Hue Fall 2009

Alumni Magazine of the Fashion Institute of Technology

volume 3 | number 1 | fall 2009

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Features 6

First Takes Young grads, young careers

10

The Museum at FIT Dries van Noten and Robin Givhan speak; new show opens

Departments 4

Hue’s News Recent developments at and related to FIT

10

Faculty on…

Shoes for the silver screen

12

The Kid Stays in the Picture Zadrian Smith ’11 covers Fashion Week for WFIT

21

I Contact A Visual Art Management student on the good old days

14

Home Work Three Home Products alumni success stories

27

Footprint FIT’s green roof project

28 16

It’s a Rod Liz Starin ’09 draws Rod Keenan, man of many hats

Alumni Notes Find out what your classmates are up to

31 18

Objects of Her Affection Anne Bissonette ’93, costume curator extraordinaire

Sparks Unconventional quilts preserve the past

22

Gold Standard The alchemy of Reem Acra ’86

27

Biker Chic An FIT student builds better bike wear, with LVMH

Front and back covers: illustrations by Liz Starin ’09.

(See story pp. 16–17)

Hue is the alumni magazine of the Fashion Institute of Technology, a State University of New York college of art and design, business and technology.

It is published three times a year by the Division of Advancement and External Relations, 227 West Alumni Magazine of the Fashion Institute of Technology

27 Street, Room B905, New York City 10001-5992, 212 217.4700.

Email: hue@fitnyc.edu

volume 3 | number 1 | fall 2009

Address letters to the editors, Hue magazine.

Vice President for Advancement and External Relations Loretta Lawrence Keane Assistant Vice President for Communications Carol Leven

Editor Linda Angrilli Managing Editor Alex Joseph Staff Writer Gregory Herbowy Editorial Assistant Vanessa Machir Art Direction and Design Empire Design Studio

Hue magazine on the web: fitnyc.edu/hue

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22 18 Sitings

On FIT’s website, www.fitnyc.edu Continuing and Professional Studies: fitnyc.edu/continuinged FIT job openings: fitnyc.edu/jobs Gladys Marcus Library: fitnyc.edu/library The Museum at FIT: fitnyc.edu/museum To view videos about the college, go to: youtube.com/aboutfit Email the FIT Alumni Association: victoria_guranowski@fitnyc.edu Go to fitnyc.edu/hue to answer The Ask, tell us what inspires you for Sparks, or update your alumni info.

www.fitnyc.edu/ hue

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On September 14, FIT’s Board of Trustees welcomed three new members: Judith Byrd, Joan Hornig, and Beverly Mack. Byrd, an airport retailing consultant and cofounder of Unison Consulting Group, Inc. (now Unison-Maximus), has previously worked in support of Chicago’s La Rabida Children’s Hospital and HELP USA, which aids homeless Americans. Hornig is

Bead Show Comes to FIT a renowned jewelry designer and philanthropist; the Joan B. Hornig Foundation channels all profits from her designs to charities worldwide. Mack is a director and registered investment advisor for Walnut Street Securities, Inc., and past president and director of the Fordham University Graduate Alumni Association. All three will serve through June 2016.

Joan Volpe

what’s happening on campus

New Members Named to Board of Trustees

Lorenzo Ciniglio

Marubashi’s winning pizza-themed bag, which the World of Beads jurors called “a technical knock-out.”

Left to right: Judith Byrd, Joan Hornig, President Joyce F. Brown, and Beverly Mack at the September 14 Board of Trustees meeting.

In this issue, Hue spotlights young alumni at the start of their careers (see feature, p. 6).

What was your first job after FIT? Was it great? Or grim?

Email your story to hue@fitnyc.edu, or send it to the editors at Hue magazine.

Submissions will be considered for publication in a future issue.

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In 1988, a group of women enrolled in a beading course at FIT’s Center for Professional Studies were inspired to form the Bead Society, an organization of professionals and hobbyists alike.

Though the organization now includes more than 500 members, it has stayed close to home: The society holds its classes and monthly meetings at the college; it contributes to Jewelry Design scholarship funds; and this past June, its eighth World of Beads show was installed in the John E. Reeves Great Hall. Alongside

In the last issue, we asked: What’s a dish that reminds you of home? Carolyn Maxwell, Apparel Design ’62, answered

vendors and technique demonstrations, close to 300 beaded works, from jewelry to objets d’art, were on display, with 55 in juried competition. Michael Coan, Jewelry Design Department chair, and Lois Sherr Dubin, author of The History of Beads and noted Native American jewelry expert, served as jurors.

First place went to Yoshie Marubashi—coincidentally the instructor of the class in which the Bead Society was conceived— for her “I Ate a Slice” handbag.

Hue also received this one-of-akind toothpick holder from Stan Munro ’92, subject of our summer 2009 story, “Model Citizen.”

Creamed dried beef on toast was a breakfast staple in my central Pennsylvania youth. It’s unheard of in southern California, where I’ve lived for about 30 years. Instead of toasted white bread topped with dried beef in a classic white sauce, my recipe has changed along with me. I begin by sautéing chopped shallots in butter before adding flour to make a roux.

Next, I whisk in equal parts chicken broth and cream, a splash of sherry, and a sprinkling of black pepper before adding the salty dried beef (which I bring back from trips to PA). I serve it on sliced and toasted croissants.

hue | fall 2009

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Tony Rosenthal, Hammarskjöld Sculptor, Dies

American Style Symposium at The Museum at FIT

QUIC K RE A D >> On October 28, designer and entrepreneur Kenneth Cole spoke to

On December 4 and 5, The Museum at FIT will host its eighth annual symposium, American Style, held in conjunction with its exhibition, American Beauty: Aesthetics and Innovation in Fashion (see story, p. 11). The symposium’s theme is fashion in the Americas, and its topics of discussion range from hip-hop style to midcentury millinery to Latin American fashions.

Featured speakers include New York Times writers, academics from Cornell and Rutgers universities, and curators from museums in Paris, Ontario, and New York. Garments at right will be featured in the show. For more information or to register to attend, visit www.fitnyc.edu/ museum.

Business and Technology students at the biannual Jay and Patty Baker School’s Dean’s Forum. Amy Astley, editor in chief of Teen Vogue, spoke on October 13 at the School of Art and Design’s fall Dean’s Dialogue. >> In September, Robert Friedman, former CEO of Loehmann’s and friend of the college, and his wife were Jean Yu ’95, dress in white jersey with black grosgrain ribbon.

honored with the dedication of the

what’s happening on campus

This July, Tony Rosenthal, renowned sculptor and creator of Hammarskjöld, the towering black structure situated in FIT’s courtyard off Eighth Avenue, died. He was 94. Rosenthal—best known for Alamo, the iconic cube on Manhattan’s Astor Place— made FIT’s sculpture in 1977.

Named for the second secretarygeneral of the United Nations, it stood on the UN’s Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza before the college acquired the work in 1978.

It went on to become a defining feature of the campus, and a popular student hang-out spot.

“I like to play with ready-made shapes,” Rosenthal said of the work in a 2006 interview with Hue’s Alex Joseph. “The steel came this way, and I was honest to the materials.”

Robert and Deborah Friedman Room, in the David Dubinsky Student Center. >> Marybeth Murphy has been appointed vice president for Enrollment Management and Student Success. Murphy, formerly Baruch College’s assistant vice president for enrollment management, is responsible for recruitment, improving retention and graduation rates, and maintaining a high quality of campus life. >> This August, Daniel Vosovic, Fashion Design ’05, won Project Runway: All-Star Challenge, a special edition of the popular reality series

Rodarte, evening dress (back view) in steam dyed silk tulle, black mohair yarn, fall 2008.

featuring stars from past seasons.

His prize was $100,000. Vosovic was originally on the show’s second season, finishing as runner-up to another FIT grad—Chloe Dao, Patternmaking Technology ’94. >> The Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum honored Francisco Costa, creative director of Calvin Klein Collection for women and Fashion Design ’90, with a National Design Award this July. Costa received the distinction at the White House, William Palmer

where he and his fellow award winners

Halston, American Beauty Rose gown in red silk organza, 1980.

were feted at a luncheon hosted by First Lady Michelle Obama. >> Last November, The Neiman Marcus Group, Inc., donated $100,000 to The

Lorenzo Ciniglio

Educational Foundation for the Fashion

Rosenthal at FIT in 2006. The sculptor enjoyed seeing students use Hammarskjöld as a place to sit and gather.

Industries to establish an endowed scholarship for exceptional Accessories Design or Fashion Design students demonstrating financial need. The first annual Neiman Marcus Endowed Scholarship was awarded this fall.

www.fitnyc.edu/hue

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NICK PARISSE PHOTOGRAPHY AND THE DIGITAL IMAGE ’09 Freelance photographer, nickparisse.com GROWING UP, I WANTED TO BE… I always knew I’d be an artist. But I can’t paint, so I became a photographer. Starting at 14, I always had a camera in my hand. At my mom’s place upstate there are duffel bags full of film. I photographed everything, but I’m really a portrait guy. I love people.

FAVORITE TOOL: My Polaroid 600 SE camera.

It was a gift from a photographer I worked for. Fuji makes film for it. I’m completely colorblind and for some reason, when I look at a Polaroid, it feels like the only time I can really see what color is.

PREDICTIONS FOR THE FIELD: Photogra-

phers getting more into video—filming photo shoots, then pulling a frame here, a frame there, and submitting that to editors. The resolution’s already good enough on some cameras.

IF I WASN’T DOING THIS, I’D BE… in Vegas, playing professional poker. I like being able to control the situation and dictate the pace at the table.

FIRSTTAKES PORTRAITS OF YOUNG ALUMNI AT WORK Your first job after college might not be permanent, but it is almost always memorable. You walk in, get an assignment, pick up your tools…and suddenly, you’re not a student anymore.

Photos by NICK PARISSE ’09 Interviews by GREG HERBOWY

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This past summer, we assigned Nick Parisse, winner of the 2009 Photography and the Digital Image Departmental Award, to shoot six recent graduates of different majors who are just getting started in their careers. (Parisse added a self-portrait, becoming the seventh.)

We also interviewed them about their jobs, which run the gamut from titled positions in major firms to freelance and volunteer gigs.

The result? A snapshot of young FIT alumni who are shaping their industries, and a glimpse of a new generation doing something very old: going to work.

hue | fall 2009

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MACALL DENNIS INTERIOR DESIGN ’09 Assistant designer, Liz Whall Interior Design GROWING UP, I WANTED TO BE… an

archeologist. I used to dig up my parents’ backyard.

WORKSPACE(S): It’s just Liz—my boss—and

me. Her office is in Darien, CT. I commute half the week and stay in the city the other half to meet with clients and contractors, or research and shop for furniture.

CLIENTS’ SPACES: Mostly brownstones or

penthouses in Manhattan and homes in Connecticut. I love being on site, going over drawings with the carpenters and plumbers and electricians. We just finished renovating a bathroom on the Upper West Side. We’re also doing a lake house outside of Toronto.

We make the trip when we can. It’s gorgeous.

INSIDER TIPS: I like Todd Hase for modern

furniture. 1stdibs [a website selling furniture and lighting] is unbelievable.

PREDICTIONS FOR THE FIELD: People are moving toward a more minimal lifestyle. It seems more comfortable having a simple space that’s rich and full of character rather than just packed full of stuff.

JOE ROSA PACKAGING DESIGN ’06 Senior designer, Anthem Worldwide; cofounder, Treehouse Design Studio, LLC CLIENTELE: Unilever, Pepsi, Procter &

Gamble, Benjamin Moore, Pepperidge Farm, Nestlé.... The great thing about designing for big brands is you can go around the country, even the world, and see your work in stores and in people’s homes.

TRICK OF THE TRADE: We’ll present designs in “shelf sets,” so clients can see how they’ll look against the competition on the shelf.

WHAT’S SURPRISED YOU ABOUT THE FIELD?

How small it is. Everybody knows everyone.

IN TEN YEARS, I’LL BE… I’ll be in this industry a long time. Eventually I want to teach. I’d like to develop my own brands. My friend and I have a design company on the side.

We did the layout and branding for a new fast-food chain, Press. They’ve just opened their second location. It’s fulfilling to develop something from nothing and see it through to fruition.

www.fitnyc.edu/ hue

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LEXI TOWNSEND FASHION DESIGN ’09 Assistant designer, Creative Worldwide WORKSPACE(S): It’s a knitwear company

in Queens. We make lines for stores like Nordstrom, Target, Forever 21…. My office is attached to the seamstresses’ room, where they make samples and small orders.

There’s a factory nearby for big orders.

DUTIES: I focus on the junior market. I’ll research what’s selling and create variations on that trend. I’m also kind of the fit model.

I try things on and tell the head designer what I think, whether we should use that neckline or those sleeves.

IF I WASN’T DOING THIS, I’D BE… a dolphin trainer. My dad’s in Florida, and I was always like, “Get me in at Sea World.”

PREDICTIONS FOR THE FIELD: Hopefully more manufacturing here. Nothing against other countries, but what about creating jobs in the U.S., you know?

IN TEN YEARS, I’LL BE… I’d like to be a mom. I would love to have a boutique. I’m always going to design, even if it’s just for the PTA, designing for the kids’ plays or whatever.

ASHLI HAMILTON ADVERTISING AND MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS ’07 Events assistant, Cosmetic Executive Women, a nonprofit organization supporting women in the beauty industry GROWING UP, I WANTED TO BE… I wanted to go into medicine. Then I started watching the Style Network. I went to [FIT’s Precollege Program] Summer Live and afterward I was like, “I have to go to FIT.” UNEXPECTEDLY USEFUL SKILL: Because

I worked with design programs in college, I end up creating a lot of collateral, like posters and invitations.

PERKS: All of our events have gift bags with lots of products, and I’m always psyched to test whatever’s new.

BEAUTY’S NEXT BIG THING: Nutraceuticals.

They’re ingestibles, like pills for skincare or to help your hair grow.

COMMUTE: I live in Westchester County, so it’s about an hour. Each year there are a few events that I need to be here for at five in the morning. I’ll take the first train in, like 4:15, and it’s me and a bunch of construction workers. When we have a half-day I’ll take the 2 pm train home and see them again, riding back with me.

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CHRISTINA FULTON FASHION MERCHANDISING MANAGEMENT ’05 Manager of mid-Atlantic special events (DC, DE, MD, PA, VA), Macy’s, Inc. CAREER PATH: I started here in the buying

office then moved over to the fashion office, as an assistant focusing on marketing and trend forecasting. I went to Fashion Week— front row, because we’re such a large retailer.

Last year, my current position became available. Macy’s is big on recruiting from within.

GROWING UP, I WANTED TO BE… I knew I wanted to be in fashion. FIT was my dream.

DAILY ROUTINE: That’s not me. I travel a lot.

I divide my time between the New York and DC offices and my region’s stores.

PERKS: I’m very social, and Macy’s empha-

sizes community outreach, so this job lets me work with local organizations and meet different people. We’re doing something this year with the Congressional Black Caucus [an organization of African-American U.S. Congress members]. The Corcoran Gallery of Art in DC is another great partner. Earlier this year, we volunteered at a Redskins “welcome home” luncheon and met the players.

JEFF KARL ILLUSTRATION ’08 Freelance illustrator, jeffreylkarl.com; volunteer, Art Start GREATEST PROFESSIONAL ACHIEVEMENT SO FAR: Last spring I did character design and storyboarding for an animated short that’s in production right now. The director’s going to submit it to festivals and pitch it to studios as a children’s TV series.

FAVORITE TOOL: The drafting table that I

designed and made. It’s portable and doubles as a case, so I can put my drawings and supplies in it.

GREATEST PERSONAL ACHIEVEMENT SO FAR: I’ve been volunteering. Last year I did Big Brothers Big Sisters. This year I’ve been teaching art to underprivileged kids for a few hours each week. I just had them making paper lunch bags into monster puppets.

IN TEN YEARS, I’LL BE… If I knew that, life wouldn’t be so intimidating right now.

I’m not going to leave illustration. If I could make more of a career out of helping kids, I would. I think ten years from now I’ll be in a place I couldn’t have possibly planned for.

www.fitnyc.edu/ hue

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The

Sole Man

THREADS of STATE

Vasilios Christofilakos Assistant professor, Accessories Design

The Washington Post’s ROBIN GIVHAN Have you seen the live-action 101 Dalmatians? In the first scene, a limousine pulls up and out steps this‥. shoe. It’s a sleek, black, shiny, killer stiletto. That’s how Cruella de Vil appears, and if that doesn’t set the tone for her character, I don’t know what does. I teach this scene in Theatrical and Character Footwear.

You’re not dealing with mass market, you’re dealing with illusion and fantasy.

The students learn how to create shoes to fit a character. We’ll watch Raquel Welch in One Million Years B.C., and I’ll say, ‘Now, what shoes would a real cavewoman wear?’ The students say, ‘Animal skins.’ ‘Right. And what would hold them on her feet?’ ‘Animal intestines.’ ‘And how would you create that look?’

‘With rope distressed to look like intestines.’ Their final project is to envision a scene for a film or show and create shoes for the characters. One group imagined a Dirty Dancing spinoff and made shoes for the big closing number, where the two down-on-their-luck dancers steal the show. The students used a metallic, scuffed kidskin—roughed up, but still eye-catching. The woman’s shoe was a classic T-strap, Broadway-style dance shoe. The man’s was a Chelsea ankle boot with a snapped shank (the part of the sole between the toe and heel), which would make it easier to execute moves. In the end, this is really about learning to research and understand your target customer. Character is to costume as customer is to mass market. If students can learn how to think about dressing Cruella, they can understand the needs of a typical Payless shopper.

discusses political fashions

WHEN VICE PRESIDENT Dick Cheney showed up at a 2005 Auschwitz memorial in ski cap and parka, Robin Givhan, fashion editor of the Washington Post, wrote it was “attire one typically wears to operate a snow blower.” In September, when the Pulitzer Prizewinning journalist spoke at FIT, she elaborated on her criticism. Cheney’s garb communicated, intentionally or not, to his more formally dressed hosts that “his interpretation of the event did not jibe with their own.”

In their dress, political figures often try to balance their official status with the common touch. At the recent town hall meetings on health care, representatives’ suits and ties sent an unintended message to their jeans-clad constituents, Givhan said. “They were dressed in a way that said, ‘I’m the boss of you.’” A better choice? Lose the jacket and tie and roll up the shirt sleeves—“the universal sign for ‘I’m going to be sincere now,’” she joked.

While neutral fashion choices can lead to what Givhan calls “floating heads”—where only the faces register—too-casual dress is worse. When Michelle Obama stepped off Air Force One in shorts last summer, Givhan was among the disapproving commentators.

Dressing down for private time with family is one thing, she explained; being photographed looking “like a tourist,” as she wrote, in front of a symbol of the White House, is another.

Our public officials embody “how we want to present ourselves to the world,” Givhan said. “I don’t ever want to see the First Lady in a Juicy Couture sweat suit.”

Helayne Seidman

insights from the classroom and beyond

MUSEUM at FIT

Matthew Septimus

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hue | fall 2009

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The

MUSEUM at FIT

BRAIN DANDY

Lorenzo Ciniglio

A visit from designer DRIES VAN NOTEN

THE NEW YORK TIMES called Dries Van Noten “one of fashion’s most cerebral designers,” but he has another distinction. At an open discussion with FIT students in September, museum director Valerie Steele, known for wearing black, said, “You’re one of the only designers I’ll wear in color.”

One of the Antwerp Six, the prestigious Belgian fashion collective that includes Ann Demeulemeester and Martin Margiela, Van Noten came to New York to receive the 2009 Artistry of Fashion Award from the museum’s Couture Council. He requested a dialogue with students, and Steele moderated.

Van Noten makes clothes for men and women, using an eclectic, international palette. Both saris and dreadlocks have appeared in his shows. Steele called him “the greatest colorist since Saint Laurent.” He said, “Color is the way to translate emotions,” and that gardening,

painting, and the view from airplane windows inspire his hues.

Van Noten’s company is selffinanced, and students wanted to know how he accomplished this. He said it wasn’t planned. “When I started in ’85, there was no fashion scene in Belgium. Decisions were made day by day.” The unusual strategy has afforded him enormous creative freedom. “People know me for flowers and embroidery, but I can say, ‘This collection is about black and white shapes.’ A manager would say, ‘Put a little flower in.’”

Students gasped at Van Noten’s description of Antwerp’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts, where he studied fashion.

One teacher was exceptionally strict.

“She said, ‘There is only one good designer—Coco Chanel,’ and ‘Jeans are for poor people.’ But this was good, because the more restrictions you have, the more creative you have to be.”

MADE IN THE USA A show about the craft of American designers

techniques from millinery. Claire McCardell redefined ready-to-wear.

These were all developments you hadn’t really seen before.” Though there may be no single American style, each of the included designers synthesized mass production and couture elements in a way possible only in the U.S. More on American Beauty, including interviews with designers Ralph Rucci, Fashion Design ’80, and Yeohlee Teng, as well as video commentary by Patricia Mears, is available at yoox.com. Additional content will run on 1stdibs.com, the main sponsor of the show. Mears’s companion book, of the same title, will be published by Yale University Press on December 1. American Beauty runs through April 10, 2010.

William Palmer

MOST PEOPLE think of blue jeans as the quintessential American garment, but the U.S. has contributed far more to fashion than denim and sportswear. A new exhibition at The Museum at FIT, American Beauty: Aesthetics and Innovation in Fashion, corrects this misconception by focusing on craft.

The 90 garments on display show how a mastery of construction and technique allowed their designers to originate new shapes, forms, and practices. “Take Halston,” says Patricia Mears, the museum’s deputy director and curator of the show. “He’s mostly remembered for spending a lot of time at Studio 54. But he was a hugely important dressmaker, the way he would fold and bend soft fabrics and use bias cut.

Charles James’s couture incorporated

A 1960s cloqué dress and coat by Pauline Trigère. The designer’s wool evening coats were cut on the bias, “a technique usually reserved for softer, more fluid fabrics,” Mears says.

www.fitnyc.edu/ hue

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Kid Stays in the Picture

Th e

UNICATIONS ’11,

COMM Z AD RI AN S M IT H, ADVERTISING AND MARKETINGION WE EK SCORES SERIOUS

SC OO P AT NE W YO RK FA SH

M EE T ZA DR IA N SM IT H, president and senior news

correspondent for W

FI T —the college’s radio and TV station, where he hosts the fashion-themed progra m, “R EE L TA LK ” —and proud bow-tie wearer. (“It’s my signature,” he says.) Du ring Fashion Week last Fe bruary, Smith was standing on lin e for a show when he sp otted FE RN MA LLI S, senior vice president of IMG Fa shion.

He introduced himself an d asked for a press pass to Fall Fashion Week. Mallis ag reed. Six months later, Sm ith, a Presidential Scholars ho nors student and Baker Sc holar who has studied with the Alvin Ailey School of Danc e, Joffrey School of America n Ballet, and Central Penn sylvania Youth Ballet, found him self reporting on roughly 15 of the shows. His scoo ps included interviews wi th several prominent FIT alu mni. HE RE AR E SO M

TH E HI GH LI GH TS :

E OF

DENNI S BASSO , Fashion Design ’73, collection found inspiration for his spring 2010 . in Edgar Degas’s paintings of ballerinas ism Zadrian: Where do you get your optim the in in this stifling economy? As a leader tive and fashion industry, you need to be posi it’s just set an example. For you to give up— people not possible. The trick is to do things ial. want or need—something really spec

r in chief, Harper’s

Glenda Bailey, edito

imagine When you were at FIT, did you ever nI you’d be showing here? In 1972, whe as being was there, this seemed as far away an astronaut.

Bazaar.

Backstage at Dennis Ba

sso.

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PHOTOS: Bailey, Basso, Garcia, and Rivers by Maria Pineda, Advertising and Marketing Communications ’13; Antoinne, Downing, Lanphear, and Lepore by Lauren Wadkins, Fashion Design ’12.

hue | fall 2009

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MI GUE L AN TOIN NE, Advertising and Marketing Communications ’06, ired presented a spring menswear line insp was by thunderstorms. He says, “When I y designing, the weather was absolutel horrible.” What did you like about FIT?

NA NET TE LEP ORE , Fashion Design ’83, presented outfits that she says are “like comfort food—comfortable clothes that make you feel feminine.” She was also

FIT, I came as an older student…. But at you you don’t see age; you don’t see sex;

stumping for her favorite cause, savi

ng

just see talent.

New York’s Garment District.

Why is this so important? I started my business with a $5,000 loan. To be able

to

walk into factories and give them 30-p

iece

lots… I learned so much from factory

owners

and workers in the cutting rooms. For

the Garment District to be gone would depr ive a lot of young, up-and-coming designer s of the opportunities I had. Everyone should contact the Mayor’s Office and let him

g: Fashion and Related tin ke ar M A, CI AR G A IN N or, Marie Claire Industries ’93, fashion direct

know

they care.

Kate Lanphear, style director, Elle.

s?

Is fashion too frivolous for these time economy…

Fashion is a huge part of the American . the industry still gives us so many jobs

KEN DO WNI NG, Fashion Design, Neiman Marcus Creative Director I understand you attended FIT for a while. What was your time there like?

It was all very ’80s. It’s interesting— a lot of what we were creating back then is a lot of what we’re seeing on

e maven.

median and styl

Joan Rivers, co

the runway right now.

www.fitnyc.edu/ hue

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HOME WORK

Three Home Products Development alumni have found their place, and love it

by Alexander Gelfand

What do an award-winning window-treatment designer for Croscill Home, the man behind the luxury division of Raymond Waites Design, and the woman responsible for creating unique floral gift sets at 1-800-Flowers.com all have in common?

Simple: degrees in Home Products Development. The home products market is a $289 billion industry, which includes everything that goes into the home, from “hard goods” like furniture and flatware to “soft goods” like carpets and bedding. That translates into a tremendously varied range of careers, all dedicated to making sure being at home is a pleasure. “Home products touch every aspect of our lives,” says department chair Ingrid Johnson. “They’re what make all of us want to go home.” Here are three people who help do just that, in very different ways.

JACLYN CUSENZA

Three years ago, when Jaclyn Cusenza applied for a job as a product manager at 1-800-Flowers.com, her interviewer asked her if she could work on ten things at once.

“Sure,” Cusenza replied.

“No,” her interrogator persisted, “I mean, can you work on ten seasons at once?”

Welcome to the floral industry. In her previous life as a category manager in the kitchenwares division of Lifetime Brands on Long Island, Cusenza was used to juggling multiple projects and products. The firm licenses kitchen tools and gadgets from all the major houseware brands, and Cusenza had worked on names like Martha Stewart for Macy’s and Sandra Lee for QVC. But at 1-800-Flowers.com, she’s required to plan 18 months ahead for products whose materials might not even be in season yet. This October, she was still wrapping up the company’s Mother’s Day line when the time came to consider the offerings for fall 2010. It isn’t unusual for her to begin designing pieces for the winter holiday season

during the preceding summer. “But I can’t make a wreath in August,” she says, since some of the plants she needs aren’t available then.

When Cusenza first arrived, she was responsible for buying and designing the company’s “plant hard goods”— flower baskets and outdoor planters— and matching them with the right plants.

“I now have a pretty good knowledge of horticulture, which is nothing I ever expected,” she laughs. She was also in charge of “drieds and silks”—wreaths, silk centerpieces, and the like. But her purview soon expanded to include direct floral offerings, which comprise all of the bouquets that are sent directly from the company’s own growers instead of from independent florists in the recipient’s neighborhood.

That proved to be more than any one person could handle, and Cusenza recently handed everything but the direct floral business over to a colleague.

That should give her just enough time to continue judging Home Products student competitions at FIT, and to manage the special projects she enjoys—like the Everything Cupcake, carnations delivered in a pot that Cusenza designed to look like a cupcake wrapper.

Cusenza’s popular “cupcake” carnation arrangement is about 5 inches high and comes in a reusable cup.

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DENISE STOUGHTON

Once a darling of the New York City club scene, Denise Stoughton is now an award-winning window-treatment designer for Croscill Home Fashions.

In between, she sold merchandise at Manhattan street fairs and designed upscale beach houses for her father, a builder in Florida. The one constant has been her involvement with FIT, where she now teaches a course on the evolution of American home products.

“It’s the longest relationship I’ve ever had,” she says.

It began when Stoughton attended FIT’s Summer Live program for high school students. After earning her Interior Design AAS, she became a charter member of the Club Kids, a group of inveterate partiers who dominated the late-’80s New York nightclub scene. Operating under the pseudonym Really Denise, Stoughton even hosted her own talk show on public access television. But the life of a minor celebrity eventually lost its allure, and she returned to FIT. In her final year, Stoughton won a scholarship from the Home Fashion

Products Association, and the chair of the scholarship committee, an executive at the curtain manufacturer S. Lichtenberg, offered her a job designing window treatments. Two years later, Stoughton became the first in-house designer at Stone Cline Home Fashions (now HomeTex), where her responsibilities ranged from designing draperies to arranging letters of credit.

During the summers, she sold merchandise at street fairs through her own company, Delicioustyle. Stoughton later served as design director at Tweel Home Furnishings, where she branched out into bath accessories and decorative pillows. Eventually, however, she returned to window treatment design, this time at Croscill.

It was a good move. This year, Stoughton won Most Innovative New Product in the Textiles Industries Award competition. Her patent-pending invention, the Cotillion, is a curtain panel with an added shirred valence at the top that allows consumers to customize the drape in dozens of ways.

“Even when you think you’re working on the most basic or ‘commoditized’ products, there’s always room for creativity and innovation,” she says.

“You just have to train yourself to always look for something different.”

Chair by Yosh for Raymond Waites Couture.

WILLIAM YOSH

As a high school student in upstate New York, Bill Yosh wanted to live in the big city, but wasn’t sure how to get there. He also liked art, but didn’t know how to make a living at it. Then a college counselor told him about FIT. Yosh still lives upstate, but he has a firm foothold in the Big Apple. As director of product development and marketing at Raymond Waites Couture (and an adjunct instructor in the Home Products Department), he commutes between Manhattan and his home office in Lake Katrine.

A college field trip to the Raymond Waites design studio convinced Yosh to pursue home fashion, and he landed his first job as Waites’s personal assistant, doing “all the stuff nobody wants to do”—making copies, setting up showrooms, handling travel arrangements. After working closely with Waites for several years on product design for the firm’s mass-market lines in categories like bedding and bath accessories, Yosh moved into marketing, managing photo shoots and working on magazine ads.

When Waites introduced a division of high-end home products, he placed Yosh in charge. That meant developing

novel designs for furniture, chandeliers, and handmade rugs. Yosh also cultivated new licensees and manufacturers, like Jaipur Rugs in India and John Richard in the U.S. Building a luxury brand has its advantages. “We’ve been able to sign on with companies where there are very few design limitations,” Yosh says. “We can basically use anything we want, and they’re fine with it because they can get the price points to make up the cost.”

Thus, a handmade rug from Waites’s Couture division can sell for $3,000 at a specialty store, while a machine-made rug from the mass-market home division sells for $400 at Lowe’s.

In his spare time, Yosh is developing his own home products brand, Rock Star Rodeo, different from the more opulent one he trades in at work. “I can design in that style,” Yosh says, “but I don’t own it.” His new company’s rock ’n’ roll cowboy aesthetic will reflect his “quirky, over-the-top” style.

The Cotillion, an award-winning window treatment by Stoughton.

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of Her Affection ANNE BISSONNET TE, Museum Studies: Costume and Textiles MA ’93, sees ideas in garments

by Alex Joseph

Jeff Glidden

A Bissonnette mounting a tea gown by Charles Frederick Worth.

As she wrote for the entry on tea gowns in the Encyclopedia of Clothing and Fashion (edited by Valerie Steele, director of The Museum at FIT), “The tea gown provided respectable women with an outlet for fantasy and innovation within the codified system of 19th century dress and behavioral codes.”

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NN E BISSONN ET TE first became interested in tea gowns in 1997, when she was the curator of the Kent State University Museum. While mounting and photographing a donated collection of tea gowns, she noticed something unusual.

Periods of transition fascinate Bissonnette, and her epiphanies always start with objects. Worn for five o’clock tea by Victorian hostesses, tea gowns bridged the public and private realms because they were for social events held at home. Victorians, Bissonnette notes, wore three categories of dress: undress, half dress, and full dress. After studying the gowns, she began to understand that each category ranged from formal to informal. Tea gowns, she says, were a type of formal undress. As a showcase for the wearer’s aesthetic sensibility, they often incorporated exotic or historical elements, such as 18th-century Watteau pleats—box pleats that hang from the back shoulder yoke to the hem. Though designer Paul Poiret took credit for reviving the Empire waist in the early 20th century, Bissonnette says, it first was acceptable in tea gowns. “The tea gown is a place of experimentation,” she says. “You wear experimental gowns when you can control the environment—at home.”

Tea gowns were reputedly worn without a corset. After mounting the donated garments at Kent State, however, Bissonnette thought otherwise. Those gowns had structured inner shells, many of them boned and constructed like fitted evening wear. She concluded that some were made to be worn over a bustle—and corset. Bissonnette is currently finishing a book on the subject, 12 years in the making, for Kent State University Press, though she recently returned to her native Canada for a position at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. Her new job—assistant professor of material culture and curatorship, and curator of the clothing and textile collection—includes teaching, but also a new luxury: more time for research.

In 14 years at Kent State, Bissonnette curated an astonishing 42 exhibitions on a vast range of topics, from The Right Chemistry: Colors in Fashion 1704–1918 to The Art of the Embroiderer to shows about individual designers such as Rudi Gernreich. The cut and construction of garments intrigues her, and provides a unifying thread in much of her work. She has studied and taught fashion design, and finds “a rare joy” in the craftsmanship of designers Ralph Rucci ’80, Isabel Toledo, and, particularly, Madeleine Vionnet.

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A Trio of Triumphs A TRIO of Bissonnette’s exhibitions about her favorite era, the late 18th and early 19th centuries, won the 2008 Richard Martin Award for Excellence in the Exhibition of Costume from the Costume Society of America. (Her work shared the distinction with the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Poiret show.) She was particularly honored because she knew Martin, who curated noteworthy exhibitions in his 20 years at FIT. He headed the Met’s Costume Institute during her internship there. Colleen Callahan, now chair of the award committee, says, “The Kent shows epitomized excellence in history-based costume exhibits. They were an extraordinary achievement in bringing together a oncein-a-lifetime collection of rare and exceptional artifacts,

1

displayed and interpreted with an excellent balance of scholarly and popular historical context.”

^46 1

In The Age of Nudity, Bissonnette showed how clothes in the late 18th and early 19th centuries revealed the body in a neoclassical celebration of statuesque nudity. “The people of that time were enamored with Greek and Roman architecture, philosophy, and art. It’s echoed in dress. The chemise gown could be skin-colored, and made with light-weight fabric. It was their way of showing the body, of appearing almost nude.” The era has parallels with our own, she says. “We’re still completely in love with the body. We’re stuck, in a way.”

2 As guest curator for the Decorative Arts Center of Ohio, she created Hair: The Rise of Individuality 1790-1840, which showed how neoclassicism led to the abandonment of wigs and

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adoption of disheveled hairstyles. “Hair echoes the zeitgeist,” Bissonnette says. “In France, you had a growing love of nature, reflected in the works of philosophers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Wigs, which had been worn for 200 years, started to symbolize conservatism. During the French Revolution, they were banned in the name of democracy. Hair that was neither styled nor powdered was seen as extremely informal. Nature and informality were reflected in the ‘bed-head’ look.”

3 Fashion on the Ohio Frontier: 1790-1840 demonstrated through historical garments that frontiersmen and -women, far from the homespun-wearing ruffians of lore, followed fashion as much as possible. “A lot of these people were gentleman farmers like Thomas Jefferson,” Bissonnette says. “They brought with them their education, their class system, and portraits of people wearing the latest fashions. Even if you didn’t have much money, you

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Anne Bissonnette

didn’t go to the dressmaker and say, ‘Make me an old-fashioned dress.’ There are references to people in log cabins—no central heating—wearing thin muslin chemise dresses.”

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the Shang Dynasty of China, c. 1600–1050 BCE.

To Bissonnette, Vionnet is a great architect whose innovations reveal profound knowledge of the medium. “There’s one dress I love,” she says. “It’s the ultimate in ‘grain’ study. The skirt seams join a piece cut on the grain to another cut on the bias. Usually, that would be a disaster—one side would stretch and pucker endlessly. But Vionnet pre-stretched the bias portions before assembling it. The gown is only four pattern pieces and it’s very efficiently done. The design is determined by knowledge of the cloth.”

Bissonnette is a French-speaking Québécoise from Montreal. Her first love was biology, and science animates her interest in fashion. (More on that in a moment.) After earning undergraduate degrees in science, fashion design, and art history, she came to FIT for the program now called Fashion and Textile Studies: History, Theory, Museum Practice. That degree emphasizes practical skills, not abstract theories. “I must handle objects. I need that tactility,” she says. “The object always tells another story.”

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Her thesis was a manual on how to prepare garments for exhibition. Mounting costume is highly skilled work, but many institutions are poorly staffed and the task is often left to volunteers. “If you do it right, no one notices it,” she says. “But if you do it wrong, it looks flat, dead.” The secret to good mounting is knowledge of the era, she says, “and how body fat shifts with it.” The ideal figure changes over time, and this shift must be reflected in the way forms are padded; otherwise, the clothes will look historically inaccurate. “You have to know about real bodies, too,” Bissonnette says. “People are seldom symmetrical: At the [Metropolitan Museum of Art] Costume Institute, I once mounted a suit that belonged to Andy Warhol and found he had one shoulder higher than the other.”

June Bove, who teaches an exhibition skills course in the program, served as a reader for Bissonnette’s thesis. “She was one of the most intellectually curious graduates,” Bove says.

Bissonnette later got a PhD in museum studies and history at the Union Institute and University in Cincinnati where her work was centered on creating the show Fashion on the Ohio Frontier: 1790–1840.

At Kent State, in addition to curating exhibitions, Bissonnette mounted and photographed artifacts, developed PR materials, and produced a dynamic website on costume. For a trio of shows in 2006–07, the Costume Society of America gave her its Richard Martin Award for Excellence in the Exhibition of Costume (see sidebar). Colleen Callahan, a member of the award committee, praised the shows’ quality, and added, “Equally impressive is that they were curated and designed by one person with much more limited resources than are available to curators at large museums.”

Bissonnette is currently developing an exhibition at the University of Alberta that unites her love of science and costume. Called Victims of Fashion, it will be for “people who love fashion even though it hurts them.” Topics will range from eating disorders to consumer obsession with luxury brand logos. The show will also address the gap between aesthetics and functionality. “I have a low tolerance for bad design,” she says. Vionnet did more than make beautiful clothes; her bias-cut dresses let the body move. Modern shoes might look great, but they torture women’s feet. Bissonnette says, “The Vionnet of footwear is yet to come—a designer who can free the foot the way she freed the body.”

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C

exhibition. Embroidery can be traced back to

l

Anne Bissonnette

The Art of the Embroiderer, Bissonnette’s 2008–09

LIVING HISTORY Marissa Klein a student in first person

Visual Art Management ’10, Advertising and Marketing Communications ’08

I hear you’re a volunteer barista. Please explain.

I work at the café in the Housing Works nonprofit bookstore, making coffee. All the stuff there is donated and the steamer’s thermostat is broken, so it’s really hard to make the foamed milk. You have to judge its doneness by how hot the little steel pitcher feels. I also volunteered at an animal shelter, but I had to leave.

How come?

I got too attached to this one dog and then she was adopted, which was good for her but sad for me. She looked like Petey from The Little Rascals.

That’s a surprising reference to hear in 2009.

I love older things, especially from the early 20th century. I’ve surrounded myself with them my entire life. There was so much more attention to craftsmanship back then.

A love of things past must’ve helped at your summer 2008 internship with the Lower East Side Tenement Museum.

That was a wonderful experience. The museum is a tenement restored to look how it would’ve in the 1910s, and they have an actress who role-plays a Sephardic Jewish immigrant. I had to research what she would’ve worn. I spent a lot of time in the Center for Jewish History, comparing photographs of younger and older immigrant women from that time. I found a costume company that makes outfits using historically accurate textiles and stitching, and I bought wigs and styled them.

How did you style them?

Another intern wore them while I cut them.

You’re planning on a career in art history.

What are your favorite periods to study?

Mostly 1900-40s Modernism: Surrealism, De Stijl, Bauhaus. I also love late 18th-century France: Louis XVI-era portraiture and decorative arts, painters like Adélaide Labille-Guiard. There were actually a couple of highly regarded female artists then, which was rare.

Well, there was no shortage of prominent women in the early to mid-1900s. Do you have any favorites from that time?

Katharine Hepburn. Myrna Loy—I just finished Lorenzo Ciniglio

watching the Thin Man films. And Veronica Lake and Norma Shearer. I think they’re beautiful. They embody unbridled femininity. I love the hair, like those marcel waves. I strive for that.

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The Gold Standard Reem Acra, Fashion Design ’86, is having her moment

by ALEX JOSEPH Portrait by ALESSANDRA PETLIN

REEM ACRA stood in the middle of her Garment District studio while a

Acra wears a signature silk skirt from her line and a

noted photographer prepared to take her portrait. The photographer and an assistant bustled about, arranging furniture in the stark white space. Acra, best known for putting glamorous gowns on celebrities, including Angelina Jolie, Katherine Heigl, and Jane Fonda, gave her own outfit a once-over.

corseted jeweled patentleather belt from her new collection of costume bijoux.

Faux stones make the line, sold in Acra’s flagship store, an affordable way to dress up basics. She calls her

She sighed. Something was not right.

Roger Vivier sandals “my favorite thing.” Will she design shoes herself one day? “I’m sure,” she says.

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indicated some minute wrinkles on the skirt—a signature black silk number—and, without a pause, whipped it off and handed it to an assistant for steaming. Her Caprilength black leggings were exposed. Acra turned and caught the startled gaze of a journalist, shrugged, and laughed.

“You do what you have to do,” she said.

This unguarded moment was perhaps something of a red herring.

Acra may be bracingly self-confident, but she is also a designer who keeps secrets—her own, and her clients’. Celebrities trust this petite, polite woman because, as she put it, “I’m not loud. I’m the one they go to when someone is pregnant and‥‥” She made a gesture to indicate scandals kept at bay. Acra creates dresses that feature resplendent, jewel-encrusted embroidery. She employs creamy satin and satin-faced organza, slinky chiffons, and a dreamy palette that often glimmers with gold. These are not looks for mousy, modest women. Acra, a Lebanon native, claims Queen Noor of Jordan as one of her clients. “Every royal in the Middle East comes to me,” she said.

In person, Acra is reserved, though friendly.

The photography session took place on a balmy day in August.

In the world outside, the fashion industry was struggling with the reality of the recession. Consumer spending, particularly in the luxury and designer markets, was down drastically. But here, in the minimalist environment where Acra sketches and dreams up her eveningwear, ready-to-wear, bridal collection, and jewelry lines, calm prevailed.

The designer, who launched her business in 1997, is having her moment. Her bridal gowns, sold at Kleinfeld and exclusive boutiques, have been roundly praised for their fine detailing and chic takes on classic looks. Jill Biden rocked a red Acra number at the Inaugural

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Ball in January, and characters on recent episodes of Ugly Betty and Gossip Girl dropped Acra’s name. In February, citing the number of her gowns appearing on the red carpet during the awards season, Style.com wrote, “The bridal-turned-eveningwear specialist's career seems to be at a tipping point.” In September, a glowing profile in the Huffington Post called her dresses “lavish and glamorous without being over the top.” Harvey Nichols Dubai, one of Dubai’s premier department stores, has carried Acra’s collection for several years. “We see the brand as a representative for luxurious fashion,” said Eda Kuloglu, the store’s general merchandise manager. “Reem Acra is recognized and sought after by our most prestigious customers.

We believe in the brand’s potential, especially in this market.”

So what’s her advice for designers in a down economy?

She smiled. “Make sure you know what you are doing.”

She offered a few specific hints. In any collection, she always makes sure to include items that are versatile and more affordable—that black silk skirt, for example, or the simple blouse with an elegant garden print from her spring 2010 collection.

In recent seasons, she has scaled back on embellishment. The designer’s mainstay, however, is ready-to-wear at $1,500-2,000 per outfit and $5,000 gowns, sold at the most exclusive stores in the world—Bergdorf Goodman, Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue, Harvey Nichols in the Middle East, and her eponymous boutique on Madison Avenue in

New York. Couture styles crafted for individual customers are even more expensive.

But then, not every designer has a sixth sense: “When I meet someone, I can sketch in one minute what they should wear,” Acra said.

How does that work?

“I can’t say it came to me easy, but I’m strong at visualizing.

I’m intuitive. I pick up on the vibes of people.”

Not long ago, an associate called to recommend a new client. A friend’s daughter was getting married and needed a dress. But there was a catch, the acquaintance said: The girl was difficult. Acra pooh-poohed. No, the acquaintance insisted, you don’t understand; she’s really, really difficult. Acra asked for a photograph. A month later, the young woman’s parents brought her to meet the designer. Acra recalled the moment: “They brought her in and I said to the girl, in a split second, right in front of her parents, ‘You would like to be naked at your wedding, wouldn’t you?’ And she was ecstatic. So I sketched a dress that was totally see-through, with pearls and crystals. It looked amazing.” One customer called this intuitive ability “magical”: “Reem can look at you and instantly figure out the right style that will make you absolutely radiant. What more can you ask from a designer?”

Acra can judge someone’s size on the basis of a photograph.

The skill came in handy on a recent Vanity Fair photo shoot with Annie Leibovitz. A number of celebrities were involved, all to be dressed by Acra. When

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above: Acra with her brothers, Easter 1969. left: The designer’s mother, who made clothes for the family, is among her inspirations. “My fittings were long,” Acra says. “I remember quarrelling with her, saying, ‘I want my dress to go all the way to the floor.’” below: Acra is popular with celebrities on the red carpet. Here, Angelina Jolie,

Alessandra Petlin

Halle Berry, and Katherine Heigl.

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How Acra’s sketch style evolved. left: Acra created this medievalinspired look for her FIT application. center: A college assignment—very ’80s. right: An outfit from Acra’s spring 2010 collection.

Leibovitz arrived on the set, she was dismayed to discover that fittings had not been done in advance. The designer remained calm. “As each one arrived, I just zipped them into the gowns,” she said.

Acra’s ready-to-wear channels European elegance into streamlined American styles. The one thing she won’t make is jeans; she doesn’t even own a pair. “Not that I’m against jeans,” she said. “You have to know what looks good for you, and what doesn’t.” A hint of the Middle East is evident in her draping and detailing, and perhaps even the gold that is her signature. “Gold is in everything I do. It always has to be there,” she said. Acra considers the color an invigorating challenge. “Gold is very tricky. If you do it well, you’re refined, but it can be tacky in a split second.”

Growing up in Beirut, the designer was close to her mother, who made clothes for the family and remains a touchstone. Acra created her first dress for herself at age 8. (Today, it hangs on the back of her office door.) Years later, at the American University of Beirut, a fashion editor noticed a dress Acra had made out of an ornate table cloth, and offered to sponsor a fashion show, the designer’s first. Soon afterward, she applied to FIT. Professor Lucia M. Sica taught Acra’s first draping class. “She yelled at me because I finished the assignment in a few hours instead of a few days,” Acra said. Though her English needed improvement, her classmates soon began to refer to her as “the genius.” Her industry critic, the iconic designer Pauline Trigère, was also impressed with her technical ability. “She kept chasing me, saying ‘How did you do your buckles?’” She graduated magna cum laude and won the Fashion Design Department’s award for her year. Acra said her professors selected her and three other students for an exclusive exchange program with ESMOD (École Supérieure des Arts et Techniques de la Mode) in Paris. After a period designing luxury domestic interiors, a pursuit Acra said is not so different from fashion—“Color is color whether it’s on a body or in a room”—she opened her bridal business out of her Manhattan apartment. She said the bridal concern

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was never her final aim, but only a first step in establishing a complete design house. She launched her eveningwear in 2003, ready-to-wear in 2008, and jewelry this year.

Acra paused. Lou Lou, her Maltese, blinked up at her. The little white dog wore another Acra creation—a purple silk ombre dress, with feathers. Acra said, “What did you do? I know you did something. You look guilty.” Lou Lou widened her eyes and looked blameless.

More than a mascot, Lou Lou, who sometimes tours the runway tucked under Acra’s

arm, represents the designer’s whimsical side. Acra travels widely—a recent itinerary included Beirut, Paris, Dubai, LA, and Japan—and she adores tchotchkes. Recent finds include ornate Chinese boxes, glass water jugs covered with decoupage, and wine-bottle holders shaped like clowns—“I use them to hold my hairbrushes. I get a kick out of that.” She also collects costume from the 1920s, and takes ballroom dancing lessons. So it’s not all ambition. Asked if she would ever do menswear, Acra hesitated. “I don’t like suits. And I’d bead the ties,” she said.

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steps toward a sustainable future

The Greening of FIT

Biker Chic

Next spring, when New York City’s parks and gardens turn green, so will the roof of the Shirley Goodman Resource Center. Amid the massive cooling towers and other equipment on the roof, modular trays of sedum plants will turn carbon dioxide into oxygen, reducing the college’s carbon footprint, while providing sustainable insulation for the roof.

Beyond reducing CO2 emissions, green roofs are energy efficient. By insulating the roofs, the plants will reduce energy costs for heating the buildings in winter and cooling them in summer. The use of drought-resistant succulents for the vegetation largely eliminates the need to water the plants, reducing the cost of maintaining the greenery. Construction of the Goodman Center roof will be finished before winter, and the plants will be brought in this spring.

FIT’s campus dates back to the 1950s and most of its roofs need to be replaced in the near future. The college will take the opportunity to put vegetation atop every campus building. The next green roof will be installed on the David Dubinsky Student Center.

The green roofs are part of a long-term commitment to environmental projects initiated by former President Bill Clinton and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

FIT plans to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 30 percent by 2013, and green roofs are part of the effort. The project is one component of a collegewide green initiative undertaken by the President’s Office, which also includes the establishment of a Sustainability Council of faculty, staff, and students to evaluate all FIT programs in terms of environmental impact, a master’s degree program in Sustainable Interior Environments, a database of sustainability initiatives in the curriculum, and student competitions in sustainable design.

—Judith Mahoney Pasternak

Imagine unisex bike clothes and gear that are practical and affordable—and stylish. FIT Fashion Design students did just that for last spring’s Bike in Style Challenge sponsored by luxury goods producer LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton. The contest promoted cycling, in support of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s PlaNYC agenda for a greener New York.

Jessica Velasquez ’10 took first place—and $5,000. Jane Carlton ’10 and Stephanie Murphy ’10 won the second and third prizes of $3,000 and $2,000, respectively. Over the summer, DKNY (an LVMH company) and Velasquez created prototypes of her designs. Unveiled at a ceremony on August 3, the pieces were fashionable and uniquely suited for bike riders. (The event was the kickoff for Bloomberg’s Summer Streets program, which closed 6.9 miles of city streets to cars on Saturday mornings in August.)

Concept rendering of FIT’s Goodman Center Green Roof,

by RAND Engineering & Architecture, PC.

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Velasquez, left, created a jacket (on model) with strips of reflective tape for safety and special pockets for cash, a Metrocard, and an iPod. Renderings of her designs, right: The poncho features magnetic fasteners for easy opening and closing, and large armholes and adjustable sides for greater comfort. The bag zips open to become a garment bag for a bike commuter’s change of clothes.

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FAREWELL TO A SUPERMODEL

1962 ALICE SHERMAN SIMPSON,

In August, after model NAOMI SIMS died, we asked DEBORAH GREGORY, FASHION

FASHION ILLUSTRATION AND

DESIGN ’76, author of The Cheetah Girls, for a remembrance. Sims, who studied

ADVERTISING DESIGN,

is a

sculptor and limited-

Fashion Buying and Merchandising at FIT, was called the first black supermodel.

edition bookmaker based in Pasadena, CA. Formerly a freelance packaging and surface designer (her clients included Avon,

news from your classmates

Mattel, and Johnson & Queen of the Night & Papageno, 2007, stoneware and milk paint.

Johnson), Simpson also served on an FIT advisory

board and taught as an adjunct. Her artworks, often exploring her love of music and dance, are in the collections of Yale, Harvard, and Dartmouth colleges; the Victoria & Albert Museum; and the New York Public Library.

1967 MARIKA CHERKOSS HAHN, FASHION ILLUSTRATION AND ADVERTISING DESIGN,

is a freelance illustrator specializing in fashion,

beauty, and children. Hahn’s clients include Workman Publishing, Simon & Schuster, Estée Lauder, Revlon, and magazines like Cosmopolitan and Good Housekeeping.

She’s also branching into the textile and surface design market, and will show her work at the May 2010 SURTEX trade show in New York City.

Gregory, in her modeling days.

In 1982, I embarked on a modeling career after being encouraged by my psychotherapist, teachers at FIT, and passersby alike. I traveled across the Atlantic, far from the foster homes in the Bronx where I grew up, and met two lifelong friends—Beverly Johnson, the first black model on the cover of Vogue, and Coco Mitchell, one of the first to appear in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. On go-sees in Paris, Milan, Florence, and Rome, I experienced not-so-chic racism—black models (from biracial ones like me to bronzinas à la Naomi Sims) were shooed away routinely, like migrant workers: “That’s it. C’est fini!

No more black models today!’’

Twenty-seven years later, I sat in the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola on Park Avenue for Sims’s funeral, flanked by Johnson and Mitchell. I asked myself, How did Sims do it?

How did she transcend racism during the Civil Rights era, and force a powerful industry to change its narrow definition of beauty? Like all pioneers, she fought for it tooth, nail, and hot comb.

The Pittsburgh native was raised in foster homes and received a scholarship to FIT. She was initially rejected by all the modeling agencies because of the color of her skin.

Undeterred, she posed for fashion illustrators to support herself through college, and introduced herself to a New York Times fashion photographer, who shot her for the August 27, 1967, cover of the paper’s fashion supplement. (That image was

Hahn’s Study on Wicker, pen and ink.

featured this year in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s exhibi-

1985

tion, The Model as Muse.) In 1969, Sims graced the cover of Life

KATHERINE KIERNAN STEIN, FASHION BUYING AND MERCHANDISING,

magazine, catapulting her into international status as the first

is the international business development sales manager

significant African-American model.

for apparel and textiles at SGS (Société Générale de

For Johnson, her predecessor’s significance is Swarovski-

Surveillance) Consumer Testing. SGS assesses the quality

Sims’s groundbreaking Life cover from 1969.

control and regulatory compliance of manufacturers and

which paved the way for me.’’ She adds, “I’ll never forget seeing Naomi on the cover of

importers worldwide; Stein manages the U.S. soft lines

Life. I was on my way to my first go-see and I got out of the cab, ran to the bathroom, and

sales team, marketing SGS’s services to brands and

slicked my hair back into a bun just like hers. Naomi created that sleek look—and it has

retailers like Macy’s and Polo Ralph Lauren. She also

worked for every black model since. There was only one Naomi. There will never be

provides students professional opportunities through

another.”

crystal clear: “She broke down the color barriers in fashion,

FIT’s Career and Internship Center.

Deborah Gregory’s new series, Catwalk: Strike a Pose (Delacorte Press), has been optioned by the TeenNick network.

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WEST WORLD

1988 THALIA LINARDOS LAVENTZIS,

MARYANN PRITCHET NEVIRS,

FASHION BUYING AND MERCHAN -

ADVERTISING DESIGN,

DISING ,

operator of Nevirs Design,

owns Bodies in

FERNANDO SOUTO, PHOTOGRAPHY ’97

is owner-

Motion Forever, a Spring-

in Greenwood, NY, where

field, OH, store selling

she creates ads, stationery,

shoes and apparel for

and invitations for individu-

dancers, gymnasts, and

als and businesses. Before

cheerleaders. Laventzis

starting her business,

opened shop in 2003, after

Nevirs designed for ad

15 years working in HR

agencies in New York and

management for retail.

North Carolina, and for trade publications and magazines like PC.

1994 KERRY HIGGINS, PACKAGING DESIGN, ADVERTISING DESIGN ’92 ,

is the

U.S. creative director for two high-end salon product lines at L’Oréal—Kérastase and Shu Uemura. Working from New York, Higgins and her two designers create marketing and merchandising pieces for the Paris-based brands, including brochures for salespeople, salon owners, and customers; customized displays; and invitation-only events to publicize product launches.

Three award-winning photos from Souto’s The End of the Trail. Counterclockwise from top: young girl standing next to older man, Tacuarembó, Uruguay; herding cattle, Northern Territory, Australia; calf branding, Arapahoe Reservation, Wyoming.

Inspired by his Uruguayan grandmother’s photographs of that country’s early 20thcentury frontiersmen, Fernando Souto’s ongoing series, The End of the Trail, documents cowboys the world over, capturing their transient way of life in black and white. Four years into the planned eight-year project, Souto has logged time with herders in South America, Central Australia, Wyoming, and Nevada. To find his subjects, he studies terrain maps for probable ranching locations, travels to the area, and asks around. Each trip is four to seven weeks of “complete immersion,” he says. “If they’re riding horses for 16 hours, I ride for 16 hours.” A solo show of the project thus far was held at the Smack Mellon Gallery in Brooklyn this fall. Souto, who works at commercial shoots in the States when not abroad, will next photograph in southwestern Brazil.

Higgins’s team created this invitation to a company conference in New Orleans, an event that included volunteer work in the city.

—Greg Herbowy

1998

1999

KRISTIN GUTHENBERG, MARKETING: FASHION AND RELATED INDUSTRIES,

ROSA PAGONE PUGLIESE, ILLUSTRA-

is project manager for the home textiles division of Shore

TION,

to Shore, a company providing packaging, hangtags, and

newborns and children

woven labels to merchandisers. Based in Manhattan,

for companies like Rashti

Guthenberg manages the design and manufacturing of

& Rashti, Catton Brothers,

TRESSA CARRIER KOSOWICZ , FABRIC STYLING , TEXTILE DEVELOPMENT

packaging for home products—from bedding to shower

and InterAsia Sourcing

AND MARKETING ’94 ,

curtains—for brands and retailers like Donna Karan

before starting Newborn

Home and Bed Bath & Beyond.

Designs, Inc., her Long

1996 is co-owner of Little River Oriental

Rugs in Concord, NH. Kosowicz’s store features rugs from Afghan and Tibetan refugees and is a member of Green

designed clothes for

Island-based design

Concord, a collection of area businesses dedicated to

MICHELLE ZAPATA , ADVERTISING AND COMMUNICATIONS,

sustainability. All Little River rugs are made with hand-

photo editor of Ser Padres, the Spanish-language edition

early 2009. Newborn’s

collected and spun wools, colored with vegetable dyes,

of Meredith Corporation’s Parents magazine. Before

clients include Foxy, a

and sun-dried.

joining Meredith, she was deputy photo editor at People

Russian children’s wear

en Español. Zapata, who has also photographed for both

company, and Chatti Patti,

magazines, still takes an occasional class at FIT.

a U.S.-based girl’s line.

is the

consulting company, in

www.fitnyc.edu/ hue

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2006

2001

2005

LAURE HERIARD DUBREUIL , ADVERTISING AND MARKETING COMM -

LAUREN BRUNELLE, ADVERTISING

CONSTANCE KOPACH, FASHION

JED SKILLINS, GRAPHIC DESIGN,

UNICATIONS,

AND MARKETING COMMUNICA-

MERCHANDISING MANAGEMENT,

COMMUNICATION DESIGN ’04 ,

high-end fashion store in Miami Beach, FL. A native of

TIONS,

lives in Addis

is an online merchant at

works for Pentagram in

Cognac, France, Dubreuil moved to Paris as a teen and

Ababa, Ethiopia, with her

Abercrombie & Fitch in

Manhattan. Skillins has

spent summers in China learning Mandarin before

husband, a UN employee.

New Albany, OH, manag-

created environmental

enrolling at FIT. She and her two fellow owners recently

A former junior art buyer

ing their Hollister label’s

design—branding, signage,

joined with Caviar Kaspia, a world-renowned Parisian

for Hill Holliday Advertis-

e-commerce store. She

way-finding—for buildings

restaurant, to open a U.S. outpost, Kaspia Miami, in

ing, Inc., Brunelle currently

uploads and categorizes

and exhibitions in Singa-

The Webster.

works for StockShop, a

images of the merchandise,

pore, Qatar, New York,

photo agency, keywording

tracks sales and site traffic,

and New Jersey, where he

photographs for online

and monitors online sales

worked on the New York

browsing and sales.

inventory, among other

Jets’ training facility.

news from your classmates

is CEO and co-owner of The Webster, a

Peter Mauss/Esto Photographics

duties.

STEVEN WHALEN, ADVERTISING AND MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS,

is the director of marketing at the City University of New York’s Queens College. Whalen oversees all of QC’s print, web, radio, and TV marketing, whether it’s advertising aimed at potential enrollees or internal promotions of new programs and faculty and staff initiatives. He was formerly the advertising and publications coordinator at FIT.

2007 Jimmy Cohrssen

ELOISE CORR DANCH, ILLUSTRATION MA ,

The Webster, a 20,000-square-foot fashion store in Miami Beach.

Skillins helped brand the Jets’ facility in Florham Park, NJ.

2009

a guest this past spring on the Martha

KRISTYN ORTIZ , TEXTILE /SURFACE DESIGN, is pursuing a BA in business administration,

was

Stewart Show. She taught the host how to

with a minor in media arts, at SUNY Stony

make a paper poppy. Danch, a freelance

Brook. Ortiz, whose design work draws

fashion illustrator, has become known

on punk rock iconography and tattoo art,

for her paper sculptures of flora, fauna,

plans to go into styling and clothing design upon graduation.

HYUNJOO LEE, INTERIOR DESIGN,

ERIKA STEVENS, FASHION

and dresses, which have appeared in the

is an infrastructure plan-

MERCHANDISING MANAGEMENT,

windows of the Herald Square Macy’s,

ning manager at New York

is an art assistant on ABC’s

clothing catalogues, museums, and as

Presbyterian Hospital in

Ugly Betty, working at the

wedding table centerpieces.

Manhattan. Lee is helping

show’s New York office.

to craft a ten-year master

Stevens assists with set

building plan for the hospi-

and costume design,

tal’s campuses, and contri-

performs administrative

butes to design projects

duties, and researches

improving the functionality

clothing trends for use in

and aesthetics of existing

the show (set at a fictional

buildings. This year, Lee

fashion magazine). Look

earned a U.S. Green

for her photo on a “Wanted”

Building Council’s LEED

poster in an upcoming

(Leadership in Energy and

episode.

Environmental Design) certification, signifying mastery of sustainable building practices.

2003 CHRISTINE ETHERINGTON, FASHION MERCHANDISING MANAGEMENT,

Ortiz’s Grasshopper Garden screenprint.

is the manager of events and sponsorships for St. John’s David Zuckerman

Rehab Foundation, the fund-raising body for St. John’s Rehab Hospital in Toronto. Etherington organizes and secures funding for events of all sizes. This coming February’s gala, St. John’s biggest yet, will feature Jay Leno.

30

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Details from windows Danch decorated for the 2009 Macy’s Flower Show at Herald Square.

hue | fall 2009

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RAGS TO RICHES ALIX DWORKIN JOYAL sources of inspiration

Textile Development and Marketing ’08, Fashion Merchandising Management ’06

I use a variety of vintage and recycled fabrics in my custom quilt business, Mamaka Mills.

Most recently I’ve been using clothing and textiles from people who have passed away, to create heirloom-quality quilts for their families to remember them by. I love the challenge of working with textiles that wouldn’t be used in traditional quilting, like wool or silk. I just used fabric from an umbrella, which I ironed to a nonwoven interfacing, like what you’d find in a shirt collar, so the nylon wouldn’t rip and run. Next year, my husband deploys to Afghanistan with the New Hampshire National Guard.

I wanted something to comfort me while he’s away, so I made a contemporary quilt out of his old uniforms, fatigues, and patches. Soon I’m going to teach a class through the Guard’s Family Readiness Program, so other military spouses can make their own quilts. Old clothing has so much history and sentimental value. This is a way to keep those memories in our daily lives.

Alix Joyal operates Mamaka Mills (mamakamills.com) from her studio

Gary Ombler / Dorling Kindersley / Getty Images

in Hooksett, NH.

What inspires you?

Email the editors at hue@fitnyc.edu

www.fitnyc.edu/hue

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