Read about Parsons’ recent partnership with Tory Burch to reimagine the future of fashion, excerpted from Regarding Design (re:D) Magazine
BEST OF BOTH
Taking Fashion into New Terrain with Tory Burch
Together Tory Burch and Parsons are dissolving the walls between classroom and company in a multistage partnership aimed at taking fashion into the future
By Sarah Fensom
In mid-March, about halfway through the spring 2024 semester, third-year BFA Fashion Design student Silin Gu presented her design for a luxury accessory to the New York–based fashion designer Tory Burch and her team. Gu had created a wearable wine bottle carrier emblazoned with Burch’s iconic double-T logo. The carrier featured an adjustable braided orange strap, a cylindrical body reinforced with waterproof rubber, heavy silver hardware, and an ovoid cutout designed to show off the wine bottle’s label. But the accessory’s most surprising feature may have been what it was made from: a pastseason Tory Burch rain boot, some surplus trimmings,
and the box and dustbag the shoe came in.
Gu created the bottle holder for a partnership between the BFA Fashion Design program and Burch, which took the form of a sweeping Project Runway–like design competition. All 268 students in the program’s junior class participated in the challenge at the beginning of the spring semester. Each received a mystery package of production samples, material, and trimmings or packaging donated by Burch’s label, along with the challenge of upcycling them. Students had three weeks to conceptualize and construct a piece and to sketch or digitally render an accompanying capsule collection of eight looks. Their creations had to embody the design language of the Tory Burch brand—a timeless, relaxed East Coast glamour. After the projects were completed, the Parsons faculty leads chose eight finalists to present their designs to Burch. The finalists were competing for three paid summer internships at Burch’s New York headquarters—a highly covetable prize for an ambitious young designer.
On this and the facing pages are images from Silin Gu’s presentation to Tory Burch, showing her source object (a boot) and the wine
The BFA Fashion Design program developed the upcycling project and asked Tory Burch to join as a partner, lending materials, a strong brand vision, and a creative eye. “We tasked students with creating new
garments out of discards from our studio—prototypes, deadstock fabric, even shoelaces. They only had a few weeks, so we knew the project would be a lot, but the students were more than up for the challenge,” says Somphone Sikhounmuong, the design director at Tory Burch. For the Parsons leadership, the strict parameters of the project were a means of sparking innovation and providing students with practical, real-world experience. “It was a quick project,” says professor Mariana Vidal-Escabi, who serves as the BFA program’s associate director of Partnerships and Culture and developed the Tory Burch collaboration. “The materials provided limits, and time was a limitation as well, but when you have constraints, you are more creative—and that’s what we wanted for the students.”
tote she created from it.
TH WORLDS
The project’s many variables introduced students to new making methods. Many of the participants, like Gu, found themselves constructing garments, accessories, or textiles in unfamiliar formats and materials.
“I had never worked with rubber before,” says Gu, whose materials package included a rain boot. “At first
RIGHT: For Silin Gu and other students competing for internships, presenting to the Burch team their concepts, creative processes, and approaches to blending their creative vision with Burch’s brand voice was an invaluable learning experience.
I was blindsided—I had to think for a week to figure out what to do.” Gu engaged in intensive research in the vast image holdings of the New School Library and the New York Public Library; consulted videos, runway photographs, and press archives provided by Burch; and even Googled “how to remake rain boots” in the process of developing a strong on-brand idea and construction technique.
“ We knew the project would be a lot, but the students were more than up for the challenge.”
—Somphone
Sikhounmuong, design director at Tory Burch
The concept Gu settled on resulted from a discussion with her boyfriend about wine bottle holders they had seen couples bringing to BYOB restaurants. “I realized that the boot was the perfect size to hold a bottle and then started looking at how I could work with its shape, material, and texture to create an accessory, even though I was more used to making garments,” she says. It was also important that her final product fit in with her own work and the items displayed in Tory Burch’s showrooms. “Ultimately, my direction involved merging my style with the brand style, because that was the main goal in this project,” says Gu. “In a way, it’s what every designer for a brand has to do.”
Gu was one of the eight finalists who presented their upcycled creations and capsule collection concepts to the Burch team, which includes a number of Parsons alumni. At the conclusion of the presentations, Burch pulled her team aside for a brief consultation as students awaited the announcement of the three internship winners. To the surprise of the Parsons teams—students and faculty alike—Burch announced that her team were so impressed by the finalists’ concepts and designs that they decided to award internships to all eight.
“Tory brought a lot of her team from different departments, so they all got excited and started discussing how one student could be in the handbag
Tory
who
department or another in the womenswear department, and so on,” says Vidal-Escabi. She notes that the range of products showcased in the students’ work for Burch reflected the different areas of focus in the BFA Fashion Design program.
“ The students’ ingenuity was on another level; the solutions and work-arounds they came up with kept surprising us.”
—Somphone Sikhounmuong, design director at Tory Burch
Vidal-Escabi explains that the students choose a pathway, a sequence of courses focused on a facet of fashion design. Those in the Collections pathway concentrate on lines of apparel. Students in the Fashion Products pathway focus on accessories. The Materiality pathway challenges students to explore the materials and techniques driving innovation. And the Systems & Society pathway familiarizes students with sustainability, circularity, and social impact in relation to the fashion system. Students working on the upcycling project received materials relevant to their pathway, from which they created a range of items aligned with Burch’s multifaceted product line and goals. Seeing innovation emerge from the brand’s discards energized
Students used recent Burch promotional materials to research the company’s brand voice and develop concepts that took Burch collections in new directions. Olive Eng-Canty documented her process in this image from her presentation deck.
Burch (in gray) is surrounded by students
participated in the upcycling challenge and were shortlisted for internships. At far left and far right are faculty leads Marie Geneviève Cyr and Mariana Vidal-Escabi.
Burch’s team. “It was inspiring for us to see our familiar materials and garments in a new light. And the students’ ingenuity was on another level; the solutions and work-arounds they came up with kept surprising us,” Sikhounmuong says. “One student wove shoelaces into a full look; a shopping bag became jewelry; a cocktail dress became tennis gear.” The students’ “out-of-the-box thinking” generated considerable excitement about what they might create over the summer as company interns.
Burch founded her eponymous label in 2004. Now a global brand with more than 370 stores worldwide, the label offers collections including ready-to-wear, handbags, footwear, accessories, jewelry, housewares,
and beauty products. But much like Parsons, the company has roots in New York City, maintaining a presence at New York Fashion Week, a flagship store in Nolita, and a design studio and headquarters on Fifth Avenue. When the firm was launched, Burch served as both designer and CEO, but in 2019 she stepped down as the business lead. Her husband, Pierre-Yves Roussel, a former LVMH executive, took over as CEO, freeing Burch to focus on her role as
“ Students placed in the Tory Burch atelier participated in ongoing in-house creative projects as well, learning how the business operates.”
Preeti
Gopinath,
director of the MFA Textiles program
Tory Burch and Marie Geneviève Cyr, director of the BFA Fashion Design program. Burch’s association with Parsons’ School of Fashion led to a collaboration with students, which familiarized them with her brand and allowed her to observe their work with materials and technique.
This decision proved pivotal. “Tory told our students that the easiest thing she ever did was give away the title of CEO—she really wanted to give her energy to the design part of the business,” says Marie Geneviève Cyr, director of the BFA Fashion Design program and a major force behind the partnership with Burch. In recent years, the fashion press has praised the brand’s creative direction, dubbing this era “the Toryssance.” “The moment she became creative director, everything about the design got elevated, and I think that’s why for her, creativity is a priority.”
It’s no coincidence, then, that Burch decided to invest in creativity and establish a long-term partnership with Parsons. The idea, which emerged in fall 2021, Sikhounmuong says, was to develop a range of programs in conjunction with the institution, including courses, mentorship opportunities, and projects like the design competition. “We wanted the
In fall 2022, the BFA Fashion Design program asked Tory Burch to partner on a course that drew inspiration from the designer’s Spring/ creative director.
For her MFA Textiles studies, Aradhita Parasrampuria continued her experiments with biomaterials-based beads in an Atelier internship at Tory Burch, where she created garments like this dress.
partnership to feel organic and natural, knowing it would evolve along the way,” says Sikhounmuong.
In 2020, even before an official relationship was established, Burch’s studio started discussing a joint initiative with Parsons’ MFA Textiles program. Then in early 2021, the studio set up a partnership with MFA Textiles through its innovative externship program, called Ateliers. “The Atelier courses are unique to Parsons; there’s nowhere else in the world where you can do this course,” explains Preeti Gopinath, director of the Textiles program and an associate professor. “Unlike conventional internships, where students may have to fetch coffee and pick up drycleaning or cut fabric swatches for slack racks, our students take their own textile project to a design or art world atelier and develop their work under the guidance of professionals. Students placed in the Tory Burch atelier were mentored by the creative director and designer, and the students participated in ongoing in-house creative projects as well, learning how the business operates.
After enduring pandemic lockdowns and isolation, MFA Textiles student Shradha Kochhar came to work in the Tory Burch studio in summer 2021. The studio, with its hard-to-come-by materials, fabrication tools, and support, was “truly a gift I’m so grateful for,” she says. “I got to think as expansively as I wanted to—the world truly was my oyster.” Kochhar describes the creative inspiration and encouragement she got from the brand’s team; its former creative director, Alistair Carr; Burch herself; and Gopinath as critical to her development. During the internship, Kochhar continued exploring khadi knit, a handspun and handknit textile she produces from Kala cotton, a highly sustainable cotton indigenous to India with a long and rich history. Her work with the brand led to a number of opportunities, including a placement as a knitwear development consultant with John McGrath, a creative director in the label’s footwear department. Aradhita Parasrampuria and Lelia Bacchi Levy followed Kochhar at Tory Burch in fall 2021. Parasrampuria, who has invented methods of making beads and sequins out of algae dyed with bacteria, cellulose, and jellyfish protein (see pages 22–23), continued to develop her biomaterial beadwork and use it to create garments in the atelier.
Summer 2022 collection, an homage to the groundbreaking midcentury American sportswear designer and Parsons graduate Claire McCardell, and The Met Costume Institute’s exhibition In America: An Anthology of Fashion. Vidal-Escabi and Julian Guthrie, the BFA Fashion Technology coordinator and an associate professor at Parsons, developed the research and design course for third-year students, and Burch got on board, donating fabrics, materials, and other resources. “Our first initiative was a course about lesser-known American women designers, in which students researched women like Elizabeth Hawes and Ann Lowe and designed capsule collections inspired by their contributions to fashion,” Sikhounmuong explains. Students visited the brand’s headquarters, where Burch’s team walked them through the development process used to create the McCardell collection. “They showed us all their mood boards, all their material development, all their samples, everything,” says VidalEscabi, an instructor for the course. Burch visited the Parsons classroom as well. “She told her story, and the students asked a lot of detailed questions. It was very intimate, and the students really connected to Tory and the brand,” says Vidal-Escabi.
Like most BFA classes, the class was small, consisting of only 16 students. “Tory wanted to have a bigger engagement,” Cyr says. “And we said, ‘Well, if you want bigger engagement, Tory, let’s go much bigger. Let’s build a project for all 268 of the year-three students in the first three weeks of their spring semester.’” The BFA Fashion program, with VidalEscabi as the partnership lead, developed the idea of the upcycling challenge, and Burch was more than happy to get involved with a project of its scope. In fact, Cyr says that the Burch partnership touched a greater number of students in a program than any other that she knew of from her 14 years at the university. The project kicked off with another campus visit by Burch in January 2024, in which she introduced the contest. Parsons faculty members leading the program’s pathways gave students in the classes their packages of materials and explained the
deliverables for their pathway tracks.
Limiting waste and upcycling were major focuses of the partnership, especially when it came to the spring 2024 design sprint for third-year BFA students, which were titled Transformative Futures: Responsibility, Refresh, Remake, Reboot, Repair.
Forging environmentally sustainable models is the bedrock of all Parsons programs, including those in the School of Fashion, and a central concern of students. For Tory Burch, Sikhounmuong explains, sustainability measures entail creating timeless, long-wearing garments with lowimpact materials and production methods in partnership with suppliers and factories who share the brand’s goal of environmental preservation. Says Sikhounmuong, “Reducing waste has always been a priority; we use what we have, and we carry over fabrics from season to season. When we do have overage, we usually donate it to New York design schools.”
Olive Eng-Canty, a BFA fashion student who won a Tory Burch internship, was already addressing the challenge of reusing garments and samples. “A lot of my work is centered on sustainability, so I had previous upcycling experience,” she says. Eng-Canty turned a silk polka-dot dress into a garment featuring chains of fabric spheres that cascade down the body from a bra top. The garment, which was paired with hot pants, dazzled the judges and reinforced Eng-Canty’s belief in the path she has chosen. “I’ve always focused on sustainability and textiles, but the positive reception of my piece proved that I am doing the right thing with my work,” she says. Eng-Canty’s internship is in the company’s knitwear department. “I’ve been focused on fiber arts for the past year, so I will be taking all I learn into my thesis during my senior year at Parsons,” she says.
RIGHT: Olive Eng-Canty applied her experience in upcycling to the task of deconstructing a silk productionsample dress and fashioning fabriccovered balls from it for her new garment, shown in a sketch. BELOW: Eng-Canty presents her concept and finished dress to Burch and her team.
“I’ve always focused on sustainability and textiles, but how well my piece was received has proved that I am doing the right thing with my work.”
— Olive Eng-Canty, BFA Fashion Design student
Alicia Corradini designed a fitted jacket inspired by Tory Burch’s equestrian interests. The jacket is detailed with ribbon discards from Burch’s company. Shown above are Corradini’s sketches and presentation collages and below is her finished garment.
Alicia Corradini, another BFA student who received an internship, was inspired by Burch’s story and the messaging of the brand. “I focused on the more recent Tory Burch collections—her prints, her colors, and their energy, but then also her equestrian background,” Corradini says. “I found a pattern for vintage riding breeches, and then developed my own new pattern.” She ended
up turning a piece of knitwear and some trimmings into a suit inspired by traditional jockey uniforms, with a capsule
“It was important to maintain the energy that Tory Burch’s company has while bringing in something new with my own design perspective.”
Alicia Corradini, BFA Fashion Design student
collection to match. In her designs, Corradini sought to promote women’s empowerment, a cause she sees as essential to Burch’s brand and her own work. “My conception of female empowerment is about subverting gender stereotypes. So my design philosophy centers on taking something that is typically masculine and making it more feminine.” By adapting a traditionally masculine uniform into a women’s garment, she was able to combine her aesthetic with that of the brand—one of the goals of the project. “It was important to maintain the energy that Tory Burch’s company has while bringing in something new with my own design perspective,” she says.
Working within the parameters of a major fashion brand gave Corradini a new vantage point from which to view her future as a designer. “During this experience, I asked myself how I could adapt to fit into a company’s vision while staying true to myself,” she says. “Learning to find the balance felt instructive as I go into my thesis and then, beyond that, potentially work for a brand.” Cyr agrees that working with a major fashion label was a powerful experience for the students—one that familiarized them with the demands of the mainstream fashion industry. “It was incredible practice for students to present professionally to a design team,” she says.
The work that the students produced was so impressive that Burch asked to see more portfolios at the conclusion of the presentations, says Vidal-Escabi. “Tory said, ‘I’m just so curious. I want to see how other students interpreted the project; we have a lot of internships to fill,’” Vidal-Escabi says. “She was already asking if we could do it again.”
Sarah Fensom is a writer based in Los Angeles.
