Fashion Design: Focus on New York City Style and Culture

In this course, students explore fashion with a particular focus on style and culture in New York City and then develop their own designs.

Participants get a first-hand look at the field through discussions with active figures in the fashion industry such as designers, marketing directors, and stylists. They take field trips to locations such as the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) and the costume collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Readings on the history, theory, and culture of fashion include works by icons, artists, writers, editors, philosopher, and activists such as Diana Vreeland, Susan Sontag, Oscar Wilde, Bernard Rudofsky, and Marilyn Bender. As a springboard for inspiration and discussion, students view the works of a variety of designers through film clips and videos. Through explorations into fashion as art, students will encounter individuals who live and enact fashion through performative dress, at times challenging social and gender expectations

Having gained a firm grounding in the field, participants research and formulate their own original fashion concepts. Based on these concepts, they design their own unique collections. Concepts may center on a particular motif (e.g., technology as an extension of the human body), period or style (e.g., British monarchy, Imperial China, Ancient Egypt, imagined future, underwater or deep space), or material inspiration (e.g., mylar, fiber optics, recyclables, etc.). While sharing sources of inspiration and research discoveries, with attention to both craft and theory, in addition to producing individual collections, students engage in a collaborative design project.