

An expansion of the lobby in the Pomerantz Art and Design Center, beginning this fall, will double the interior space to almost 4,000 square feet, creating a gallery sheathed in glass that will look out onto Seventh Avenue.

At the NJCAA Division III National Championships, Max Hamilton ’16 won the 1,500-meter run in 4 minutes and 9 seconds, setting a new school record, and Sara Lucas ’16 set school records in the 800-meter run, 1500-meter run, and 400-meter hurdles.

Anita Rundles ’13

hue’s news

footprint

FIT Wins the First Biodesign Challenge An award-winning student project explores cutting-edge technology in sustainable textiles

Smiljana Peros

BY ALEX JOSEPH

Imagine a future when textiles can be grown in a laboratory, worn, and returned to the soil to grow more textiles instead of ending up in a landfill.

A team of FIT students took a step toward that future with an innovative project that won the first Biodesign Challenge, a competition in which students from nine leading U.S. colleges and universities created projects that envision future applications of biotechnology. Themes for the projects included architecture, water, food, materials, energy, medicine, and other areas where biological design could make a dramatic difference.

The prize was announced after the projects were presented at a June 23 event at the Museum of Modern Art and judged by 13 leaders in biotechnology, design, and education. The FIT team comprised three students from the Fashion Design program’s knitwear specialization—Tessa Callaghan ’16, Gian Cui ’17, and Aleksandra Gosiewski ’17—and Aaron Nesser, who studies at Pratt Institute. With support from faculty in the sciences and design, they beat teams from top schools including University of Pennsylvania, New York University, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

For their winning project, FIT’s team created a material out of alginate (made from algae) and chitosan (made from fungi), extruded it from a syringe as a filament, and knitted this “yarn” into fabric. The resulting textile, though not ready for production, represents a nascent step toward a closed-loop life-cycle system for fashion, as the fabric is not only biodegradable but could be used as a nutrient for growing more materials.

The team spent months experimenting with different formulas for the biomaterial, curious to see how much it would stretch. They tested an early version of the knitted filament in FIT’s textile testing labs, where they discovered, to their surprise, that it stretched

70 percent beyond its original length. They also customized a 3D printer to make a mesh version, which stretched 50 percent.

Theanne Schiros, an assistant professor who teaches physics, chemistry, and sustainability, and Asta Skocir, associate professor of Fashion Design, served as mentors. Carmita Sanchez-Fong, associate professor of Interior Design, and Sasha Wright, an assistant professor who teaches biology and ecology, received an interdisciplinary grant from the School of Art and Design to develop a curriculum of readings and to bring experts in bioethics and biomaterials to campus. Sass Brown, acting associate dean for the School of Art and Design, brought the Biodesign Challenge to the college and promoted the opportunity to students. And C.J. Yeh, professor, Communication Design, helped the team polish their presentation skills.

Above: The winning team of Callaghan, Nesser, Cui, and Gosiewski. Nesser holds the Glass Microbe, a translucent trophy symbolizing the intersection of art, design, and biology.

Left: A fabric knitted from the biomaterial.

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hue’s who

VIPs at FIT events this academic year

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2 Fairy Tale Fashion opening at The Musem at FIT: 1. Joy Marks, Maggie Norris, Victoria Kaplan. 2. Kalu-Kalu Ugwuomo, Iké Udé, Ben Bronfman. 3. Bibhu Mohapatra*, Bobby Beard.

4. Tziporah Salamon.

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FIT’s Couture Council Artistry of Fashion Award Luncheon Honoring Manolo Blahnik: 1. Anna Wintour, Manolo Blahnik, and Carolina Herrera.

2. Simon Doonan. 3. Manolo Blahnik and Uma Thurman. 4. Ralph Rucci*, Linda Fargo, Alec Baldwin, Stefano Tonchi. 5. Camila Alves. 6. Fe Fendi.

7. Joan Hornig. 8. Hamish Bowles.

9. Petra Němcová. 10. Monique Lhuillier.

11. Martha Stewart.

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1 Fashion Underground: The World of Susanne Bartsch opening at The Museum at FIT: 1. Norma Kamali*, Calvin Klein*, and Susanne Bartsch.

2. Robert Verdi* and Fern Mallis.

3. David and Phillipe Blond. 4. Amanda Lepore. 5. Zaldy* and Susanne Bartsch.

6. Stephen Jones and guest. 7. RuPaul.

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5 Other Events: 1. Robert Redford and Cate Blanchett, TimesTalks.

2. Susan Meiselas, FIT Photo Talks. 3. Omoyemi Akerele and Simone Cipriani, The Hand of Fashion Lecture Series. 4. Joe Zee*, book signing, Barnes &

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Noble at FIT. 5. André Leon Talley, Designers & Books Fair.

6. Steven Heller and Milton

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hue | fall 2016

Glaser, Designers & Books Fair.

6 Future of Fashion Runway Show 2016: 1. Stacey Bendet and Francisco Costa*.

2. Calvin Klein*, Dr. Joyce F. Brown, Leandra Medine, Ken Downing*. 3. Lisa Di Napoli.

4. Danielle Bernstein*. 5. Shaun Ross, Ryan Leslie, Daniela Braga. 6. Dushane Noble*.

7. Elie Tahari and Annie Georgia Greenberg.

7. Steve Madden, Dean’s Dialogue, School of Art and Design. 8. Claudia Rankine, English and Communication Studies lecture, Q&A, and book signing. 9. Essie Weingarten*, 8

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Dean’s Forum, School of Business and Technology. *FIT alumna/us

Designing for Women with Disabilities

and Browne. Students NyLeah Ford, Emily Chao, KatiLin Stone, Ayao Sasaki, and Grace Insogna.

PATRICK McMULLAN

The FIT Foundation’s annual gala, held May 9 at the Plaza Hotel, brought together industry VIPs and cultural icons for a night of celebration and generosity. Fashion designer Dennis Basso ’73 was honored as Designer of the Year for his exceptional 30-year career in the industry. FIT trustee emeritus John Pomerantz and his wife, Laura, were honored as Patrons of the Year for their decades-long dedication to FIT. Global video and e-commerce giant QVC was named Retailer of the Year for its pioneering platform that reaches millions of consumers. The event raised $1.7 million to benefit the FIT Educational Development Fund.

QVC also announced a new fund that will provide seven scholarships a year of $5,000 each for four years to FIT students who come from the countries in which QVC operates (U.S., Japan, Germany, U.K., Italy, France, and China).

“Public educational institutions, such as FIT, are not allowed by law to provide financial assistance to international students,” President Joyce F. Brown said during the event. “So this scholarship program from QVC will offer great opportunity for students from Germany or Japan or Italy or China or the U.K. who want to come to FIT. And they do want to come.”

Read a profile of Basso on page 28.

D Dipasupil/Getty Images

Last fall, the Cerebral Palsy Foundation challenged FIT students to “transform the fashion experience” for women with physical disabilities. Five finalists, chosen from 35 entrants, each designed and fabricated two stylish and functional business outfits, designed to accommodate limited mobility. Iconoclastic designer Thom Browne mentored the students throughout the process.

The fabulous looks were revealed on the runway at the first Design for Disability Gala, held at Sotheby’s in New York on May 16. Fashion Design major Grace Elizabeth Insogna was selected as the winner by the contest’s judges: Browne; Andrew Bolton, curator of The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute; Academy Award– winning costume designer Ann Roth; disability rights advocate and model Dr. Danielle Sheypuk; and Dr. Alette Coble-Temple, Ms. Wheelchair America 2016.

“Learning about my models’ everyday lives and the challenges they face, that is to me the most important thing,” said Insogna, who won $5,000 for her designs. “I hope this is going to be a catalyst for change in the industry.”

Above: John and Laura Pomerantz; Basso; Dr. Brown; Mike George, president and CEO of QVC; and Basso’s husband, Michael Cominotto.

Left: Paris Hilton, Basso, and Nicky Hilton Rothschild.

Basso designed the bridesmaid dresses for Rothschild’s wedding.

Zach Hilty/BFA.com

From top: A look by Ayao Sasaki. Bolton, Sheypuk,

FIT’s 2016 Gala Honors Industry Luminaries

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Commencement by the Numbers

THIS YEAR’S GRADUATION, AT A GLANCE

Two ceremonies. Sixteen speakers. Four honorary degrees.

FIT’s 71st annual commencement, held May 19 at Javits Center North (which spans two acres), was a momentous celebration for 4,247 graduating students and their families and friends. Hue tallied some of the most impressive figures. The numbers don’t lie—but then again, nor do the jubilant smiles.

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selfie taken by a speaker during actual speeches

“I’ve done things the

traditional way and I’ve done things the

unconventional way, and both have worked.”

—Joe Zee, Advertising and Communications ’92, editor-in-chief and executive creative director of Yahoo Style, who gave the afternoon commencement address and was given an honorary degree

288,000

JOE ZEE’S TWITTER FOLLOWERS

4,247 TOTAL GRADUATES 1,612 in the School of Art and Design

“We need that quality of character called empathy: an ability to think what it might be like to be in the shoes of another.”

2,504 in the Jay and Patty Baker School of Business and Technology 47 in the School of Liberal Arts 84 in the School of Graduate Studies

—President Joyce F. Brown

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pigeons crashed the ceremony 10 hue | fall 2016

“WE FIT STUDENTS ARE MANY THINGS, BUT ORDINARY IS NOT ONE OF THEM.” —Marvin Sanford, Fashion Merchandising Management ’16, class president

2.64 MILLION

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social media impressions of FIT’s commencement

museums own Ivy Ross’s jewelry designs

$600 miLLiON

annual economic impact of the Tribeca Film Festival, co-founded by Jane Rosenthal

“THE OPPOSITE OF PLAY IS NOT WORK— IT’S DEPRESSION.”

“If you thought you had homework now, wait until you get out into the real world.”

—Ivy Ross, Jewelry Design, vice president at Google and head of Project Aura, Glass

—Jane Rosenthal, co-founder of the Tribeca Film

and Beyond, who delivered the morning

Festival and honorary degree recipient

commencement address and received an honorary degree

69 YEArS

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Ruth Finley oversaw the Fashion Calendar of New York designers’ shows

“I am still too young to retire.”

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programs conferred diplomas

—Ruth Finley, age 96, founder and

“I AM ETERNALLY GRATEFUL TO FIT FOR OPENING UP MY WORLD.”

times Francisco Costa was named CFDA Women’s Wear Designer of the Year

—Francisco Costa, Fashion Design ’90, former women’s creative director of Calvin Klein Collection, who received an honorary degree

former publisher of the Fashion Calendar and recipient of the President’s Award for Lifetime Achievement

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1,381

times the official hashtag

total years grand marshals Susan Rietman, Textile/Surface Design (51), and Arthur Kopelman, Science and Math (35), have taught at FIT

JOE CARROTTA ’17, LORENZO CINIGLIO, ISLAND PHOTOGRAPHY, NIKKI-TAYLOR MASSARO ’17, SMILJANA PEROS, JERRY SPEIER

#FITGrAD was used

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FUTURE OF FA S H I O N

A R T I S T, A LU M N U S , A N D I L LU S T R AT I O N FA C U LT Y M E M B E R B I L D O N OVA N ’ 78 TA K E S U S B E H I N D T H E S C E N E S O F F I T ’ S A N N U A L FA S H I O N S H O W

BY A L E X JOSEPH

Donovan was present for the whole process, from draping through critics’ visits to final selection. His brush-and-ink images capture a feeling, but not specifics: “When you’re doing the work, you’re so in the moment,” he says.

“You don’t have time to think about what you’ve created. It’s only when you go back that you start to see the nuances.”

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It

ress forms in the D classroom are blank slates for the students’ imagination.

was a long journey to the runway.

Students who hoped to present their garments in FIT’s

annual BFA runway show, the Future of Fashion, underwent a grueling process—sketching, draping, sewing.

And sometimes starting all over again. During the spring semester, graduating Fashion Design students worked with industry critics to perfect their pieces. Finally, professionals from the fashion media were brought in to judge the work and make selections for the show, which took place May 5 in the John E. Reeves Great Hall.

At every step, artist, alumnus, and Illustration BFA faculty member Bil Donovan ’78 was there, sketching in brush and ink. Using his signature “less is more” approach, Donovan captured the swirling action and emotion. “I call it ‘docu-fashion,’ because I’m documenting fashion by painting live on-site,” he says.

Donovan is the first artist-in-residence for Christian Dior Beauty, a post he’s held since 2009. He works regularly for Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, Marie Claire, and The New York Times, among other outlets, and has illustrated four books, including a textbook, Advanced Fashion Drawing (Laurence King). He wrote the book on fashion illustration…literally.

Still, he was astounded to witness firsthand the process designers go through. “It was incredible to see the evolution of the student garments—from the genesis of a sketch to seeing it realized as an outfit that the model wears on a runway. I’ve just never seen that before.”

This respect and admiration come through powerfully in his drawings. There’s also a certain something extra, an inimitable “Donovan” quality, and that’s no accident.

“Illustration captures a distinct spirit and an essence,” he says. “It’s a fantasy or exploration, filtered through Smiljana Peros

the imagination of the artist. There’s a visual poetry to illustration that no technology can match.”

Go to hue.fitnyc.edu to see a video about Donovan.

14 hue | fall 2016

Donovan in his Brooklyn studio. He loves to draw live action, he says: “Accidents and the unexpected are the most fun part of doing the work.”

n industry critic works with A students in the classroom.

Completed garments are assembled in the John E. Reeves Great Hall. Industry judges decide which pieces make the final cut. “I thought it looked like a canyon, a valley of dress forms,” Donovan says.

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The best outfits from each specialization are chosen for special recognition.

Last adjustments are made backstage just before the designs make their big debut.

An entire semester’s work culminates in the Future of Fashion runway show, which Donovan rendered for this issue’s cover.

16 hue | fall 2016

It’s All in the Details n December, Jennifer Swanson was at a factory in China reviewing the Israeli designer Kobi Halperin’s spring 2016 collection. Swanson fit each garment on the company’s custom dress form, ensuring that embellishments, lace trims, and layers of silk draped properly. She noticed that the side seams of one jet-black pleated skirt looked unflattering. There wasn’t time to ship additional samples to New York, so on the spot, Swanson improvised a different pleating method. “It’s a lot of pressure when you’re on the other side of the world, making decisions that will affect thousands of garments,” she says.

As vice president of product development and production for Kobi Halperin, Swanson is used to making such decisions swiftly. And Halperin trusts her judgment: they began working together over a decade ago at Elie Tahari, where Halperin was executive creative director.

Halperin’s label, known for its intricate, feminine details and an evening-wear sensibility, ships four collections a year, featuring silk georgette blouses, wrap dresses, and exclusive prints and lace, at prices ranging from $198 to $2,500.

The line first hit high-end department stores, including Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue, in August 2015. It was the most successful

sportswear launch in Bloomingdale’s history.

This year, the collection is being shipped to 90 locations, including 24 specialty stores.

At the company’s office and showroom on Seventh Avenue, Swanson is constantly inspecting samples from boutique factories—small producers of luxury goods—in China, India, Vietnam, and Peru; supervising live model fittings; and translating Halperin’s sketches into not only soft leathers and grosgrain trims, but also dollars and cents. If a

Smiljana Peros

I

How Jennifer Hack Swanson, Marketing: Fashion and Related Industries ’91, turns Kobi Halperin’s sketches into elegant, wearable clothes

Top: Favorites from Kobi Halperin’s pre-fall 2016 collection. Above: Halperin and Swanson (wearing the best-selling London blouse) in the company’s Garment District showroom.

garment costs too much to produce, she finds the source of the overage and comes up with a creative way to fix it. That might mean asking for a volume discount, finding efficiencies in the production line, or switching out an expensive trim. “In the retail market today, there is a price cap,” she says.

“You can’t ask the consumer to pay an exorbitant price just because it costs that much to make it.”

Striking a balance between beauty and profit can be a delicate art. During a fitting in February, Swanson, Halperin, and their team were reviewing an expensive bias-cut dress from the pre-fall 2016 collection (above, second from left). The faux-wrap silk dress had multiple layers that gathered in a tie at the high waist, with a French seam inside.

“We want customers to appreciate details inside and outside the garment,” Swanson explains, and a French seam usually creates a more tailored, elegant look. But in this case, the seam was causing the silk to pucker. Swanson switched to an overlock stitch—which looked better and happened to be less expensive.

Ultimately, Swanson’s acumen and persistence result in beautiful, high-quality pieces that make women—including herself—feel good.

“What I love most about our product,” she says, “is that when you walk in the room, people ask, ‘Where did you get that?’” —Katharine Reece hue.fitnyc.edu

17

i contact: student

THE PERFECT FIT A Technical Design student creates clothing for a special person with ALS—her father

BY ALEX JOSEPH

One night in April 2015,

Caitlin Robbins was helping her father, Michael, walk through their house. His ALS had progressed to the point that he was struggling to get around, and he was leaning on her shoulder. Suddenly he cried out, “My knee!” and fell to the floor. He would never walk again.

It was the moment they had dreaded since his diagnosis in 1997. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, destroys the neurons that control voluntary muscle groups. In the course of the illness, patients lose the ability to walk, talk, swallow, and eventually, to breathe. Most die within five years.

Michael’s case, however, progressed far more slowly. “He’s lived with it for 19 years,” Caitlin says.

“I don’t know of anyone who’s had it longer, except Stephen Hawking.”

Michael was unusual in other ways, too. The former New York City sanitation supervisor has an oddball sense of humor and an idiosyncratic personal style. “He’s very particular about what he wears,” Caitlin says. “We once spent hours at Macy’s looking for just the right velour track suit. He got, like, four. Plus he has a million shoes! I’m sure it’s where I get my interest in fashion.”

Growing up on Staten Island, she created clothes for her American Girl and Barbie dolls, and planned to be a costume designer. Caitlin’s older sister helped with their father’s care (their parents divorced when Caitlin was 15). But Michael’s ALS steadily worsened. Unable to travel, he missed Caitlin’s high school graduation. By 2011, he could barely use his hands.

18 hue | fall 2016

Caitlin earned an associate degree at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles, then returned home to help her dad when her sister got pregnant. In 2014, Caitlin began the Technical Design program at FIT. It was a two-hour trip each way from southern Staten Island, but she loved the coursework. “Patternmaking came easy for me,” she says. “My garments always balanced well. Plus, I like the problem solving and fittings.” She was away most of the day, but she left prepared meals for her father and he was able to take care of himself. Then the fall changed everything.

While Michael recovered in a rehabilitation center, Caitlin negotiated with Medicaid. Her weeks of diligent phone calls weren’t enough: In July, her father was discharged without a professional care plan. Caitlin was responsible for everything from meals to toileting. As it happened, she was slated to begin a summer internship at a prestigious design firm. She sent an anguished email, declining the opportunity.

It took three weeks for Medicaid to initiate two hours a day of care. Caitlin worried about the future. Classes started at the end of August; eventually, she would need a job, which meant more time away.

One day at the movies, she saw a promotion for an innovative living space in New Orleans.

The specialized skilled nursing center is designed so residents can thrive independently. Each is given a tablet computer that can be used to open doors, adjust the thermostat, summon the elevator or caregivers, and many other operations. Similar centers operated in Boston and Georgia; Caitlin

Above and opposite: Father and daughter, then and now. Michael Robbins served as his daughter Caitlin’s fit model for her FIT capstone project, wearing a brown wool jacket and black wool pants modified for a person with ALS. The project benefited her classmates too, says Luz Pascal, who oversees the capstone course for Technical Design. “It made an impact on everyone who saw it. She used it not only to comply with the course requirements but to educate us about ALS.”

RICHARD HOWARD

Technical sketches for clothes to outfit the mobility-impaired Front

Back

Fully Lined ¼" Top Stitch

Front 3 ½" Snap Closures

¼" Top Stitch

Edge Stitch & Top Stitch

Back 2" Waistband

Faux Pocket with ¼" Top Stitch

9" Zipper

Mag Zip 22" Zipper

25" Invisible Zipper

5½ x 1½" Welt Pocket 1¼" Cuffed Hem

was determined to get her father into one, and she applied to all three.

“I don’t know how I passed the fall 2015 semester, because I could barely get to class,” she says. For weeks, she tried to get a wheelchair ramp for the house. The cost was $8,000, and Medicaid wouldn’t cover it. She managed to negotiate with them for 12 hours a day of care, though, and was thus able to get a part-time temp job at Badgley Mischka; the firm eventually hired her. In December, on the last day of the term, she received a call from the Leonard Florence Center for Living in Boston, offering Michael a room.

The move brought a dramatic change to her father’s life. For years, Michael had only left the house to see doctors; at the Leonard Florence Center, nurses help him get around town to shop at Target and to see movies and Red Sox games. Residents can personalize their rooms. “I want mine painted blue!” he told Caitlin, and so it was. She brought him posters of Babe Ruth and Brigitte Bardot, too. But one night, everyone was dressing up to see a play, and Michael had nothing to wear.

Over the years, Caitlin made clothing to accommodate Michael’s needs, including a pair of jeans with a customized elastic waistband. Now he needed dress pants and a blazer. She thought, “Okay, I can do that.”

With the guidance of Assistant Professor Luz Pascal, Caitlin made the creation of her father’s clothing her capstone project. It was the kind of challenge a technical designer relishes. Michael can move his head, torso, and right foot, but he’s otherwise immobile. A caregiver can guide one arm into a jacket easily, but the second can be difficult; 20 hue | fall 2016

14" Invisible Zipper at Side Seam

pants are equally tough. Michael will always need assistance getting dressed, but that shouldn’t rule out fashionable clothes, Caitlin says: “I didn’t want the outfit to be visually different. It should be functional, but still stylish.”

For the pants, she created a concealed zipper in the side seam from waist to below the hip so they can slip on. The jacket has an innovative hidden closure in back to make putting it on simpler, and a front zipper that uses magnets to ease the tricky insertion into the slider. Pascal praises her discipline, saying, “It was a lot of fitting and pattern corrections, but she was dedicated and never gave up.” Caitlin admits she’s not great at sewing (though she’s improving), but hand skills aren’t the focus in technical design; students learn instead how to engineer garments for fit, size, and industry standards. Michael’s clothes do fit, and he likes them—a lot. “They get a lot of compliments,” he says. “No one can tell that they have extra zippers.” Others liked them, too. Investors came to the department’s spring 2016 capstone presentation and expressed interest. She’s currently pursuing a patent for the jacket design.

Caitlin graduated from FIT in May, and with the assistance of the Florence Center, her father attended the ceremony. In fact, the center’s director of activities drove Michael to the Javits Center herself. Caitlin spends every weekend she can in Boston. Unfortunately, the Badgley Mischka office restructured, and she lost her job, but she’s exploring opportunities to turn her capstone project into her vocation. This fall, she’ll show new designs, including women’s wear, at an ALS fashion show upstate. In September, her dad’s going to Boston’s ALS and MS Walk for Living, and he wants to look good. ◆

Above: The jacket Caitlin made can be slid over Michael’s head and zipped discreetly up the back. The pants feature a zipper hidden in the seam to make dressing easier. “Now that I live in the ALS residence with nine other pALS, I like that my morning routine is quick and easy for the shahbaz that gets me ready,” Michael says.

Below: Caitlin and Michael at her FIT graduation in May.

RICHARD HOWARD

The call went out early this summer for designers of color to apply for the chance to present their fashions gratis during New York Fashion Week in September.

A CHAMPION FOR

DIVERSITY IN FASHION With Harlem’s Fashion Row, Brandice Henderson Daniel, International Trade and Marketing for the Fashion Industries, helps designers of color break into a very white industry

By Constance C.R. White AREKAH THE GODDESS PHOTOGRAPHY

Who could turn that down? By simply applying, designers who likely could not get a Condé Nast editrix or an Italian blogger to return their DM, let alone text them back, got a door opened by Harlem’s Fashion Row. Brandice Daniel, chief executive and founder of HFR, as it’s known, had assembled an influential cast of six judges to choose four designers to show their frocks at Fashion Week. Imagine. Sort of like The Voice for the fashion set. It’s the kind of bold move that Daniel, a Memphis transplant and former apparel production manager, has used to develop her company into a factor in the industry, making fashion’s often bumpy road a little smoother for her clients. Founded in 2007, HFR is a socially progressive business that aids and promotes multicultural designers through a variety of initiatives, including juried runway shows, pop-up shops, and luncheons with fashion editors. The September runway show was HFR’s ninth.

It takes an inordinate amount of resources and savvy—and a smidgen of, let’s face it, dumb luck— to be on the same calendar as Herrera, Lauren, and Klein, and get people to take a look-see. That’s where Daniel and the all-star coterie she assembled enter: Elle.com senior fashion editor Nikki Ogunnaike, Cosmopolitan senior fashion editor Tiffany Reid, stylist and creative director Shiona Turini (who co-styled Queen Bey’s “Formation” video), and start-up investor and author Lauren Maillian ’07.

The group is rounded out by Essence exec Julee Wilson and Latina Creative Director Ebby Antigua.

Black, Latino, and Native American designers face racism and exclusion that their white counterparts don’t. “We’re not in the room,” Daniel says.

“If you’re not in the room, then how do you ever get considered?”

In addition to the Fashion Week presentations, HFR also helps designers with retailing and marketing. Daniel hit the road in 2014, organizing panel discussions at historically black colleges and the University of Tennessee, where she received a bachelor’s degree in fashion merchandising before coming to FIT. Most aspiring designers have no idea what it takes to break into fashion, and Daniel’s band of hue.fitnyc.edu 21

Designers of color represent 1 percent of the designers at major department stores. With her organization, Harlem’s Fashion Row, Brandice Daniel works to change that. HFR produces fashion shows, creates pop-up shops, and arranges events to promote and educate multicultural designers.

Clockwise from top left: For HFR’s “conversations” series, Daniel interviewed the president and CEO of the CFDA, Steven Kolb, at NYU’s Schomburg Center for Black Culture in Harlem; former CFDA CEO Fern Mallis attended. Daniel introduces an HFR show at the Apollo Theater.

Media personalities Tai Beauchamp, Jacque Reid, and Shaun Robinson join Daniel at the 2014 HFR Fashion Show and Style Awards. In 2009, HFR produced a show on City College’s campus, featuring Dominican designer Jose Duran. At its 2011 Style Awards, HFR recognized model Tyson Beckford, pictured here with his agent Bethann Hardison. Daniel featured designer Kimberly Goldson ’00 in HFR’s 2013 fashion show; the event took place at Lincoln Center. HFR awarded model Beverly Johnson (blue dress) with the organization’s ICON 360 Award (given to an influencer in the areas of fashion/beauty, business, philanthropy, and entertainment) in 2014. Johnson and Daniel are surrounded by representatives from Prudential, which partnered with HFR to support the event.

Opposite: Daniel (second from left) with stylish guests at a 2015 fashion show.

22 hue | fall 2016

travelers—comprising editors, stylists, and retailers from Saks Fifth Avenue and Macy’s—were there to give them the reality check, in a friendly, encouraging way.

Daniel has been adroit at pulling in marketers to support her cause. McDonald’s may seem an unlikely sponsor for the HFR’s chic pop-up shops in Manhattan until you recall that the Golden Arches was one of the first multinational corporate sponsors of Fashion Week over a decade ago. The shops, where black designers recruited by Daniel sell their wares, have been staged three times since 2013.

“Designers are a lot of work,” she adds. “The most difficult challenge is convincing them that old ways don’t work anymore. This is a new day and they have to have direct access to their consumer.” But she offers her consultation services regardless, and sometimes free of cost. She is well aware of the financial strains that can beset even the most talented practitioners. She believes every designer should at least have three streams of revenue.

A pretty woman with a ready laugh and the round face of a baby Janet Jackson, Daniel wants to see more designers of color creating sustainable businesses and rising like the cream atop a McDonald’s Frappé Mocha. Despite the Tracy Reeses and Byron Larses of the fashion world, their numbers are achingly few.

But talent abounds—in all shades and cultural backgrounds. Kimberly Goldson ’00 creates modern, sleek sportswear pieces that bare the skin but still look right at a desk. Fe Noel has a deft touch with unexpected prints and classic daytime looks that evoke old Hollywood glamour in wide-leg pants and sexy boy shorts. When Daniels started HFR a decade ago she conducted a broad survey of multicultural designers. She looked at auspicious sources of industry lifeblood like the CFDA Fashion Fund and major department stores. What she found at retail was alarming. Nonwhite designers, she said, represented less than 1 percent of the dozens of brands carried. “Blacks were even less than that.”

It’s hard to see talented designers “come into the market, then leave, then they’re doing something else,” she says. “It’s heartbreaking.”

But breaking hearts aside, the issue, says longtime fashion journalist and author Teri Agins, is not race but radical change.

“Brandice has been incredibly important in her public relations role because the hardest thing for designers is to get eyeballs,” Agins says. “Her promotional events that give these designers a showcase are very important. But the black thing— it’s not about that. The deck is stacked against the young designer.”

Retail consolidation, fewer media options, and America’s lovefest with casual fashion represent three macro-trends that make it tougher than ever for small design houses, Agins observes. Victoria Beckham recently ditched her towering heels for sneakers. Who would ever have thought this could happen? The designer and former pop princess basically made a lifestyle choice. It’s safe to say she won’t be switching back to heels for daily wear anytime soon. It is, Agins says, one of several “disruptor” events that have changed the game.

Her advice to designers: Work for somebody else or follow the example of Christian Siriano, who’s launched collaborations with companies like Payless and Lane Bryant since establishing his business.

Collaborating is already on Daniel’s radar, though perhaps not in exactly the way Agins would suggest.

“I’m at the place now where we have to create our own opportunities,” Daniel says. When she started HFR, it was with a vision for runway shows that would help designers of color stand in the light. She wants to now go further than publicity and start bringing dollars to designers. Her plan is to establish an HFR clothing label by next year, potentially in partnership with a manufacturer or with the backing of an investor. HFR will produce collaborations—there’s that word again—with creators like LaQuan Smith.

Smith, a gifted African-American designer with an exciting aesthetic that has attracted support from Macy’s, André Leon Talley, and Serena Williams, is still in need of a solid base of financial and management support.

Meanwhile, this summer, HFR University, as it’s called, introduced a series of master classes taught by fashion professionals that can be taken in person or online. Instruction is aimed at adults who want to transition into fashion careers.

This fall, HFR launches an e-commerce site for multicultural designers.

For the first ten years, “I built the brand,” Daniel says. “Over the next ten years I want to build the business. My ultimate goal is to have an HFR label, work with designers, and have a really fair profit split.”

For the designer evangelist, who quit her production job with no financial cushion four years after starting HFR, these big steps were not as daunting as they seem. “HFR found me,” Daniel says. “I wasn’t looking for it. In life, you have this one idea and you know that out of all your ideas, there’s something special about it. For me it was HFR.” ◆

hue.fitnyc.edu 23

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CROWN JEWELS 24 hue | fall 2016

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Many members of New York’s Milliners Guild are FIT alumni. Hue asked noted photographer Amy Lombard ’12 to shoot a photo essay about them

BY ALEX JOSEPH

G

reat hatmakers are the unicorns of the fashion world.

Not just anyone can turn out a top-notch toque.

Every master milliner is also, in some way, a genius.

One warm summer evening, this formulation played out when members of the Milliners Guild and their pals came to City Lore, a small storefront space on First Street in Manhattan. The occasion was the opening of Mad Hatters: New York Hats and Hatmakers, an exhibition of tip-top toppers from the Big Apple. The show was designed to appeal to every possible headwear fan, from the artisans who create hats to those who wear them as costume. Court jester chapeaux, church lady hats, a hoodie, a shtreimel (worn by Ultra-Orthodox Jews), and even a couple of stylish hijabs were on display. Members of the Guardian Angels showed up because—that’s right—one of their signature red berets was being exhibited, right beneath a firefighter’s helmet.

The guild, an organization founded in 2005 to raise the public profile of the millinery industry, counts many FIT alumni among its members. A few designed or loaned their creations to the show. “It’s not just about hats,” said Carlos Lewis ’85, who contributed a dazzling confection rendered in the colors of the Jamaican flag. “It’s about history—and culture.”

Hue asked hot art photographer Amy Lombard ’12 to capture the proceedings. Photo District News Magazine recently named her a new and emerging photographer to watch. She specializes in subcultures— yo-yo enthusiasts, members of the Harry Potter fan club, hermit-crab race aficionados. “I can be put in any situation and not really be fazed by anything,” she said.

Rising above the crowd appeared an enormous blue bow, sparkling with glitter, attached to Rosemary Ponzo, Fashion Design ’82, a stylist, costumer, and hat designer extraordinaire. “How do you keep that on?” an admirer asked. “The wonders of tape,” Ponzo replied, and she wandered off into the night.

7

1. Linda Ashton, Millinery Certificate ’97, 2. Samantha Nieves, Millinery Certificate ’15. 3. Design by Carlos Lewis ’85. 4. Evetta Petty, Fashion Buying and Merchandising ’79, Kathy Anderson, Marketing: Fashion and Related Industries ’83, Millinery Certificate ’06, Michael McCants, Millinery Certificate ’10.

5. Design by Evetta Petty ’79. 6. Sally Caswell, Millinery Certificate ’08.

7. Lisa Shaub with young guest. 8. Carlos Lewis, Fashion Design ’85. 9. Hats on display. 10. Rosemary Ponzo, Fashion Design ’82.

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hue.fitnyc.edu 25

QUALITY CONTROL

A beloved former professor brings her housewares expertise to cyberspace

S

ome people never slow down. They seem driven by a depthless well of pep, flair, and lust for life. Pat Breen is one of those people.

Her career in the fashion business culminated in 20 years as a professor of Fashion Buying and Merchandising at FIT. Since retiring 15 years ago, she has been sharing her knowledge of product quality on the web.

Breen’s career began in 1958 in her hometown of Buffalo, NY, as a buyer in the gift gallery of L.L. Berger, a high-end department store. She moved to New York in 1970 to work in buying and product development for Morris Moskowitz, a fine leather accessories maker; with her eye for trends and style, she helped bring a youthful spark to the classic brand. She taught evening and weekend classes at FIT in the mid-’70s, and in 1977, she began full time as an assistant professor.

One of her favorite classes was Merchandising Accessories, which gave designers business tools.

“It was a three-hour class, and we’d sit there for

six hours,” she recalls. “And still those kids were eager for more.”

A sabbatical in 1986 saw her dashing up and down the Eastern Seaboard, visiting factories to study how products were made. “So many people think if you pay more, you get a better product,” she says. “That’s simply not true.”

Nowadays, as hard product information gives way to flashy advertising and inflated claims, she believes this knowledge is more valuable than ever.

“Nothing is labeled anymore, and when it is, you can’t trust it,” she says. “It’s frightful. And sales help knows nothing.”

But quality still does exist, and Breen’s website, Judge for Yourself (dearfriend.buzz), a comprehensive resource for information about a range of home products, helps shoppers suss out good value in materials and craftsmanship. “I never want to tell people what to buy,” she says. “I want to give them thorough information to help them judge for themselves.” —Jonathan Vatner

Judge

for Yourself

WAR E PAT BREE N’S ADVI CE FOR SELE CTIN G COOK

 Cast iron holds heat well and is

inexpensive. But it can rust, stain, or pit, so it should be dried right away. “Every now and then I wipe on some oil with a paper towel and heat the pan for a few minutes,” Breen says.

 Enameled cast iron, though

expensive, combines the benefits of cast iron with waterproof enamel—and it makes a great serving dish, too.

 Copper is highly conductive, so it

heats evenly; however, it reacts with acidic food if it not lined with tin, stainless steel, or nickel. It is beautiful but tarnishes easily and should be polished.

 Aluminum is lightweight and almost as conductive as copper, but it can react with acidic food, and it can warp.

 Stainless steel, an alloy of iron,

chrome, and nickel, is nonreactive, easy to clean, and durable, but it does not cook evenly. “If it’s aluminum inside stainless steel, it’s a winner,” Breen says. Look for the number of plys, or layers, of metal. The more, the better.

 Nonstick pans are convenient,

but Breen despises them: At very high temperatures, the fluorocarbon coating emits fumes toxic enough to kill birds.

 Ceramic nonstick pans have a nontoxic silicon dioxide coating, but

Breen isn’t convinced that they’re safe.

Breen, second from right, teaching in 1978.

26 hue | fall 2016

SIX DECADES OF DESIGN

Wallace Sloves, Apparel Design ’53, looks back—and forward

T

his fall begins the 54th year that Wallace Sloves has taught at FIT.

He trained numerous current Fashion Design faculty when they studied at the college, including Professor Colette Wong, Assistant Professor Christopher Uvenio, and Adjunct Instructor Gerard Dellova, as well as Joanne Arbuckle, who recently retired as dean for the School of Art and Design to become deputy to the president for Industry Partnerships and Collaborative Programs. Sloves’s students continue to regard him as an expert, caring instructor, one of the best they’ve had.

“Professor Sloves conducted our class as he did his company design team,” Arbuckle says. “His expectations were high, but he would do anything to help you achieve your dream.”

He was a boldfaced name in the bridal industry for decades. After graduating, Sloves worked for the mass-market fashion line Suzy Perette, first as a sketcher, then in production and trims. He was drafted into the Army in 1956 and trained as a medic but ended up as an art director in Frankfurt, Germany, creating invitations for events hosted by generals and their wives.

In the ’60s, back in New York, he designed award-winning wedding gowns for Joy Time and misses’ dresses for Stacy Ames, then launched a bridalwear firm with fellow FIT faculty member Charles Contreri, selling to Bergdorf Goodman, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Kleinfeld, and designing custom gowns as well.

Sloves closed the business when Contreri died in 2006. His seven grandchildren are grown, and his bright red hair has faded, but he doesn’t plan on retiring from teaching. “I give back what I got from FIT,” he says. “It’s always been very rewarding to help.” —Jonathan Vatner Above: This top-selling gown, displayed in the window of Bergdorf Goodman in the ’70s, is made of double Qiana jersey with ostrich and coque feathers. Sloves was an early adopter of Qiana, a silky synthetic fiber created by DuPont.

Sloves, shortly after he graduated in 1953.

Left: Sloves’s final project as an FIT student was made of multicolored stripes of Bianchini silk, lined in pink silk taffeta and with a black silk jersey top.

Right: A gown designed by Sloves for Joy Time, in satin edged with Alençon lace with a cathedral veil, graced the June/July 1963 cover of Modern Bride.

Sloves at FIT in 2016.

Sloves is also an awardwinning painter. He entered five juried art shows in 2014 and took home the top prize in four of them.

RECENT PORTRAIT BY SMILJANA PEROS

hue.fitnyc.edu 27

MR. PERSONALITY TALENT, SAVVY, AND CHARM PROVE A WINNING COMBINATION FOR DENNIS BASSO, FASHION BUYING AND MERCHANDISING ’73

BY RAQUEL LANERI

DENNIS BASSO ’73 is living his best life. Well into his fourth decade in business, the designer has a brand-new flagship boutique on Madison Avenue and a fashion empire that includes the highest of high-end furs, ready-to-wear, and a robust mass-market QVC collection. His roster of fabulous clients spans Washington power players (Hillary Clinton), New York socialites (Martha Stewart), and Hollywood ingénues (Olivia Palermo and Gabrielle Union, who wore a strapless Basso for her wedding to basketball star Dwyane Wade in September 2015).

“It’s an exciting time,” the famed furrier says, sitting in his elegant wood-paneled office atop his four-story, 10,500square-foot Upper East Side shop. Not that Basso is getting ready to rest on his laurels. “I’m thinking of taking a Harvard MBA business course,” he muses. “It’s a little bit of a time commitment, but I think that would be fun.”

Fun is the operative word for Basso. His outrageous furs, big bold shapes, and over-the-top costume jewelry attract such flamboyant figures as Dynasty legend Joan Collins and the New York Housewives. But the silver-haired, perennially tanned larger-than-life designer offers more than just flash. Since launching his line in 1983, he’s proved something of a trailblazer, anticipating the rise of the trend-driven fur, the role of the designer as reality-TV star, and the unabashed mixing of high design with fast, mass-market fashion.

“I don’t think I’m the savviest of savvy, but I think I have a great knowledge,” he says of his business acumen.

“I was very smart early on to connect myself with partners who knew the business and celebrities through friends of friends who became clients. The fashion industry thinks this is all very new, but it’s stuff we’ve always done.”

28 hue | fall 2016

Basso grew up in Lake Hopatcong, NJ, an only child who always dreamed of designing dresses. He pulls out a sketch of a wedding gown he did when he was 6 years old, signed in tentative script and marked with a price: $500,000. “How great is this?” he laughs. “I was surrounded by my mother and her sisters and my adult girl cousins, and they were all quite fashionable and well groomed,” he adds. “[Fashion] seemed very natural to me.”

Yet, it wasn’t until college that he really let loose in terms of his own style. “When I was at home I was under my mother’s rule. Khaki pants, a navy blazer, a blue buttondown shirt and penny loafers—that was the regimented costume,” he recalls. For his first day at FIT, he pulled out all the stops, buying a plaid Eisenhower jacket and I’D LIKE TO DO checked bell-bottoms at Bloomingdale’s, and grow- SOM ETHING FOR ing his hair into a big Afro.

THE QUEEN OF “I thought I was the end-all and I walked into the Feld- ENGLA ND. SHE’S man building, and I looked across the lobby and there ALWAYS PERFECT. was a fella—a little taller, a lot slimmer—with the same outfit on! I was crushed!”

(Forty-plus years later, Basso and his doppelganger, Joe Castaldo, Textile and Apparel Marketing ’73, are still best friends. Castaldo is president of the Style Council, a textile design firm.)

After graduation, Basso—who studied merchandising and buying, not design—got a job at a fur company packing boxes and later managing sales and retail accounts, and he unexpectedly fell in love with pelts.

“When you think of fur, you think of beautiful women wrapped in evening gowns dripping in furs and diamonds.

It’s luxurious,” he says. He saw an opening in more trend-driven furs—draped, dyed, used more like fabric— and in 1983, after three years of working on the business side, he struck out on his own. His first runway show drew such stars as Ivana and Donald Trump, Prince Egon von Furstenberg and his second wife, Lynn Marshall, and pop singer Neil Sedaka, who all became clients and friends.

“Slowly it just grew,” the designer says, from showbiz icons like Liz Taylor, Diana Ross, and Joan Rivers, to newer talent like Sofia Vergara and Eva Longoria. “The kindest, the sweetest was Meryl Streep,” he says of the ladies he’s worked with. “We did her coats for The Devil Wears Prada.

She was perfection.”

Though fur remains the brand’s backbone, Basso has since diversified into bridal gowns, cocktail dresses, and

ERICA LANSNER

less-formal wear—not to mention his QVC line. Launched in 1993, it’s now a formidable venture, with millions of fans in the United Kingdom, Italy, and Germany. In 2009, he received the QVC Ambassador Award. And he’s had a banner few years, far beyond business. In 2011, he married his partner of over 20 years, Michael Cominotto. Earlier this year, the couple oversaw the restoration of a nondenominational chapel inside New York-Presbyterian Hospital. FIT awarded him an honorary degree in 2013, and this May, Basso received the college’s Designer of the Year award.

But the indefatigable designer still has one or two more items to cross off his bucket list, Harvard MBA aside.

“I’d like to do something for the Queen of England,” he admits. “She’s always perfect. I like perfect. I like finished and tailored… But I better hurry up!”

Visit hue.fitnyc.edu for a video profile of Basso.

hue.fitnyc.edu 29

Human/ Nature

“ Manhattan. Sometimes, from beyond the skyscrapers, across thousands of high walls, the cry of a tugboat finds you in your insomnia in the middle of the night, and you remember that this desert of iron and cement is an island.” ―Albert Camus

In an interdisciplinary course, students focus their cameras on New York’s natural environment

BY LINDA ANGRILLI

The New York area, one of the most urban environments on the planet, includes a range of areas where animals and plants survive—and sometimes thrive—despite the pollution, crowding, noise, and loss of natural habitat.

Two FIT professors—marine mammal ecologist and SUNY Distinguished Service Professor Dr. Arthur Kopelman, who has studied whale and seal populations off Eastern Long Island for 30 years, and acclaimed photographer Keith Ellenbogen, known for his stunning images of underwater creatures and ecosystems—developed an innovative interdisciplinary course that turns the unique local environment into a teaching tool.

The course, Ecology and Photography: Sustainable New York, requires students to understand how nature works in and around the city and to present it in a way that brings urban environmental issues to life for a broader audience.

Throughout the semester, the class visited a range of ecosystems in and around the city, closely observing both their astonishing beauty and the dangers posed by human encroachment and climate change.

Here’s a small sampling of the students’ photos. For more, visit hue.fitnyc.edu.

30 hue | fall 2016

LOVE THY NEIGHBOR When you see a pigeon, don’t think vermin, think wildlife. They’ve adapted amazingly well to urban living, nesting on tall buildings the way their ancestors did on cliffs. Pigeons mate for life, and sometimes become food for New York’s red-tailed hawks and peregrine falcons. Photo by Jose Valencia, International Trade and Marketing for the Fashion Industries ’16.

OH, CANADA! Canada geese gather in large numbers in urban and suburban areas where there’s open land and water, including golf courses and parks, where they’re often considered pests. Where food is available all year, many no longer fly south for the winter. Photo by Marian Zambrano, Graphic Design ’16.

Triptych by Kaylee Santos, Fashion Business Management ’17.

NATIVE NEW YORKER The prickly pear, Opuntia humifusa, is the only cactus native to the New York area.

Its fruit, seeds, and stems provide food for a variety of wildlife.

Photo by Kaylee Santos.

TO LIVE AND DIE IN NY The cycle of life goes on, even on Central Park’s Great Lawn, where this robin met its end. The park is one of the best birding spots in the U.S., with 192 species passing through on their seasonal migrations. Photo by Josephine Crochon.

A NEST WITH A VIEW Ospreys in Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, in sight of human dwellings across the bay in Queens. These raptors nest up high, free from predators, and plunge feet first into the water to catch fish. Their numbers have been growing since DDT and other pesticides were banned. The area is among the world’s top spots for birding, with 332 species seen there in the last 25 years. Photo by Marian Zambrano.

TRAINS, PLANES, AND… In urban areas, plant and animal habitats rub up against manmade stresses. Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge is adjacent to JFK International Airport, where planes constantly spew pollutants and noise. Still, the refuge’s 9,000 acres of open bay, salt marsh, mudflats, fields, and woods support a wide variety of species, including diamondback terrapins and other native reptiles and amphibians, water birds and raptors, horseshoe crabs, and 60 species of butterflies. Photo by Jose Valencia.

GOODNIGHT, TRASH The sun setting on the Hudson River looks less romantic when you note the garbage strewn on the shoreline near Pier 42.

Photo by Jose Valencia.

WHO LET THE TURTLES OUT? Unfortunately, when pet turtles get too big, people sometimes release them in parks and other areas.

Many of the turtles in Central Park are abandoned pets or their descendants. The red-eared slider is on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s list of “100 of the World’s Worst Invasive Alien Species.”

Photo by Stephanie Navarrete, Fashion Design ’18.

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alumni notes

1949 Ethel Gall Baenisch, Textile Design, retired in 1997 from a 40-year career as an occupational therapist. She freelanced as a textile designer for a few years out of FIT, picking up jobs for Original Designs, Luxite Silk Company, Kopp Textiles, Finn Fabrics, and Stafford Fabrics. She also designed ties for Harry Rubin, which she liked most because it wasn’t necessary to make a repeat.

1986 Barry McCaffrey, Marketing: Fashion and Related Industries, was named senior vice president of spa sales at Naturopathica, which makes plantbased skin and hair care products for spas. He oversees the wholesale division and is responsible for sales and marketing strategy, partner relationship management, business development, and sales force training. He has worked in the spa industry for most of his career, previously at Clarisonic, Clarins, Comfort Zone, and Repêchage.

THE FABULOUS FIFTIES Sheila Melhado Stewart, Textile Design ’56

1987

Baenisch designed these ties shortly after graduating.

1967 Charlesetta Wicks, Apparel Design, was given a retrospective of her fashion designs and paintings at the African American Museum in Hempstead, NY, last year. She came to FIT in her 40s and interned with Wesley Tann, one of the first African-American designers to own his own New York City boutique. She designed outfits for several music groups, including Jerry Butler and the Peaches, a soul band popular in the ’60s and ’70s. The title of the exhibition, Cocoon Metamorphosis Butterfly, references her love of butterfly motifs. “From that lowly position in life, [the butterfly] finally emerged as a lighthearted beautiful creature and shared his beauty and lightness with us,” Wicks says. “I think I’m obsessed with butterflies because I am one.”

Wicks’ fashion designs and paintings in Cocoon Metamorphosis Butterfly.

32 hue | fall 2016

Lisa Rochelle Hackman Freda, Advertising and Communications, is one of the top cake designers in the country, according to Martha Stewart Weddings.

Laid off in 2009 from her job as an equity research analyst at Lehman Brothers, she taught herself to bake professionally and founded Sweet Grace Cake Design.

Now she and her staff of three bake up to 20 cakes a week, for milestone birthdays, corporate events, and weddings.

Her sculptural cakes have replicated briefcases, wine bottles, handbags, and paint cans in the act of pouring.

Reality TV fans might recognize her work on Mob Wives and David Tutera’s CELEBrations, for which she created Vanessa Williams’s bridal shower and Coco Austin and Ice-T’s baby shower cakes. Her next project: a line of contemporary christening gowns and other special occasion dresses for girls called Precious Darlings.

A cake shaped like a character from the Despicable Me/Minions franchise.

From left: The Stewarts created this ribbon design for the swimwear division of Henry Glass, Inc., in 1984. Part of a 1984 collection of motorcycle designs for home furnishings. Their portrait was taken by Ton Looman in 1980 for the Dutch fashion newspaper Cover.

Talk about a coincidence.

For the spring 2015 cover of Hue, to commemorate FIT’s 70th anniversary, we chose one yearbook photo per graduating class, to show at a glance how student style has changed since the college was founded in 1944. We unwittingly included renowned textile designer Sheila Stewart. Her husband, Lee Stewart, who has taught Textile/Surface Design at FIT since 1976, saw the photo and got in touch.

The Stewarts designed textiles for decades in New York and Amsterdam. Sheila served as vice president of the FIT Alumni Association in the ’90s and won the Mortimer C. Ritter Award in 1985 and the Textile/Surface Design Department Award in 1993 for her accomplishments.

Lee still teaches, and Sheila is now retired.

They found success through innovation.

They made prints with cyanotype, Zip-A-Tone, airbrushes, photocopiers, and early computers, tools that architects and graphic designers, but not textile designers, were using. “They probably look primitive now,” Sheila says, “but we thought they were hot stuff, and our customers were amazed.”

Her memories of the Garment Center reveal just how much things have changed. “There were about 2,000 fabric converters [companies Top: Stewart’s yearbook photo.

Above: A tropical-inspired pattern. that dye and finish fabric] in the area. If you stood on the corner at lunchtime and told someone you weren’t happy with your job, somebody would overhear you and say, ‘Are you looking for a job? Call this person.’

You’d have a new job by the next day.”

Her first salary, at Marcus Brothers, a converter, was $40 a week. On Fridays, she would lunch with her former FIT classmates. “We’d check our portfolios in a subway locker—at that time there were lockers in the subway station on 40th and Seventh—and we’d meet at Horn & Hardart, or Schrafft’s, or Chock Full o’ Nuts and catch up about our jobs.”

alumni notes

1996 Karen Kochman Nielsen, Packaging Design, founded Dandy Pack, lightweight cardboard furniture for home staging, the act of furnishing a property for sale to help it sell faster and for more money. Dandy Pack furniture folds up flat; canvas slipcovers in five different colors make it look realistic. She came up with the concept in 2005: as a home stager, her profits were being funneled into buying furniture that was heavy and difficult to move.

2003 Alicia Goodwin, Jewelry Design, Fashion Design ’02, sold ten styles from her jewelry line, Lingua Nigra, to the Smithsonian Institution for the gift shop of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, opening this year in Washington, D.C. Working in brass, gold, and silver, she takes inspiration from nature and brings in texture by etching with acid or using a firing technique called reticulation.

AMAZING GRACE (JONES) Robert Greene, Graphic Design ’01

1997

1999 Yuka Saito, Jewelry Design, creates naturalistic pieces, mostly from polypropylene, in her Upper West Side studio. She is inspired by nature but does not aim for verisimilitude. Her jewelry has sold in numerous gallery shows and resides in the permanent collections of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the Museum of Arts and Design in New York.

Mane of Gold, etched brass and sterling silver wire, plated with 22k gold, 21/4 inches high.

2004 Rumaldo Medina, Fashion Design, creates fashion illustrations for TV and special events. He drew guests’ portraits at the launch party for Design Your Life by Rachel Roy at her Beverly Hills home; made sketches at a private runway show at the Versace store in Costa Mesa, CA, to be given to VIPs; and was filmed drawing Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner’s wedding for a TV special. He also created illustrations that were used as set pieces for a fashion designer’s desk on The Bold and the Beautiful—and was dismayed when, during a climactic scene, they were thrown into the fireplace.

Andrew Boyle

Denise Stoughton, Home Products Development, Interior Design ’95, created SnapShop, an app that automates the arduous task of comparison shopping, an essential practice for home products producers. Usually comp shopping requires scribbling copious notes in retail stores and transferring them to an unwieldy spreadsheet. With SnapShop, users scan barcodes, tap through menus, and take photos to collect information. A reporting tool converts the data into graphs and charts for easy presentation. Developing and testing the software has been a challenge. “I designed curtains for a living.

I’m not some MIT smartypants,” Stoughton says. “I went from soft goods to software.”

Jones’s body paint glowed bright white under the bluish light of the stage.

Last summer, freelance makeup artist Robert Greene received an assignment email that seemed too good to be true. He was asked to do the body paint for Grace Jones, the Jamaican musician/actress/supermodel he has idolized since his FIT days, for her performances at the 2015 Afropunk festival in Brooklyn. A few days later, he found himself six inches from Jones herself, with just half an hour to paint her entire body. “If you show any hesitation or fear, someone of her caliber is going to sniff you out,” he says. He did a tribal twist on Keith Haring’s legendary collaboration with Jones and Robert Mapplethorpe, painting inch-thick stripes of white MAC Chromacake all over her skin.

Although he has made up numerous celebrities—Iman, Emily Blunt, Taylor Swift, and Mariah Carey, to name a few—expressing himself on the skin of this artistic icon was a career high. “Maybe my whole life went toward preparing me for that moment,” he says.

2005

Saito sculpted the Blue Ripple Necklace from polyester used in medical equipment. It was shown at Mobilia Gallery in Cambridge, MA.

Medina’s illustration of Rachel Roy at her book launch.

Yoshiaki Mochizuki, Restoration, had his third solo exhibition this summer at Marlborough Gallery in Chelsea. His textured paintings layer gesso, burnishing clay, ink, pigments, and precious metal leafing. The surfaces are scored with a needle, resulting in detailed patterns that cut through the layers of media, evoking geological strata and erosion.

His paintings are always hung at 5 feet, 9 inches, as an analogue for his head or face. His work was included in MoMA PS1’s Greater New York show in 2015.

Untitled 6.6.2016, gesso on board, clay, and moon gold leaf, 18 by 18 inches.

hue.fitnyc.edu 33

alumni notes

2013

Jennifer Ferrise, Advertising and Marketing Communications, Fashion Merchandising Management ’09, has worked at InStyle magazine since she graduated. As associate features editor, she writes short pieces for the print and online magazines, produces video, and comes up with questions for the InStyle channel of the Trivia Crack Kingdoms app. She writes a number of recurring pages, including a behindthe-scenes look at each month’s cover shoot, and she edits a Q&A with a fashion designer and a page devoted to full-figure fashion. Success at the magazine, she says, requires “being obsessive about pop culture and fashion”—not to mention hard work and long hours.

Kristin Archambeau, Advertising and Marketing Communications, is an account executive at Hunter Public Relations in New York, representing wine brands in the E&J Gallo portfolio.

She devours online and print media, keeps in touch with editors, and executes campaigns tied to holidays and consumer trends (summer 2016 was all about the frosé, a frozen drink made with rosé). She also does experiential marketing to consumers; for the Dark Horse wine brand, her team created a “tasting stable” from a shipping container that made appearances at music festivals around the country. She has worked at Hunter for three and a half years, including an FIT internship.

The Look

HER 10 BEST EVER!

Selena Gomez

10 8 Before performing “Come & Get It” at the Billboard Music Awards, Gomez posed in this Atelier Versace look with playful fluorescent piping.

“Versace gowns have architecture, structure, and edge,” she said. (2013)

“I love that this Rodarte dress balances unexpected color combinations with a simple silhouette,” says Young. Mesh and satin Giuseppe Zanotti Design booties echoed the downtown vibe. (2015)

6

The brilliant tanzanite color of this Calvin Klein Collection Grammys gown was a nod to Michelle Pfeiffer’s blue dress in the 1983 drama Scarface. Says designer Francisco Costa, “It was gorgeous against Selena’s skin tone.” (2016)

4 2 Four years before the singer released her hit single “Good for You,” she was already “doing it up like Midas” at the AMAs in pale gold Giorgio Armani with Jimmy Choo heels and a Judith Leiber bag. (2011)

Gomez turned to Dolce & Gabbana for her red-carpet couple début with then boyfriend Justin Bieber at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party.

Bieber matched his pocket square to the color of her dress. Awww. (2011)

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I n S T Y L E M AY 2 0 1 6

9

“This Giorgio Armani Privé gown was super-modern,” says her stylist, Kate Young.

“But it was more of a frame for her insane body than a conscious fashion moment.” (2014)

7

Ferrise wrote this InStyle piece about Selena Gomez’s “10 Best Ever” red carpet looks.

Brittany Muraca, Fashion Merchandising Management, is a business planner for handbags and small leather goods at Michael Kors, working on location planning and inventory management for the wholesale accounts with Macy’s and Lord & Taylor. She pays attention to cultural and geographical differences in taste, as well as seasonal trends, to ensure that each store carries what customers want, and she makes sure her segment is profitable. One advantage of working in accessories, according to Muraca: she doesn’t have to worry about the complexities The Dunn medium suede of sizing. saddlebag.

34 hue | fall 2016

Unless you’ve been living in a cave for the past decade, you probably know about BuzzFeed, the insanely popular news and entertainment website whose viral stories, lists, videos, and quizzes generate 200 billion views a month, about three times that of The New York Times website. Augusta Falletta, senior beauty editor at BuzzFeed, manages a team that creates service-oriented pieces, tests products, publishes makeup tutorials, and comments on trends. She offers a behind-the-scenes look into what makes those articles just so darn addictive.

who isn’t well represented in traditional beauty publications. Even people

1

who hate makeup.

A patent leather bodice made this demurely cut Valentino number feel “a little naughty,” says Young.

Platinum Charlotte Olympia peep-toes played up the shine factor. (2015)

“For the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, we wanted her to be dressed up but still sexy and cool,” says Young. Enter Louis Vuitton’s Nicolas Ghesquière, who was inspired by biker style for this studded custom creation. “I felt like a true VS Angel,” grammed Gomez. (2015)

3

M AY 2 0 1 6 I n S T Y L E

2. Editors get feedback in real time. Immediately after posting an article, Falletta can see how it’s doing. Within a day, she knows if it’s a success. Her first post for BuzzFeed, “15 Drag Queens Who Are So Pretty It Hurts,” racked

Florence Shin, International Trade and Marketing for the Fashion Industries, co-founded Covry Sunwear, competitively priced sunglasses that fit Asian faces and others with a lower nose bridge and higher cheekbones. She and a high-school friend launched the brand with a Kickstarter campaign after a lifetime of struggling to find sunglasses that didn’t slide down their faces. An “Asian fit” already existed in the market, but they engineered a more comfortable version. The response has been ecstatic, and many styles have sold out. “A lot of people said they never thought glasses were supposed to fit well,” she says.

5

Fashion Merchandising Management ’11

gears content toward people of color, men, trans women, and anyone else

OUR FAVE

“This look is flowy and soft—it’s different for me,” Gomez said of the silk chiffon J. Mendel gown she paired with 87.22 carats of Jacob & Co. jewelry at InStyle’s annual Golden Globes after-party. (2016)

Augusta Falletta, Advertising and Marketing Communications ’13,

1. BuzzFeed’s beauty reporting is deliberately inclusive. Falletta’s team

The Dark Horse Tasting Stable at the 2016 Firefly Music Festival in Dover, DE. High-contrast origami-bow detailing transformed a minimal Lanvin dress into an art piece—a sophisticated choice for the opening-night gala of the American Ballet Theatre. (2014)

7

THINGS YOU DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT BUZZFEED (NUMBER 5 WILL SHOCK YOU)

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up a million clicks in its first day. The flip side, of course, is that…

3. The flops offer important lessons. If the post isn’t compulsively shared, Falletta tries to figure out why. Was the thumbnail picture not compelling?

Did the headline not really capture what was in the post? “If you think you are not going to make mistakes, you’re in for a rude awakening,” she says. “We try to make new mistakes. As long as you keep making new mistakes, it pushes you to grow.”

4. Success isn’t just about page views. If a reader takes the time to write a thank-you email, that’s almost as good as seeing a post go viral.

5. Writing those trademark titles is not easy. The title, she says, should capture how someone would describe the story to a friend. “If you can’t come up with a headline, is this actually a story that’s worth writing?” They avoid anything that might appear in a women’s magazine: “10 Things You Need to Buy” or “How to Lose 10 Pounds,” for example. Oh, and it needs to fit into the 140-character length of a tweet.

6. The best quizzes feel like magic. People love quizzes that tell them something about themselves without having to think. Recent trending topics: “Do You Actually Prefer Sex or Food?” “How Many Photos Can Your Brain Process at Once?” “Do You Actually Have Good Taste in Books?”

7. The editors are not immune to internet trolls. After Falletta’s post “Here’s Why Men Need to Shut the Hell Up About Women Wearing Less Makeup” went viral, someone created a 13-minute YouTube video insulting every aspect of the post and degrading her. She was disturbed that this person would go out of his way to be cruel. “I love makeup, but I’m not under the delusion of grandeur that what I do is vitally important to the world,” she says. “If people are hating on my harmless world so much, good lord, what are they doing to

Vega, a squarer take on the aviator shape, is Covry’s most popular style.

women who are reporting on issues that are politically charged?”

Smiljana Peros

2011

what inspires you?

Spirit Animals Wendy Axel Martin, Fashion Design ’81

Adult coloring books are having a moment right now. All of a sudden, grown-ups are discovering that it’s fun to color again. I was chatting about this craze with Natalie Zaman, a writer with whom I collaborate on illustrated books, and I thought it would be great if we could do something different, something that was more than just a coloring book. Since the activity is being touted as meditative and relaxing, I thought, “Why don’t we do a meditation coloring book?”

The Animal Totem Mandala Coloring Book: Art Nouveau

Creatures and Reflections for Relaxation (Magical Child Books, 2016) features 30 animals in mandala form, with a meditation

for each animal. Our hope is that people think about the meditation while they’re coloring in the pictures. I call it a “coloring book plus.”

Natalie picked the animals from lists of favorite animals from around the world: wolf, panda, luna moth, and peacock [above], to name a few. Then I let my creativity go—I went wild with Art Nouveau swirls and twirls.

Martin is the illustrator of numerous picture and coloring books, including The Story Circle (Arte Publico Press, 2016) and An Ordinary Girl, A Magical Child (Magical Child Books, 2008). We invite you to color in the mandala, scan it, and send it to hue@fitnyc.edu.

Get creative!

hue.fitnyc.edu 35

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