Hue Winter 2012

volume 6 | number 1 | fall/winter 2012

The alumni Magazine of the Fashion institute of Technology

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The Alumni Magazine of the Fashion Institute of Technology

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 Communications and External Relations, 227 West 27 Street, Room B905, New York, NY 10001-5992, 212 217.4700.

Email: hue@fitnyc.edu

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vice president for Communications and external relations Loretta Lawrence Keane assistant vice president for Communications Carol Leven editor Linda Angrilli managing editor Alex Joseph staff writer Jonathan Vatner editorial assistant Laura Hatmaker art Direction and Design Empire Design Studio

Hue magazine on the web: fitnyc.edu/hue blog.fitnyc.edu/huetoo Get involved with FIT and your fellow alumni. “Like” the FIT Alumni page on Facebook and follow @FITAlumni on Twitter. Email the Office of Alumni Relations at allison_oldehoff@fitnyc.edu and let us know what you’ve been up to. eNvIroNmeNtal savINgs For Fall/wINter 2012

77 trees preserved/planted 223 lbs waterborne waste not created 32,852 gallons wastewater flow saved 3,635 lbs solid waste not generated

Features 8

tIger’s tale FIT’s first official athletic logo earns its stripes

10 tHe Future oF aDvertIsINg Is DIgItal The art and science of effective media buys

7,157 lbs net greenhouse gases prevented 54,780,800 BTUs energy not consumed printed by monroe litho Inc. on mohawk Inxwell super smooth eco white FSC-certified, 100% post consumer waste reclaimed/ recycled fiber, made with 100% renewable energy; manufactured chlorine free; certified ISO 14001:2004 Environmental Management System. please recycle or share this magazine.

14 plaN Bee Photography whiz Nick Parisse ’09 is generating a buzz

16 aNtoNIo The art of a legendary fashion illustrator 24 BrokeN HIstorIes The tortuous recovery of art looted in the Holocaust 26 mIND your maNNers!

Seven tips for top-notch office etiquette

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Cover Front cover: The work of Antonio, Fashion Illustration ’62, raises fascinating questions about the distinction between fine and commercial art. This drawing advertised a Russia-themed campaign for Bloomingdale’s, 1981. Story page 16.

Back cover: Photographer Nick Parisse ’09 shows off a frame from his beehive. Photo

by Lexi Parisse ’09 . See page 14.

What’s happening on Hue Too After you’ve enjoyed this issue, don’t forget to surf over to our Hue Too blog, a fresh take on all things FIT. Find out what Lady Gaga wore to her WWD cover shoot before she made it big, what zinger Diana Vreeland said to an FIT alumna in the ’70s, and why in the world the bull statue in Lower Manhattan was

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24

Departments 4 Hue’s News 6 I Contact 7 Faculty On… 28 Alumni notes 31 Sparks

wearing headphones. blog.fitnyc.edu/huetoo

This summer, The Museum at FIT received accreditation by the American Alliance of Museums, the highest national recognition for a museum. Only 4.5 percent of America’s 17,500 museums, and less than 1 percent of college or university museums, are accredited.

The committee praised MFIT for having “one of the most important collections of its type” and being “truly a teaching museum in all senses of the word.”

Much more is happening at the museum this fall. Its online collections, featuring more than 600 objects and growing, were recently relaunched at fashionmuseum.fitnyc.edu. A book, published by Taschen, is in the works, including more than 500 fashions from the museum’s collection, plus photographs from past exhibitions.

Ivy Style, a show of the menswear worn on Ivy League campuses early in the 20th century—and an examination of how it has informed men’s fashion—is on display through January 5. Fashion & Technology, which examines how technological advancements have influenced fashion over the past 250 years, runs from December 4, 2012 to May 8, 2013.

This year, Elle magazine held its third annual Fashion Next design competition at FIT. The contest challenged students from the classes of 2012 and 2013 to create a collection inspired

by New York City. After a team of FIT faculty and Elle staffers led sessions to help students perfect their garments, 18 finalists presented their work on the runway during New York Fashion Week.

More than a dozen celebrity judges, such

as Christina Ricci, Alexis Bittar, and Elle’s creative director Joe Zee, Advertising and Marketing Communications ’92, chose two winners, both from Korea. Tae Kyung Kim ’13 won the $25,000 Elle Fashion Next Design Award, and Jongsuk Park ’13 took home the $25,000 Maybelline New York Design Visionary Award. Yvonne Luong won the $10,000 People’s Choice Award from Elle.com readers. Their looks are featured in Elle ’s December issue.

Kim’s collection represents her growing appreciation for the city, as her garments brightened the longer she stayed in New York. “The use of different materials mixed with the knits created a textural story,” Zee said. “This is not your grandma’s knitting!”

Park’s looks, which bring a menswear aesthetic to women’s wear, were partly inspired by the rust still visible in the city as new construction replaces old.

Zee loved the “delicate and deliberate asymmetry of each piece,” and called the combined effect “stunning and directional.”

Larry Busacca/Getty Images

Students Compete for Elle Prize

Kim alongside her winning garment, a knit blue-and-black dress with a leather back and a sheer organza cover.

Mike Coppola/Getty Images

what’s happening on campus

MFIT Earns Accreditation

Park and his winning garment, a brown leather cropped jacket with a gray shirt and black harem pant.

Eileen Costa/MFIT

Winning FMM Students Visit Chico’s HQ

See this madras jacket by Chipp, circa 1970, and other Ivy League attire, including a 1920s raccoon coat and classic Weejuns, in The Museum at FIT's exhibition Ivy Style.

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hue | fall/winter 2012

This spring, Chico’s sponsored the capstone course for bachelor’s degree students in the Fashion Merchandising Management program. Student teams were asked to create a new merchandising strategy for the brand. The winning team of Diana Barbosa, Danielle Hiller, Woosung Jang, and Katie Martel, in Assistant Professor Catherine Geib’s class, devised a mobile checkout system to improve customer service and sales. Each student won $1,000 and a trip to Chico’s corporate headquarters in Fort Myers, FL, to meet the executive team. From left, the students in the center are Martel, Hiller, and Barbosa.

Nobel Laureates Krugman and Stiglitz Speak at FIT

Museum’s Couture Council Honors Oscar de la Renta

QuiCk re aD > This semester, 18 full-time faculty members

in “A Conversation on the State of the Economy” in the Haft Auditorium on October 23, Nobel laureates Paul Krugman and Joseph E. Stiglitz made the case for government spending while the country is recovering from recession. “Cutting back at times like this really is like medieval doctors who’d treat illness by bleeding, and when you got sicker, they’d bleed you more,” Krugman said.

have joined the college. Visit fitnyc.edu/ newfaculty2012 to read about them. > Through a $100,000 gift to the college, leslie Blodgett, Cosmetics and Fragrance marketing ’85, creator of bareMinerals and executive chairman of Bare Escentuals, has endowed a need-based scholarship for upper-division students in the Jay and Patty Baker School of Business and Technology. > Elizabeth T. Peek, an investment analyst, journalist, and philanthropist, chair of the Couture Council, and FIT Foundation board member, has been named chair of FIt’s Board of trustees. Robin R. Burns-McNeill, chair and

Cutty McGill

Billy Farrell

co-founder of Batallure Beauty and partner of Christian Louboutin Beauté, was named vice chair. Former chair Edwin A. Goodman will above, President Joyce F. Brown with fashion legend Oscar de la Renta, who was honored September 5 with the 2012 Couture Council Award for Artistry of Fashion at a benefit luncheon at the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center. Below, Anna Wintour and Sarah Jessica Parker were among the many A-list attendees.

above, Stiglitz; President Joyce F. Brown; moderator Robert A. Johnson, executive director of the Institute for New Economic Thinking, which co-hosted the event with FIT and Shakespeare & Co. Booksellers; FIT Trustee Beverly S. Mack; and Krugman. Below, SUNY Chancellor Nancy L. Zimpher.

remain on the board. > In June, the Baker Retailing Center at the Wharton School, the Marketing Science Institute, and FIT held “retailing in a global, multichannel world,” a two-day conference that explored the future of retail. The chief executives of Bloomingdale’s and Bon-Ton Stores were among the speakers. > FIT’s Enterprise Center, the Garment District Development Corporation, and the Fashion Center Business Improvement District held the

Cutty McGill

second City source expo, a marketplace for designers to connect with New York-based manufacturers, in July. > Following the success of FIT’s alumni event

New Retail Management Certificate

association held a sold-out seminar in June, titled “Study Abroad in the Fashion Business,” to encourage Japanese students and professionals to gain experience in other countries. > Assistant Professor Anne Kong, Display and Exhibit Design ’77, was named one of nine retail Design Influencers in DDI Magazine’s

Billy Farrell

This fall, FIT launched a Retail Management credit certificate program (fitnyc.edu/retail management), developed with the National Retail Federation. The curriculum aims to help professionals with five or more years of experience in the fashion merchandising field, or those with a bachelor’s degree in a different field, break through to the executive level. The program covers advanced analytical, merchandising, planning, and management techniques. It requires five courses, which can be completed within one year while working full time. Applications for next year will be accepted in early 2013.

FIT is also offering a new one-year online AAS degree in Fashion Merchandising Management.

This distance-learning program has already attracted students from Germany, Mexico, and Canada, in addition to the U.S.

in Japan in March, the Japanese FIt alumni

September issue.

Conference on Eco-Fashion “Sustainable Fashion: Fiber to Fabulous!” took place at FIT on July 12. The full-day symposium taught best practices, from choosing materials to shipping the final product. Speakers included Nick Hahn, former CEO of Cotton Inc., and Shona Quinn, International Trade and Marketing ’00, sustainability officer at Eileen Fisher. fitnyc.edu/hue

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victory laps Shachar Keizman a student in first person

Packaging Design ’13

After breaking multiple FIT records, you led the men’s swim team to a best-ever finish at the 2012 NJCAA National Championship. Have you always been so fast?

In high school in Israel, I was the national champion in my age group, but I didn’t plan on competing again.

When I came to FIT ten years later, I was surprised we had a swim team, since we don’t have a pool. Most FIT students are surprised, too.

You’re also an A student. What drew you to Packaging Design?

I love building stuff, from bookshelves to pop-up greeting cards, and I’m interested in the marriage of craft and branding. I work part time for Bachner+Co and the new high-end cosmetics company 5D Bio Gold.

You were featured in The New York Times for taking off your shirt at a screening of Magic Mike.

What happened?

The movie was about a stripper, and they had a stripping competition before it started. It’s part of my personality—I like to put myself out there. Two days later, I received an email from one of my professors: “I opened the Arts section of the Times and I saw you had a good time at the movies.” My mother loved it.

What was it like to grow up in Israel?

I grew up in a kibbutz outside the Gaza Strip. I lived in a house with everyone born in 1983—ten girls and me.

I saw my family only from 4 to 7 pm every day. My mother worked in the dentist’s office, and my father raised chickens. I started working as a gardener in the public gardens at age 13. It was mostly cactus, but there were some greener things, too.

And you did your three years of military service after high school?

I wanted to be a pilot, but I wasn’t eligible because my vision is not perfect. I ended up doing linguistic work for military intelligence. In addition to English and Hebrew, I speak Arabic and Spanish.

Do you think Israel is misunderstood in the U.S.?

Erica Lansner

It’s something you must experience to have an opinion. You cannot understand what it means for a bus to explode every Sunday morning unless it’s part of your reality. I’m not saying the army is right, but it’s really hard to judge them from far away.

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hue | fall/winter 2012

Pitch Perfect Emerging designers present their business plans to industry leaders

Erica Lansner

insights from the classroom and beyond

During the September 20 closing event for Design Entrepreneurs NYC—a four-month program created by FIT’s Enterprise Center and the New York City Economic Development Corporation to help emerging designers grow their business—15 of the 35 students got the chance to pitch their brand story and business plan to apparel executives.

The catch: They had only eight minutes.

“I was talking really fast,” said Mimi Plange, whose dress Michelle Obama recently wore on The View. “I actually finished before my time was up.”

The 13 VIP judges, from companies including Macy’s and LVMH, offered constructive critiques, asking for more concrete financial projections and pointing out pitfalls in sales strategies. The three best presentations won a valuable prize: free outside legal and branding advice.

Plange’s presentation was a winner. “Her use of fabrics, draping, and pleating is beautiful,” Ellen Rodriguez, president and CEO of French Connection, said, “and she best articulated her brand’s positioning, her successes to date, her vision, and the steps necessary to achieve future success.”

The other winners were James Talbot, owner of Hippototamus, a high-end children’s wear brand, and Jessica Wade, Fashion Design ’96, who sells her women’s wear collection directly to private clients.

Talbot saw his win as a stamp of approval. “I think the panelists were saying, ‘Hey, you know what? This guy has a viable company that should go up to the next level.’”

All 35 designers walked away with new contacts, a sturdy business plan, and formidable presentation skills.

Wade was grateful for the program’s business focus. She said that after her presentation, one of the panelists told her, “I don’t know if this is the first time you’ve presented your business, but you’ll be doing it a lot more.”

Seeing the Light Grazyna Pilatowicz, chairperson Sustainable Interior Environments MA

Design Entrepreneurs NYC will welcome a new group of students next year.

Jerry Speier

Applications are available December 15 at DesignEntrepreneursNYC.com.

Jeanette Nostra, Design Entrepreneurs NYC executive in residence and president of G-III Apparel Group, second from left, with the evening’s winners, Talbot, Wade, and Plange.

Typically, designers make decisions based only on aesthetics and price. In this program, we teach students to look beyond these concerns. If, for example, we recommend cheaper light fixtures, the client might be happy because the initial cost is lower. But cheaper light fixtures may consume more electricity, burning more fossil fuels and contributing to climate change. They may provide lower-quality light, and they may not last as long, thus adding to the waste stream.

Ultimately, that will be more costly for the client and the environment than smarter light strategies, like using windows designed to harness nourishing natural light. So we need to make the case for healthier, more resource-efficient solutions, using objective research—the kind done by independent academics, not by builders, manufacturers, or architects and designers involved in the project; that’s just marketing. Our students learn to back up design decisions with scientific evidence, so clients understand why it makes sense to pay a little more up front to develop spaces that benefit people and the planet. Often these spaces also save operating costs in the long term. Students discover that designers can have a huge impact. They can influence the industry to provide more environmentally responsible materials; encourage building owners and developers to support healthy, sustainable environments; and educate people to change their behavior. Designers already know how to create beautiful interiors. We must also create well-functioning, safe, and healthy spaces, which protect the environment and promote well-being. That should be point one, yes?

fitnyc.edu/hue

7

Behind the creation of FITÕs First official athletic logo College athletic logos, which have kindled team spirit for the past half-century,

some of which are shown below. A committee of about 15 FIT students,

are now de rigueur for strengthening a school’s brand identity. But until this

administrators, coaches, and faculty critiqued the designs and, over the course

fall, FIT didn’t have an official athletic logo. Even though the FIT Tigers have

of many meetings, reached consensus on their favorite. Both student athletes

competed since the early ’60s, every team’s uniform carried a different tiger

and Graphic Design majors lent their voices to the debate.

The college’s new tiger, a leaping beast composed of stylized lines, balances

head or paw print.

It was the perfect time to create a unified logo, to show the college’s commitment to its athletic program. Not only did the teams need new uniforms, but they were doing better than ever. In the past two years, from its

athleticism with elegance. The panel found it dynamic, muscular, and fierce without being scary.

“Since our logo isn’t similar to any other tiger,” Lauren Curley, Fashion

14 NJCAA Division III teams (volleyball, swimming and diving, tennis, and

Merchandising Management ’15, a volleyball player, said, “other teams will

more), FIT boasted two national champions, 78 All-Americans, and 12 teams

know who they’re dealing with when they see it.”

The tiger also interacts with the academic logo (the FIT “button”), and

competing in national tournaments.

“Our teams are on the national radar,” Kerri-Ann McTiernan, director of Athletics, said. “That’s why we needed one brand instead of this mishmash

the word “athletics” uses that logo’s font, Bureau Grotesque. Stout chose an orange-and-blue color palette that works well together and looks good on most people. As a bonus, elements of the tiger—a few abdominal stripes or the head—

of logos.”

The college hired Pentagram, the international design firm that created the FIT logo, as well as athletic identities for the New York Jets and the Arizona

can stamp the college’s athletic identity on uniforms, banners, and flyers.

“Not only do we have a dynamic logo,” Stout said, “but we have a dynamic

Cardinals. Partner DJ Stout, with assistance from partner Michael Bierut and

pattern that’s part of FIT’s whole identity system.”

lead designer Barrett Fry, took on the project and presented a range of options,

1 research Existing Logos

2 Develop concepts

To start the design process for FIT’s new athletic identity, Stout drew inspiration from existing team logos, many of which depict fierce felines.

Clemson’s paw print, for example, can be seen as iconic, marked by its simplicity. Bold lines give the Towson Tigers logo a stylized look. The Baruch Bearcats use a cartoon, common among college teams. Other logos are based around a letter, like the “P” from the Princeton Tigers. (Michael Bierut of Pentagram designed Princeton’s logo in 2004.)

Stout and Fry brainstormed a range of first drafts, four of which are shown here.

hue | fall/winter 2012

Flying Tiger

Proud Tiger

Striped Tiger

Fierce Tiger

Tyler Fields, a Graphic Design student on the panel, liked Flying Tiger best. “It had the most movement,” he said. But, he admitted, it wasn’t exactly threatening. “You don’t want to look like a kitten when you walk into your match.”

Erik Kneubuehl, assistant vice president and dean of students, liked Striped Tiger for being “corporate-looking in a good way.” But the athletes thought Striped Tiger looked like zebra stripes and Flying Tiger resembled the Puma symbol. They initially favored the cartoonish Proud Tiger and Fierce Tiger, with the logo in a curved, outlined slab-serif font—common in college athletic logos. Volleyball player Sarah Weise, Fashion Merchandising Management ’15, said, “They made FIT look athletic, which is what we wanted.”

Others thought these tigers looked generic.

“Fierce Tiger said ‘college sports’ to me,” Kneubuehl said, “but it didn’t connect me to FIT.”

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—Jonathan Vatner

Lorenzo Ciniglio

tiger on the runway

The FIT community got a first glimpse of the new logo on September 6 at a packed event in the Haft Auditorium. Student athletes showed off the new apparel, and everyone took home a free tiger T-shirt. The new tiger debuted on uniforms this fall; fans can purchase the gear in FIT’s bookstore.

3 revise logos Next, the process of refining began.

The design team added fangs to Flying Tiger and created a version with just the head. It didn’t go over well. “I wasn’t a fan of the head,” Fields said. “It felt like they were trying to do the New England Patriots.”

Striped Tiger’s stripes were adjusted to read more as musculature, and fangs and claws were added to make it more fearsome.

Fierce and Proud tigers were combined. But some found the result too ferocious.

4 Release FitÕs new tiger Flying Tiger

Striped Tiger

After more lively discussion, the decision was unanimous: Striped Tiger would be FIT’s new athletic logo.

The tiger was further refined, and a typographic system was developed to integrate it with words like “athletics,” “tennis,” and “swimming.”

Flying Tiger Head

Fierce Tiger

“Everybody felt proud of what we came up with,” Kneubuehl said. “And athletics is about building a sense of spirit and pride.”

“That’s not who we are as a school,” Fields said. “The whole student body, not just athletes, has to be willing to wear something like that.

It’s not a gamble worth taking.”

fitnyc.edu/hue

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Introduction

Open a web browser‚ Hurry!

and you’re bound to

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commercial that plays before a YouTube video.

Media agencies don’t design these ads, but they place them strategically, all over the web. They plan campaigns, negotiate prices, and report on results. Hue recently spent a typical day with the digital team of ID Media, one such agency with 170-plus employees across its three offices in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles.

In New York, ID Media’s 12-member digital team places banner ads, buys search keywords on Google, builds “sticky” Facebook pages to hold consumers’ attention, coordinates online coupons, schedules pre-roll commercials, and navigates a seemingly infinite array of sponsorships, partnerships, and media buys in the fast-growing, incredibly

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complex digital space. To an outsider, the ocean of possibility is bewildering. To a media buyer, it’s exhilarating.

“In TV, you have more than 100 cable networks,” explains Josh Martin, senior vice president and group director of media strategy at ID Media, and an adjunct instructor of Direct and Interactive Marketing at FIT. “In the digital world, you’re looking at thousands and thousands of websites, not to mention different types of ads within each one. And every day it changes.”

This complexity pays off big. ID Media’s digital revenue has experienced double-digit growth since the company’s founding in 2003.

The reason is targeting. Whereas traditional advertising (TV, radio, print, and “out of home”—i.e., outdoor advertisements like billboards) broadcasts its message to anyone who’s paying attention, digital advertising appears based on each viewer’s demographic information and search history.

Buy a bag of cat food online, for example, and you’ll start seeing ads for litter boxes and veterinarians. And because the ads encourage a response from the viewer—clicking or entering information—their impact is measurable, provable, and trackable. And we’re only going to see more of it.

fitnyc.edu/hue

11

do. The ID Media strategists can’t blame them.

Even though they place ads for a living, they don’t always like watching them.

Biechman shows some humorous pre-roll, an ad for the Nintendo DS game Professor Layton and the Unwound Future. If viewers click on the video, they can try a puzzle from the game.

It’s quite effective: everyone yells out an answer. This is no easy puzzle, though. Even Biechman, who must have given this presentation several times already, gets it wrong. “I can never remember what the answer is,” she laments.

1:00 pm—Lunch and learn with Xbox “I’m here to teach you about advertising with Xbox Live,” says Tom Hennessey, senior business development manager for Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment Business, “but if I’m successful, I’ll also convince every one of you to buy an Xbox 360 tonight.” He’s middle-aged but gives off a ID Media’s FIT contingent: Thalia Melahrinidis, Advertising and Marketing Communications ’02, media investment supervisor; Josh Martin, senior vice president and group director of media strategy and adjunct instructor at FIT; Justin Barton, AMC ’12, assistant media strategist; Abigail Phillips, AMC ’11, assistant media strategist; and Jessica Drake, AMC ’11, senior media strategist.

boyish energy.

Microsoft is sponsoring a lunch talk about advertising with Xbox Live, the paid online service for the country’s most popular video game console,

9:30 am—Weekly digital team meeting

it strikes you,” Martin says, “but you can develop

the Xbox 360. About 40 million people use this

The dozen digital strategists around the conference

it into an innovation.”

service to chat, watch TV and movies, listen to

table are preparing a two-week ad blitz to peak on

Drake started at ID Media doing traditional

National Night Shift Workers’ Day. The campaign

advertising but rotated into digital through the

internet. The average subscriber uses Xbox Live

will raise awareness of shift-work sleep disorder—

company’s “Open Options” program. “In digital,

for 84 hours every month.

poor sleep and wakefulness caused by working the

there’s an infinite amount of space, and some-

night shift—and promote a drug that treats it.

thing new comes along on a daily basis,” she says.

Enough soda and water for a small army is arranged

“Advertisers need to touch consumers at all times

under a flat-screen TV at the front of the room.

The goal is to surround consumers with mean-

music, and compete at video games over the

Lunch is gourmet sandwiches, salad, and pasta.

ingful advertising. This “360-degree approach”

of the day, and not as many people, unfortunately,

will include full-page newspaper ads in major

are turning on their TV anymore. And some

“Xbox Games.” The games menu pops up. He waves

cities; billboards on the Times Square NASDAQ

things totally don’t make sense, like newspapers.

his hand, and a new menu slides in. The console’s

and Thomson Reuters screens; and homepage

Everyone picks up the same one and sees the same

features are admittedly appealing, even for people

takeovers (those annoying ads that take control

ads. How do you target consumers that way?”

who don’t like video games.

York Post’s and Daily News’s websites, as well as

11:00 am—Meeting with PointRoll

forces plays silently. Soldiers run across dusty

on Philly.com. A 2 am scavenger hunt in Times

Lauren Biechman, an account executive with

terrain; it looks uncannily like a video game. It’s a

Square was scrapped because it sounded unsafe.

PointRoll, a company that designs digital ads, is

brilliant placement: last December, the Xbox game

showing off the company’s latest work. One ad

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 reached $1 billion

one in the room looks young and alert; Martin

is a slide show of Ann Taylor bridesmaid dresses.

in sales in 16 days.

himself is only 35. “How’s our timeline?” he asks.

With one click, viewers can pin the dresses directly

of the landing page for a few seconds) on the New

Josh Martin sits at the head of the table. Every-

“Print is signing off piecemeal, but we’re not missing any deadlines,” says Jessica Drake, Advertising and Marketing Communications ’11, senior media strategist.

Hennessey fires up his Xbox and says sternly,

In a small window, an ad for the U.S. armed

Hennessey expands the ad, and it plays with

from the ad to their Pinterest boards, where

sound. A menu appears that lets viewers request

anyone can click on a dress to purchase it.

more information and find a recruiting center.

The ad is remarkable because it helps get Ann Taylor dresses onto Pinterest boards, though the

This is one way, he says, to “wrap your brand around our content.”

“Scream if you don’t get it from them.”

site still doesn’t allow advertising. Apparently,

“Oh, we are, on a daily basis,” Drake replies,

just because a popular website lacks conspicuous

advertiser’s logo onto clothing that Xbox avatars

advertising doesn’t mean it’s not there.

wear in the chatroom. A department within

smiling. It’s hard to imagine a scream coming from someone so steady and demure.

These strategists love digital’s creative

The pin-button strategy isn’t perfect, Biechman admits. “Once they pin from an ad, you can’t control

Another way, he explains, is to emblazon an

Microsoft is dedicated to creating these outfits.

“Now,” Hennessey says, rubbing his hands

possibilities. For example, after Martin started

the pins.” If, for example, someone added an Ann

together at the meeting’s close, “did I convince

playing Angry Birds with his son in place of

Taylor dress to a board titled “Ugly Dresses,” Ann

you to buy an Xbox tonight?”

reading a bedtime story, he incorporated the

Taylor couldn’t change that.

popular game into a client’s digital ad.

“You have an idea, and you don’t know why

12

hue | fall/winter 2012

Next, Biechman brings up the problem of dull pre-roll: if viewers are allowed to skip ahead, they

A few strategists meekly raise their hands.

Drake later explains that ID Media is actually interested in Xbox advertising, but there’s a

“Everybody’s using their mobile device all the

“I don’t even pretend to think the consumer wants ads.

But I do try to make sure the advertising is as relevant as possible.” — JOSH MARTIN

time,” Bilow says. “Companies are asking what else

Second, in the digital world especially, opportuni-

they can use their phones for. And check-in is big.”

ties come up all the time: from the brands ID

Viggle makes money by collecting and selling

a traditional browser, so a viewer has to get up

Media places ads for, from the many companies

data on its users’ viewing habits, which is gold to

that sell ad space (like Google and Microsoft

any media agency. “You get another layer into your

Xbox), and from ID Media’s vendors that design

target consumer,” Bilow says.

digital ads (like PointRoll). Overall, however, ID Media’s retention is high.

3:30 pm—Back to work significant downside to Xbox Live: It doesn’t offer

college might realize quickly that it’s not for them.

“We do a fantastic job of training them for

After a day eaten up by meetings, the digital

this industry,” Martin says. “Maybe we’re doing

strategists return to their desks.

too good of a job.”

Kaitlin Duff y, Advertising and Marketing

from the couch and type the URL into a computer.

Communications ’10, senior media strategist, is

4:30 pm—IPG Media Lab

“It makes it more difficult to track,” she says.

launching a five-dollar online coupon for an oral-

Drake spends the day’s waning minutes touring

care brand. It’s more complicated than it seems:

the new IPG Media Lab upstairs, a multimillion-

3:00 pm—Viggle POV presentation

producing this coupon has taken five months. She’s

dollar testing ground for the future of advertising,

Lisa Bilow, another media strategist on the digital

also preparing to launch a concert series, sponsored

spearheaded by the Interpublic Group of

team, is presenting a POV, a report on a new vendor

by her consumer electronics client, on Monday.

Companies, the conglomerate that owns ID Media.

that’s sent to clients and colleagues. This one is

Duff y is living proof that working hard in

This is where digital tracking enters the retail

school matters. Martin was so impressed by her

environment. A TV near the entrance detects the

performance in his internet marketing class,

viewer’s gender and plays a different movie trailer

lets users tell their friends where they are. Adver-

he scooped her up in 2010. Since then, he’s also

for women and men. Women see a romantic drama;

tisers can use that information to provide a coupon

hired Caterina Toscano, Direct and Interactive

men see an action flick. (The sensor doesn’t always

for an establishment nearby, for example. With

Marketing ’11, Nathlie Stephens, AMC ’11, and

get it right, however. When this [male] reporter

Viggle, viewers earn gift certificates for telling

Justin Barton, AMC ’12.

stood in front of the screen, the drama’s trailer

about Viggle, a check-in app for watching TV. Foursquare, the most popular check-in program,

their Facebook friends what TV show they’re

In recent months, Duff y, Toscano, and Stephens

watching (Viggle’s audio-recognition technology

all moved on. Martin chalks up the migration to

does all the work).

two factors. First, anyone in their first job out of

played over and over again.)

A retail shelf measures consumers’ expressions and calculates the effect of shelf position and packaging type on behavior. At a sneaker display, consumers can scan in a shoe and watch a video about its advantages. Nike is planning to incorporate these displays into stores.

The technology in the lab is admittedly exciting.

But all these intelligent machines generate the feeling that one is being watched. After a day of hearing about how every consumer behavior is tracked, stockpiled, crunched, and sold, a little solitude, free of advertising, sounds appealing.

“It’s everywhere, and it’s unstoppable,” Drake acknowledges. “But we have the power to make it more relevant. For example, you might be searching for something and get a coupon for it a few days later. That’s super-useful. And how cool would TV be if you only saw commercials for stuff you liked?”

Martin’s take is similar. First of all, he says, advertisers aren’t collecting private data. No one is reading our private emails, and only the algorithm knows what underwear we buy. Second, people can opt out of tracking. But that only means they’ll see more irrelevant ads, he points out.

“I don’t even pretend to think the consumer wants ads,” he says. “But I do try to make sure the advertising is as relevant as possible.” 

At the IPG Media Lab, a scanner incorporated into the retail shelving reads consumers’ expressions to learn how they make decisions. fitnyc.edu/hue

13

PLAN Nick Parisse, Photography and the Digital Image ’09, keeps a beehive — and wants 300 more

BY ALEX JOSEPH PHOTOS BY NICK PARISSE Last spring, worried about Colony Collapse Disorder, a phenomenon that has decimated the honeybee population around the world, Nick Parisse ’09 started keeping his own hive. A successful freelance photographer, Parisse has taken many portraits of his fellow alumni for Hue. He also has a

In April, Parisse purchased 8,000 Italian honeybees for $100. They were shipped overnight from a Tennessee apiary in a three-pound wooden box.

“To install them in the hive, you spray them with sugar water so they think about eating, and get their wings wet so they won’t fl y away,” Parisse says. “Then you hold the box upside down and lightly shake it till the bees fall out.”

passion for nature. His wife, Lexi Townsend Parisse, Fashion Design ’09, shares that passion, and explores it in her own field, as a fiber artist. Together, they present a hopeful snapshot of their eco-conscious generation.

Lexi Parisse

By July, when Hue went to visit the hive in Yaphank, Long Island, their numbers had grown to 35,000. Standing over that teeming bee metropolis, we felt a little freaked out, but Parisse assured us his colony was friendly. He removed a frame of honeycomb and tapped a dozen bees into his naked palm.

14

hue | fall/winter 2012

To make honey, worker bees suck nectar from fl owers, bring it back to the hive, and regurgitate it into honeycomb cells (yum!). They seal the cells with beeswax, and fan them with their wings until the water evaporates, turning the nectar into honey. Parisse fi nds this process singularly cool: “Only honeybees can do that. Man cannot produce or replicate honey!”

Lexi Parisse

While searching for nectar, bees also unintentionally pollinate an enormous variety of crops. “If we lost the honeybee, it would cost hundreds of billions of dollars to produce the fruits and veggies they give us for free,” Parisse says.

“They’re wonderful, majestic, brilliant little creatures that are in peril, and they desperately need our help.”

The queen, which beekeepers mark with yellow paint so she can be easily located, leaves the hive shortly after birth and goes on a “marriage fl ight” to mate with drones. She’ll spend the next three or four years — her entire life span — laying eggs. “A single queen can produce 150,000 larvae,” Parisse says.

The colony lives on a farm where Lexi used to work. She’s starting her own business, Queen Bee Fibers — hand-spinning, dyeing, and knitting llama, alpaca, wool, and other fibers into garments.

“Most people don’t know where their clothes come from. I want to change that,” she says. Nick works regularly as a photographer, shooting environmental portraits and products for websites, but his bees are a priority. “Some things you just have to make time for,” he says.“Two or three times a week, I’m like, ‘Today, I’m going to see my bees.’”

To harvest honey, Parisse takes a frame of comb from the hive and removes the beeswax with a hot knife. The honey drips straight into a bottle. (A mesh netting strains out debris.) “Depending where your hives are and what the bees choose to eat, all honey will look and taste different,” he says. Though he had 50,000 bees by September, Parisse only harvested a little from the young hive: “I want them to keep as much as possible for the winter. I took five pounds but could have gotten 25 or more.” A pound of honey retails for $8, so the future’s bright for Parisse and his bees, especially if he realizes his dream: 300 hives, and lots of joyful buzzing. 

visit blog.fitnyc.edu/huetoo for a video of parisse’s bees doing the “waggle dance.”

fitnyc.edu/hue

15

The world of visionary fashion illustrator Antonio Lopez

By Al e x J o s e ph

If you think it’s intoxicating to look at images by renowned fashion

illustrator Antonio (1943-1987), imagine what it was like to pose for one.

Susan Baraz could tell you. In the early ’60s, soon after she and Antonio left FIT (both majored in Illustration; Baraz, ’62, graduated with honors), she modeled for him. The illustrations, many of which appeared in The New York Times’ fashion magazine, became famous.

“Drawing was a physical, visceral process for him,” recalls the pixie-ish Baraz, petite, with a funky blond bob. “He’d start by moving his arms like an orchestra conductor. He’d roll his tongue and go into a sort of trance. Male, female, straight, gay—everyone who modeled for Antonio fell in love with him.

It was like electricity passed between you. Some of the clothes he was given to draw were so ugly, you can’t imagine. But it was never specifically to show a garment. It was to capture a feeling.”

Baraz pauses. Her eyes well up. “And while you posed for him, you became the sexiest woman, or man….. You manifested that inside you. You became the thing he wanted to draw.”

Throughout his career, Antonio Lopez, known as Antonio, effected

such transformations. In 1962, he took a full-time job drawing for Women’s Wear Daily, and left a few months later to do freelance work for the Times.

Illustration had been steadily losing ground to photography in fashion editorial, but over the next several years, Antonio, working with his art director, erst’62, staked out new territory. Typical illustrations of the time featured staid white women in stiff, artificial poses; Antonio portrayed his subjects dancing, or riding motorcycles. He incorporated people of color, contemporary social

Roxanne Lowit

while romantic partner, and fellow FIT alumnus Juan Ramos, Interior Design

Baraz worked on with Antonio was an homage to paintings by the French artist

Opposite: Antonio’s Tales from the Thousand and One Nights (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 1988), the illustrator’s clearest foray into fine art, inspired by a book he loved as a child.

Fernand Léger.)

Above: Antonio sketches Pat Cleveland.

issues, overt sexuality, and references to modern art. (One of the first series

fitnyc.edu/hue

17

Antonio’s signature style was a lack thereof.

Apart from a certain luxuriousness of line, no one trait or motif identifies his work. He drew brilliantly in many media—charcoal, watercolor, pen-and-ink, collage—adapting each to the assignment. This protean ability, coached and styled by Ramos, proved ideal for the rapidly changing times. His advertisements for department stores; illustrations for campaigns by Missoni, Oscar de la Renta, and other designers; and his editorial work for French and American Vogue, GQ, Interview, and other magazines are as collectible (and, today, as expensive) as works of art.

This year, several events coincided, creating an Antonio “moment”: in September, Rizzoli published a coffee-table monograph, Antonio Lopez: Fashion, Art, Sex & Disco, by Mauricio and Roger Padilha (see sidebar p.22). Suzanne Geiss organized a related solo exhibition in her Soho gallery, a hothouse for contemporary artists. A current show of fashion illustrations at the Brooklyn Public Library singles out Antonio for his influence—the curator calls him “the Picasso of illustration” because his style continuously evolved, as Picasso’s did.

An Antonio sketch in FIT’s Special Collections.

His most important contribution, however, may be harder to define. Like Andy Warhol, he attracted

and the people who were drawn to him, behaved

assistant chair of the college’s Fashion Design-

a wide variety of people into a cohesive milieu. For

as though life were a fashion editorial. As is evident

Art Department and an esteemed illustrator

about 25 years, the duration of his career, Antonio,

in a recent book of Antonio’s snapshots, Instamatics

himself. “He was a year ahead of me at FIT. The

(Twin Palms), this entourage never stopped posing.

teachers were making us draw more like what they

Their personal styles became trends, and the people

drew in the ’50s. Antonio drew his period. He

they celebrated—Pat Cleveland, Jerry Hall, and Grace

always pushed it to what was next. But he was

Jones, to name a few—became celebrities. They did

great at the classic stuff, too—even simple charcoal

more than observe fashion; they led it, made it, and

drawings.” Baraz remembers fellow students

embodied it.

stealing his rejected sketches out of the trash.

At FIT, Antonio also met Ramos. Aside from

Baraz grew up in Queens, a “very insecure,

their Puerto Rican heritage and mutual attraction,

self-conscious girl,” she says. On her first day at

they shared a love of street fashion and a dandyish

FIT, she went to the snack bar, then in the basement

devotion to personal style. (Later, Antonio adopted

of the Marvin Feldman Center. “There were booths,

jeans and a T-shirt as his standard look.) Their

and a jukebox, and you could dance,” Baraz recalls.

artistic partnership was both profound and abiding.

She was tucked shyly in a booth when a handsome,

Antonio signed the work, but it was always collab-

soft-spoken young man approached. “He came over

orative. Initially, Ramos simply approved the

to me and said, ‘Why do you wear your hair like

finished drawings; as the partnership evolved, he

that? Take your hair off your forehead; it’s a beauti-

provided styling and direction based on his exten-

ful forehead.’ Then he said, ‘You wanna dance?’

sive knowledge of art history. Devastatingly hand-

He offered his hand, I took it, and I stepped into

some, he could also serve as a model.

Antonio’s world.”

Baraz posed for this image, for Fashions of the Times, 1966. For this series, illustrations were collaged onto photographs depicting contemporary social issues such as civil rights.

18

hue | fall/winter 2012

The painter Paul Caranicas, who met the duo

At another time, or in the eyes of a different

in Paris in 1971, was Ramos’s lover until his death,

illustrator, Baraz might not have been a beauty icon.

from AIDS, in 1995. Caranicas says, “Antonio totally

Antonio’s girls, however, were not typical. “He

relied on Juan. He was like a parental figure. He’d

thought the models of the time were interchange-

look over Antonio’s shoulder and say, ‘No, no, no.’”

able, banal,” she says. “Sexy, to him, was something

Maureen Goss, who modeled for the pair, recently

a little askew: people without eyebrows, or with

published a book about them, That Pair of Friends.

spaces between their teeth.”

She writes, “A slight lift of [Juan’s] lip would send

It was immediately apparent that Antonio had

Antonio ripping the page off his pad and hurling

a special ability. “It was always beautiful, exquisite

it in the garbage can. When Juan stood behind

work,” says Steven Stipelman, Illustration ’63,

Antonio, looking over his shoulder like a sphinx

Above: Antonio with Jerry Hall (who was once his fiancée), Pat Cleveland, and Grace Jones, 1982.

Lowit says, “He really made them.

He showed them how to walk, how to move, how to dress. He gave them that je ne sais quoi. They were ‘Antonio’s girls.’”

Top: In The Beautiful Fall, Drake calls Antonio (right) “the Pied Piper of fashion.”

His and Ramos’s interest in Art Deco influenced the aesthetic of Karl Lagerfeld and other designers.

Right: With couturier Charles James.

Above: Antonio with Andy Warhol.

Left: Partying in the ’70s.

All photos this page by Roxanne Lowit ’63.

staring into other worlds, I knew Juan loved [the

things up. The shoes didn’t exist, the accessories

Balenciaga or Dior. It was their approach that

piece]. Antonio would not know this until Juan

didn’t exist. They were just in my head. The Times

heralded the future: a careless merging of street,

began talking about what colors he wanted to mix….”

was a very conservative paper….they didn’t like that,”

screen, art, irony, music, and the individual.”

Caranicas says blocks of solid color, and any geo-

he said. They got away with it, Ramos said, by

metric backgrounds in the images, were painted

turning in work late—too late, in other words, to

spontaneity. Once, when Antonio needed an

by Ramos.

be edited.

unconventional model, he remembered a striking

Imagine Antonio’s studio above Carnegie

“over-imagined” the garments. Baraz recalls an

Boulogne. He put up flyers in the streets near his

Hall in the mid ’60s. It’s three o’clock in the morning,

assignment drawing lingerie for a major department

studio, and the woman, a then-unknown Jessica

or whenever the muses start to sing. The entourage

store. After the ad ran, a buyer called. “Customers

Lange, who was in Paris to study mime, showed up,

has just returned from dancing at a club. Covering

were upset,” Baraz says. “They wanted what was

flyer in hand. Another time, Antonio was sketching

the walls: Mayan calendars, Goya reproductions,

in the drawing, and the actual lingerie was just

at New York’s Chelsea Hotel, documenting the

drawings of animals, photos of Marilyn Monroe.

some schmatte.”

oeuvre of the American couturier Charles James.

By the same token, Antonio sometimes

A key element of that approach was a startling

blond American woman he’d noticed in the Bois de

One dress was too slim for the model, so Antonio

Music plays—Diana Ross, maybe. Photographer Bill Cunningham is one of many people who might drop

In 1969, Antonio and Ramos decamped to

slipped away and returned with a lean Latino boy

in from down the hall at any moment. The clothes

Paris in search of new creative horizons, and for

he’d found on the street; it was a perfect fit.

Antonio is assigned to draw lie about, unworn.

six years, worked for the European magazines

A model is engaged in a deep conversation with

Depeche Mode and Paris Match, among others. They

Photographer Roxanne Lowit, Textile Design

Antonio. “Tell me about your love life,” he says

secured an assignment drawing for Karl Lagerfeld,

’63, was part of Antonio’s circle. He gave her her

softly. Conversation commences; the pencil moves.

then the designer for Chloé. Entranced, he set them

first camera, an Instamatic, in the ’70s. Today, her

Baraz says, “It was essential to be in love to create

up in his apartment on Rue Bonaparte, and made

stylish pictures of nightlife and celebrities for the

this work.”

their entourage his. In her book The Beautiful

likes of Vanity Fair and V Magazine capture sponta-

Fall, which chronicles the intertwined careers of

neous moments the way his illustrations once did.

Antonio was known for his surprising versatility. “That’s what he was all about,” Stipelman

Lagerfeld and Yves Saint Laurent, Alicia Drake

says. “The drawings were styled the way a photo

describes the impact of Antonio’s circle: “The

hand. “We would all get dressed—this was a very

shoot for an ad campaign might be now.” Antonio

Americans carried with them a whole new culture

big deal—and go out to La Coupole for dinner at

and Ramos treated each assignment like a new

of fashion that was underpinned by the visual

10 o’clock at night. Everyone would stop eating to

collection, and devised a medium and style to match.

references of contemporary American art, Andy

look. I can remember Antonio dancing on tables

Stipelman says, “You’d think, ‘How is he gonna

Warhol’s pop mentality, Hollywood movies, and

with [Yves Saint Laurent muse] Loulou de la Falaise

approach it this time?’” Some of their inventiveness

the throbbing beat of soul and dance. Theirs was a

at Club Sept.”

got them in trouble. In a presentation at FIT in

new-world culture that was profoundly different

1980, Antonio said, “We were famous for making

from any Parisian notions of elegance set down by

She witnessed the Antonio effect on Paris first

Back in New York, Antonio and Lowit grew closer; he even lived with her while his place was fitnyc.edu/hue

19

An editorial for Depeche Mode, 1973, featuring Paul Caranicas and Juan Ramos ’62, who painted the yellow background.

being renovated. She made him her daughter’s

one wanted to be close to him,” she says, in her

in everybody—all the important people as well

godfather, and has tender memories of the two

patient, soft-spoken way. “He was always at the

as the not-so-important people—the cook, the

playing together. “One New Year’s Eve, Vanessa

center of things. He knew how to put people

fireman, break dancers, models, teachers, celebri-

wanted us to celebrate with her, but Antonio and

together. He would say, ‘You two are going to be

ties. Everyone had something for him—their vibe,

I wanted to go out,” she says. “We turned the clocks

like sisters,’ and you would. He introduced me

their energy.”

ahead so Vanessa thought it was midnight, and we

to Anna Piaggi, who published my pictures in

put on hats and blew noisemakers. Then, when she

her magazine, Vanity. [Piaggi, the storied Italian

The painter and illustrator Alvaro is an exuber-

was asleep…..”

editor, died in August.] He introduced me to my

ant character bursting with infectious enthusiasm.

husband, and [the late fashion model and muse]

He grew up in the ’70s besotted with Antonio’s work.

Tina Chow to her husband. He was interested

“I was a kid from the South Bronx, a Puerto Rican

Lowit says Antonio’s immense charisma magnified his ability to interpret fashion. “Every-

20

hue | fall/winter 2012

about this innocuous exchange made an impression on Antonio, and soon the young man was interning, and modeling, for him.

Antonio and Ramos’s work had changed by the ’80s, Caranicas says. “They got older, more serious.

Antonio was getting assignments from places like Bloomingdale’s and Nordstrom. You can’t exactly do protest pictures for them,” he says. Antonio was obsessed with his own health and regularly consulted two separate hypnotists (one was also a psychotherapist) for bouts of creative block. The times had changed, too: in 1984, Antonio found out he had AIDS. With the diagnosis, he began to seek out shamans and healers in addition to his regular doctor.

To the awestruck Alvaro, however, being in Antonio’s studio was “like magic.” The ambitious intern answered phones, vetted models, and traced finished drawings to have as a record when the work was mailed out. He also modeled himself— not always as a man. “I posed as Patti LaBelle for a Playboy illustration,” he says. The sitting was arduous: “My mouth had to be open the whole time.

But you always felt like you had to please him.”

He also modeled as himself for a series about break

Americans in Paris. Ramos and Antonio (both born in Puerto Rico) as Latin dandies, taking the City of Light by storm, 1972.

dancers, and for Antonio’s version of The Thousand and One Nights, perhaps Antonio’s clearest foray

dent in a fashionista’s budget, but it was nowhere

into fine art. Through Antonio, Alvaro met Warhol,

near the astronomical sums commanded by

who pronounced Alvaro’s sketches “fab,” and the

Warhol paintings.

supermodel Iman, who remains a friend. “But my

But Antonio’s legacy can also be measured

favorite memories,” he says, “were the personal

in the lives of the people he influenced. Alvaro’s

ones—going with him to see Gremlins, or the

illustrations (one recently appeared on the cover

Saturday conversations when he would call if he

of Vibe magazine) certainly owe something to

was down.”

the master. Baraz, who took care of Antonio in her Santa Monica home at the end of his life,

Antonio died of AIDS in 1987, age 44, leaving

co-founded the nonprofit Focus on AIDS to honor

behind questions about what he might have achieved.

his memory. The organization has raised millions.

“He wasn’t able to figure out how to do what Warhol

She co-chairs the prestigious Lucie Awards for fine

did, which was to make his work so valuable,” Lowit

art photography, and is a respected consultant in

says. It’s a little mysterious why this virtuoso remains

that field.

largely obscure today. Now that his entourage has

This is how they talk about him. Lowit:

disbanded, Lowit wonders, “Who will know who

“Everyone he touched, he changed their lives for

Antonio is?”

the better.” Alvaro: “I called him ‘Pop,’ and ‘Dad.’”

Fashion illustrators know, certainly. “You can’t

like him,” Alvaro says. “I would say, ‘One day,

Baraz: “I still talk to him sometimes. I’m always

say he was ‘the greatest,’” Stipelman says. “But he

hearing him say things like, ‘You can do it.’ He was

was an original. He experimented and brought the

always pushing me to be something more.” All

craft to other places.”

three wept as they recounted their Antonio stories.

Individual works hold up beautifully. The illus-

I’m going to meet Antonio, and I’m going to work

tration on the cover of this magazine, for example,

The last person I interviewed for this story was

with him.’”

still has power and grace. Its idiosyncrasy rewards

Paul Caranicas. I met him at the Suzanne Geiss

sustained attention—note the surrealist touch of

space, and we walked around looking at Antonio’s

and that fall, Antonio gave a talk at the college.

the paisley dripping out from the umbrella—and

work. It looked fantastic hanging on gallery walls.

Alvaro took great pains with his own outfit, and

makes it hard to classify as commercial art, though

attended the lecture flanked by his own entourage.

this piece was created for Bloomingdale’s. Though

some TV monitors that were showing 8 mm movies

When it was time for questions, Alvaro stood up

she didn’t want Hue to name the figure, Suzanne

Antonio and Ramos made in the early ’80s. I asked

and asked where the illustrator got his inspiration.

Geiss divulged the price of a simple line drawing

Caranicas to tell me about Ramos: What was

“He said, ‘My mother,’” Alvaro recalls. Something

from the ’60s. Let’s just say it would put a sizable

he like? How did he behave? I wanted stories.

Alvaro came to FIT to study Illustration in 1983,

After a while, we sat down to talk in front of

fitnyc.edu/hue

21

Antonio: The Book

Mauricio and Roger Padilha, owners of the New York fashion PR company MAO, aren’t FIT grads, though they attended the college’s program for high school students. Their firm publishes an eponymous magazine, and in addition to a comprehensive new monograph from Rizzoli, Antonio Lopez: Fashion, Art, Sex & Disco, they’ve also written about designer Stephen Sprouse (Rizzoli, 2009). They answered a few questions from Hue. 1. How did you first become interested in Antonio?

Mauricio: As aspiring fashion students, we would pore over magazines such as Vanity and Vogue and marvel at Antonio’s illustrations. They really seemed to capture an energy and exaggerated style that photography couldn’t.

2. What do you think was his greatest contribution to fashion?

Roger: So many! One of the greatest was illustrating fashion in a way that mirrored the times. He commented on feminism, the civil rights movements, nostalgia, freedom, politics, body types, etc.

Department stores that just needed an illustration of an outfit they were selling that month got a lot more than they bargained for when hiring Antonio!

Also, Antonio was one of the first illustrators to become a celebrity in his own right and understand the marketing that designers and artists today need to become successful. It’s not enough to be talented; you have to be able to sell yourself as well.

3. What was your biggest surprise while working on the book?

Mauricio: Some former models and acquaintances did not feel particularly comfortable reliving their pasts. Many of these people were very young when they worked for Antonio and I’m sure never thought that the things they were doing in their early 20s would be reported in a book 40 years later.

4. How would you describe your final “take” on Antonio?

Roger: I know the word has been abused, but Antonio truly was a visionary. He not only revived illustration (which was a dying art form before he came on the scene in the 1960s), but also changed the way fashion would be presented and viewed and this still continues today.

Above: Poster for the Italian Fashion Company Cassina, 1983.

Opposite: Gianni Versace campaign image, 1982.

Caranicas thought about it. He glanced at the

captured the essence of the person. Warhol presents

screen. A very young Bill Cunningham appeared,

what the person presents; Antonio looks underneath.”

waving. Ramos popped up into the frame, then disappeared. “He was like that,” Caranicas said.

hue | fall/winter 2012

The group decided to go to lunch, and they

“He would appear, and then…..” He trailed off,

invited me along. I put my notepad away. I saw that

thinking private thoughts.

I had finished reporting, even though I didn’t have

I waited. Suddenly I realized I had been hankering after something like gossip, and this seemed

all the answers.

We took a cab to Morandi, a restaurant in the

incredibly rude. I had come to the Antonio party

Village. Caranicas and his friends chatted happily.

too late, and now I was clinging like a fan, hoping

I was brooding about the dead end to my story, but

for dish.

my mood slowly improved. I was thinking that it

Caranicas had some friends in the gallery,

wasn’t the ’60s anymore or even the ’80s; it was the

including Maureen Goss, author of That Pair of

fall of 2012, and it was pouring rain outside, and

Friends. I started to write down their conversation,

cold, and I wasn’t in Antonio’s world. That world,

without attribution:

with its freedoms and spontaneity, was gone, and its

“Antonio wasn’t merely of his time. The work

leaders had died of AIDS. I was on the verge, though,

is contemporary, but there’s more than fashion to

being so near someone who had been a part of it.

his art.”

He was sitting beside me and we were sharing a

“He was ahead of his time, combining art and fashion like that.”

“Now I think art and fashion are catching up.”

spelt salad and pizza with artichoke. We sat through the long afternoon with his friends, and we ate every last bite, and everything tasted magnificent. 

“His work for Vogue was commercial—” “What’s commercial?”

“It means you make money.”

“Fine artists don’t make money?”

“In fine art, there’s an introspection.”

“Antonio was Andy’s favorite artist, because he

22

“Antonio is more old-fashioned than Andy.”

Images on the cover, page 16, 20, and 21, and The New York Times drawing on page 18 courtesy of Paul Caranicas. All artwork and photography © The Estate of Antonio Lopez and Juan Ramos, except photos by Roxanne Lowit.

ďŹ tnyc.edu/hue

23

Gladys Marcus Library, Special Collections Department

During the Holocaust, this silver Torah breastplate from 1674 was stolen from a German family named Dottenheimer. Seventy years later, it was returned to the owners’ grandchildren, now called Dottheim and living in the U.S. The family plans to donate the piece, valued at $150,000, to the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Battery Park. It is the first piece of privately owned Judaica that was stolen during the Holocaust to be returned to a family. Dimensions: 10 inches by 9¼ inches.

Passport of Fred Dottheim, born Dottenheimer.

In 2003, Bernhard Purin, back row, second from left, brought the breastplate to New York for the bat mitzvah of Faye Brooks-Dottheim’s daughter.

Officials from the Dottenheimers’ village also came, including the former mayor. Brooks-Dottheim is in the front row, second from right.

DURING THE HOLOCAUST, NAZIS STOLE OR DISPLACED ART WORTH MILLIONS. SEVEN DECADES LATER, ITS RETURN IS EXTREMELY COMPLICATED

by Alex Joseph in 2000, the director of the Jewish Museum in Fürth, Germany, contacted the family of Faye Brooks-Dottheim, a lawyer living in New York.

Germany for St. Louis in 1937. The rest of the family perished at Auschwitz.

“My father never talked about those years,”

When The New York Times covered the story in 2001, a photo of Siegmund was included. “That was the first time I ever saw a picture of my grandfather,” Faye says.

The director, Bernhard Purin, had been studying

Brooks-Dottheim says. Fred died in 1986, but in

an elaborate, 17th-century silver breastplate,

1952, unbeknownst to his children, he had sent a

featuring gilt unicorns, lions, and a peacock, that

letter to an Israeli restitution organization men-

was donated to the museum. The donor had said

tioning the breastplate. Purin discovered the letter,

The Dottheims’ story may be unique, but it

the breastplate—a decorative item that adorns the

and felt the piece should return to the family that

resembles some of the labyrinthine histories of

Torah—once belonged to his father-in-law, who

owned it two generations before. Citizens of Fürth,

art looted or displaced by Nazis. Last spring, FIT’s

may have been an SS officer. Purin believed the

however, insisted the piece belonged to the city.

Holocaust Commemoration Committee and the

item was stolen during the Holocaust.

Enter Lucille Roussin, founder and director



Diversity Council organized a symposium on the

of the Holocaust Restitution Claims Practicum at

topic. Roussin, who teaches a course, Art, the Law,

for the History of the Jewish People in Jerusalem,

Yeshiva University’s Cardozo School of Law in

and Professional Ethics, in the college’s Art

Purin found a photograph of the breastplate in a

New York. As Roussin points out, under the

Market: Principles and Practices MA program,

record, made in the ’20s and ’30s, of noted Bavarian

Third Reich, Jews were often forced to sell or

shared the stage with Lucian Simmons, the head

Judaica. A note said the piece belonged to a wine

relinquish property. She interceded on behalf of

of the worldwide provenance, research, and

merchant named Siegmund Dottenheimer. Purin

the Dottheims, arguing that Siegmund Dotten-

restitution team at Sotheby’s.

searched the internet for Dottenheimers. Finding

heimer could not have voluntarily consented to

none, he looked for Dottenheim, then, finally,

give up the piece. In the end, ownership was

paintings were taken in France alone between 1940

Dottheim. At last he found references to a Fred

restored to the Dottheims. Roussin says it is the

and 1944. A Nazi Party organization—Einsatzstab

Dottheim, Siegmund’s son and Brooks-Dottheim’s

first restitution of a privately owned piece of

Reichsleiter Rosenberg—was established to plan

father, who changed his name after fleeing

Judaica that was stolen in the Holocaust.

the theft, dispersal, and destruction of art. Works

While doing research at the Central Archives

24

hue | fall/winter 2012

According to Simmons, more than 36,000

by Dalí, Matisse, and Picasso, among others, were

The stamp, though inconclusive, raised a red flag:

touch these cases, because they’re so complicated.”

targeted in various ways. “Sometimes a veneer of

“It’s just a clue.”

The statute of limitations for stolen property can

legality was created to disguise outright theft,” Simmons said. For example, “Jews would be forced

Sometimes Nazi-confiscated art winds up

vary widely between countries. In 1998, however,

in court. Roussin worked on one of the most

the Washington Conference on Holocaust-Era

famous cases, involving Schiele’s Portrait of

Assets, attended by 40 nations, led to the adoption

Wally (1912). The artist’s dealer, Lea Bondi,

of nonbinding principles to assist in resolving issues

work later proved costly to Germany: A Franz

owned and adored the picture until her collection

related to Nazi-confiscated art. One principle is

Marc painting, Grazing Horses III, was among

was “Aryanized” when Germany annexed Austria

that statutes of limitations do not apply.

some 16,000 works de-accessioned by German

in 1938. After the war, Bondi asked a fellow

to sell paintings to pay taxes the Nazis levied.”

Hitler’s opposition to abstract or modernist

With art of such great value at stake, survivors

museums for being “degenerate.” The Marc canvas

collector, Rudolph Leopold, to help her recover

and their heirs have sometimes been accused of

sold for $24 million, a record for the artist, in 2008.

the painting. He betrayed her and purchased it

being greedy, Roussin says. “But this isn’t about

“They denuded their institutions, and fired Jewish

for himself.

greed; it’s about families. Sometimes the art is all

curators and art historians,” Simmons said. “It took German museums decades to recover.”

When paintings arrive at Sotheby’s, Simmons

In 1998, 30 years after Bondi’s death, New

that’s left.”

York’s Museum of Modern Art exhibited works



collected by Leopold, including Wally. Bondi’s

researches their provenance to see whether they

American nephew asked MoMA to keep the

The return of the Dottheim breastplate led to

can legitimately be sold. In recent years, the issue

painting in the U.S. while its ownership was

some happy developments for Brooks-Dottheim’s

has become fraught. In 2001, a well-regarded art

decided. MoMA refused, citing an agreement

family. Both her daughters spent time studying in

dealer was fined and received a suspended eight-

with the Leopold Museum, and anxious about the

Germany, one on a Fulbright. A German archivist

month jail sentence for buying a 17th-century

effect such a move might have on the willingness

who knew about the Dottenheimers put Brooks-

painting by Dutch master Franz Hals. Nazis had

of other museums to lend objects. Robert Morgen-

Dottheim in touch with a distant cousin living in

stolen the picture from a Jewish dealer, and

thau, then New York’s district attorney, issued a

Brazil, whose granddaughter, it turned out, was

though it had already been sold twice by Sotheby’s

subpoena to keep the painting in this country, and

studying for a master’s at Columbia. On the 70th

and twice by Christie’s, the dealer was still held

a 13-year legal battle ensued. Roussin, then an

anniversary of Kristallnacht in 2008, Brooks-

accountable. Simmons said, “This story keeps me

associate at the firm representing the Bondi family,

Dottheim went to the town in Germany where the

up at night.”

worked on the case for three years, mostly trans-

Dottenheimers had lived. She attended a ceremony

lating French and German documents. In 2010, it

where a plaque engraved with their names was

every year. He consults records of art collections

settled out of court, and the Leopold Museum paid

installed in the cemetery.

(many now online), though they can be incomplete.

the Bondi family $19 million. (The case is the

He pointed to an ink stamp on the back of an early

subject of a critically praised 2012 documentary,

by Roussin. Asked what motivates her fervent

20th-century painting by the Viennese artist Egon

Portrait of Wally, in which Roussin appears.)

commitment to restitutions, she reflected for a

Simmons investigates thousands of artworks

Schiele. “This shows it crossed the border of Vienna between 1938 and 1944,” Simmons said.

Though one such lawsuit reached the U.S. Supreme Court, Roussin said, “They don’t want to

It’s a development that calls to mind a remark

moment. “Maybe it sounds stupid,” she said, “but it’s justice.” 

The owners of Gustav Klimt’s Church in Cassone (1913) were murdered in the Holocaust, and their art was plundered. The owners’ grandson, George Jorisch, survived the war by hiding in a basement in Brussels.

After the war, the painting was sold to a series of private collectors. In 2010, Sotheby’s brokered a deal between Jorisch and the Klimt’s current owners, to split the proceeds of the sale. It sold for $42 million.

Under the Third Reich, curators de-accessioned works, including Grazing Horses III (1910), by German Expressionist painter Franz Marc, for being “degenerate.”

The canvas sold for $24 million in 2008.

fitnyc.edu/hue

25

Q: I work in a creative field; what’s inappropriate work wear?

Shorts? Tank tops? (Should men shave their shoulders first?)

A: In most creative workplaces, people get to wear what would be wildly inappropriate in more buttoned-up offices. So tank tops and shorts are fine. But if the pocket lining peeks out from under the hem, they’re too short. On a very warm day, spaghetti straps are acceptable but not when they reveal bra straps. Also, no flip-flops, and don’t show off your cleavage.

—Yvette Keep your hairy shoulders to yourself! Stick with shirts with sleeves. —Yvonne

Etiquette experts (and twin sisters) Yvonne and Yvette Durant ’72 lay down rules for proper workplace behavior Illustrations by Liz Starin, MA ’09 When we started out in the job market in 1972, offices were civilized places. For example, we thought wearing pantsuits to interviews was daring. Now it looks like anything goes. We recently saw a woman arrive for an interview chewing gum!

And she got the job.

Then there was the lunch meeting when a colleague presented his work, spraying everyone with bits of his chicken salad sandwich. When he—and the sandwich—were finished, he took out a toothpick and went to work.

A few years ago, we decided we couldn’t sit back while our society’s manners deteriorated. We started an etiquette blog, yvonneandyvettetiquette.com, to discourage bad behavior, and we began hosting manners workshops for all ages. Every day, no matter where we are, we get plenty of fodder for our blog.

On these pages, we answered some common (and controversial!) questions about office etiquette. We don’t always agree, but we love arguing about it.

When not blogging, Yvonne Durant, Advertising and Communications ’72, is an advertising copywriter and contributes to such publications as O, The Oprah Magazine; New York magazine; and The New York Times. Yvette Durant, Fashion Buying and Merchandising ’72, is an executive assistant at Organic, Inc., a digital advertising and marketing agency.

26

hue | fall/winter 2012

Q: Is it ever acceptable to text during a meeting?

A: If you own the company, text your heart away. Otherwise, no way. —Yvonne You can text during a break, but never during a presentation or when someone else is speaking. —Yvette

Q: I’m in an elevator, listening to music on my iPod, when a co-worker gets on. What to do?

A: Unplug one of the ear buds and greet your co-worker.

You may as well turn the music off, if you’re about to go into the office. —Yvette I disagree—one ear bud isn’t enough. It could look like you don’t care and you’re tuning out. —Yvonne

Q: I work in a cubicle, and must occasionally make personal calls. What are the parameters?

A: Use your “inside” voice and don’t talk about the hot sex you had or all the tequila shots you drank. Find a private place to discuss financial and medical matters, and absolutely no arguments—even if you’re right.

—Yvonne and Yvette

Q: Sometimes, when I’m on deadline, I need to eat at my desk. Any tips?

A: No smelly foods, no slurping or lip-smacking, and never leave unfinished food on the desk. Also, swallow before answering the phone. —Yvonne and Yvette

Q: Hats: Yes or no?

A: In a casual office, baseball caps and summer fedoras are fine. But no cowboy hats. If it’s a law firm, no hats at all.

You could lose your credibility (and your $400 hourly fee).

—Yvonne and Yvette

Q: What kind of personal mementos or family photos are appropriate for decorating my office?

A: Family, vacation and pet photos, and awards are all okay. —Yvette As good as you and your significant other look in your bikini or Speedo, keep those pictures at home. And think carefully before putting up a political bumper sticker or the Lord’s Prayer. —Yvonne

GOT AN OPINION OR A QUESTION ABOUT WORKPLACE ETIQUETTE? Visit Hue Too (blog.fitnyc.edu/huetoo) to join the conversation! fitnyc.edu/hue

27

1976

FLiGHT CLUB

elaine grYnkeWiCh DreW,

marilYn long Weaver, Fashion BuYing anD merChanDising ’67

paints in the style of medieval panel paintings, in egg tempera, often aided by Adobe Illustrator. She illustrated her husband’s book, Tales in the Night Sky (Taeran Arts, 2011), which uses myths to teach beginning The Egg and I, egg tempera and gold leaf on gessoed masonite stargazers about the panel, 20 by 16 inches. constellations. Earlier in her career, she sold her own clothing label in highend department stores, including Bergdorf Goodman and Bloomingdale’s, and consulted for the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

news from your classmates

Fashion Design,

Two years after graduating from FIT, Weaver became a flight attendant for United Airlines. She spoke with Hue about her 32-year flying career.

Hue: What was it like to be a flight attendant in 1969?

Weaver: You couldn’t be taller than five foot seven, you had to be height/weight proportionate, and you had to retire at 32. That last rule ended in 1970. In 1971, all the airlines began hiring male flight attendants. The height limit didn’t make sense for men, so they abolished that and readjusted the weight requirements.

Hue: Do you miss anything about the old days?

Weaver: Flying used to be a special thing to

1981

people. As a passenger, you’d get a call from

is the designer for Janska LLC, a Colorado-based women’s wear company that creates “clothing that comforts.” Her designs are based on trendy colors and silhouettes; for easy wear, she incorporates deep armholes and large decorative buttons, and uses washable, stain-resistant Annie’s Wrap, $109. fabrics like Polartec fleece. She recently designed a collection of raincoats and other weather wear to boost spring sales.

reservations asking what you liked for your

ann linDsaY, Fashion Design,

entrée. They’d have paper napkins with your name embossed on it. Now you’re lucky if the

Weaver’s graduation picture from United Airlines training. The uniform was created by Hollywood costume designer Jean Louis.

reading light works and your seat back stays up.

Hue: Have you ever been in a crash landing?

Weaver: No, but I’ve prepared the airplane for an emergency landing several times. Once it appeared that the hydraulic fuel system for the landing gear was failing, and we didn’t know if the wheels would hold for landing. We circled the field so the tower could visually confirm that the wheels were down. They foamed the runway so that if the wheels did fail, we’d slide without creating sparks. Luckily, the wheels held.

1993

creates fiber art using unexpected materials and techniques.

One of her pieces, Archeology Fragment #15, Enso Compassion, was published in the August/ September 2012 issue of American Craft magazine, after it was selected for the Surface Design Award at the Art Quilt Elements show in Wayne, PA. kevan rupp lunneY, Fashion Design,

nanCY melius, Fashion BuYing anD merChanDising,

Myriam Belasse

is the marketing and advertising director for Oheka Castle in Huntington, NY, built by banker Otto Kahn as his private home in 1919 and now used as a hotel and specialevent venue, as well as a set for the USA television series Royal Pains. In 2009, Melius founded Gold Coast Mansions – Historic Long Island, a marketing collective that promotes the area’s Gatsby-era mansions, many of which are under demolition threat.

“For these properties to survive, you have to find a use for them,” she says.

Asymmetrical sinamay chapeau by Grace Mark, $395, with feather clip-on adornment by Vernell Washington, $125. vernell Beale Washington, Fashion BuYing anD

runs GrandDiva Enterprises, which markets and sells “nouveau but classy” hats made by Grace Mark, a Nigerian milliner.

She travels to Nigeria three times a year to collect Mark’s newest designs, and presents the hats annually at the Kentucky Derby.

Archeology Fragment #15, Enso Compassion, linen, cotton, rayon, bamboo, paint, composition gold leaf, 56 by 45 inches.

28

hue | fall/winter 2012

Brett Matthews

merChanDising,

Oheka Castle.

Kathleen Paton, MA Museum Studies: Applied Arts, is

a product copywriter in merchandising at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She explains how products for sale relate to the museum’s collection, from a $2,500 reproduction of a seventh-century Byzantine silver dish to a $3.95 MetroCard holder. These descriptions are used for Met Store packaging, signage, and direct marketing via catalog and web.

easy rider andy shaw, Advertising and Marketing Communications ’96 Andy Shaw of Brooklyn marketing firm Shaw Promotion has two epic motorcycle journeys—one across the U.S., the other across Canada—to thank for his current

1996

success. In 1999, after his ska band, which put out a couple of records, broke up, he

Kayt Hester, Photography,

took a dot-com job; in 2001, he was laid

started making images out of her excess darkroom tape after quitting her job as a photographer. “It’s very forgiving,” she says of the art form. “If it doesn’t look right I can peel it off and start over.” She was recently hired to make masking tape Swiss Army knives for Victorinox store windows.

off. Shaw had no idea what to do next.

A friend proposed a cross-country trip; a few months later they landed in San Diego. “We’d heard it was really sunny there,” Shaw recalls.

After a string of dead-end jobs, he noticed a business card in his wallet for Level 1 Promotion, a national marketing company. He’d gotten the card a few years earlier from a Level 1 “street team”

1997

Jean Schwarzwalder

Hester with Calamity Jane.

handing out flyers at a concert. He called; an Xbox promotional event was happening the next day at a Los Angeles convention. “I rode my motorcycle to L.A. Shaw with Thea, his Boston terrier.

Monica Schweiger, Fashion Buying and Merchandising ,

a fashion editor and wardrobe stylist who produced Katy Perry and Lady Gaga cover shoots for WWD before they were stars, opened The Mercantile Shop in Healdsburg, CA, in April, with her friend Kelly Ferris. The store has a vintage Americana theme: slub-cotton T-shirts, denim, vintage sunglasses, quirky housewares, and locally produced groceries. Her customers, of course, revere classic American style. “When guys come in with handlebar mustaches and plaid shirts,” Schweiger says, “I wonder if they’re hipsters or farmers.”

1998

and that was the beginning of my career,” Shaw says. He worked with Level 1, dis-

tributing flyers and wheat-pasting posters for local festivals and skateboarder Tony Hawk’s line of video games, until 2003, when his boss asked him to transfer to the New York office. Shaw rode his Triumph back east across Canada, since he’d covered the States on his way out West.

But the job didn’t work out, and Shaw went into business for himself. His small agency does everything from running flash mobs to producing parties to designing and disseminating posters, stickers, and other print and digital advertising. The nine-year-old firm has won two Paper Nightlife Awards for best promoter (in 2008 and 2009, for its work on Motherf**ker, Misshapes, and other hot parties), and collaborated on the American launches of Uniqlo and Topshop. For one memorable campaign for the Syfy network, he hired hundreds of models, dressed them in black suits and bunny masks, and sent them around the city. The stunt caused a viral sensation.

Remarkably, Shaw has never had to pitch for business. “I’m very fortunate—every one

last year was named director of production services at Wallace Church, a New York branding and packaging firm that has worked with Heinz, Ivory, and Jack Daniel’s. He proofs, tests, and cleans up packaging design files before they go to the printer or separator (a company that prepares the plates for the printer).

This involves checking the colors and fonts, converting to a usable file format, and ensuring that a design can be produced. “The job isn’t creative,” Scelza says. “It’s either right or wrong.”

Michael Scelza, Packaging Design,

Scelza helped produce the design of Nature’s Path boxes.

of my clients has come by referral,” he says. But he demurs when asked for entrepreneurial tips. “I don’t have any special business sense. I just take care of my clients, and they take care of me.” —Sean Kennedy

2000 Bridgette Bartlett, Advertising and Marketing Communications, Fashion Buying and Merchandising ’97, launched

BlackBridalBliss.com in 2010. In addition to wedding-planning tips, the contributor to Essence, Juicy, and People magazines writes about traditions unique to couples of African descent, such as “jumping the broom” and eating “black cake,” a fruitcake made with rum. Her most popular feature is Tie the Knot Tuesday, an interview with a recently married couple. Most bridal bloggers start after their own wedding, she says, but she only recently became engaged.

Kimberly Goldson, Fashion Merchandising Management, season nine Project Runway finalist, released a five-piece capsule collection for Zappos.com in spring 2012 as part of its emerging-designer program.

Prices for the garments, which include two styles of her pants (praised on Project Runway), range from $199 to $349. Since then, Goldson has released two collections on her own. Neko wool pant, $249.

fitnyc.edu/hue

29

2004

ken BoroChov, Fashion Design, is

the creator of Mordekai, a jewelry brand worn by Nicki Minaj and Lady Gaga. He began experimenting with jewelry and accessories while working as a stylist; he thought the fashion industry was lacking crowns and other headpieces. In addition to over-the-top custom bling, he also sells trendy, wearable aluminum pieces.

sTrONG sUiTs JessiCa miller petersen, Fashion Design ’00 When Jessica Petersen moved into Alumni Hall her first day at FIT, she was taken aback by her roommate Rosemary Preta’s unhip outfit: “What 19-year-old wears Liz Claiborne?” As they grew close, Preta, Advertising and Marketing Communications ’04, revealed that she couldn’t find young, trendy clothes that fit her size-18 body, especially

news from your classmates

swimwear. “That stuck with me,” Petersen recalls.

It stuck for more than a decade. In November 2011, after designing children’s wear for Macy’s and plus-size fashions for Torrid, Petersen unveiled a line of plus-size swimwear. She named it Sorella Swim, using the Italian word for “sister,” in honor of Preta, now her closest friend.

“Plus-size women are used to being offered things that rip after two wearings,” Petersen says.

“And they aren’t scared of tight and low-cut clothing. They don’t want to cover up.”

Her collection offers options for different body Ian Gavan/Getty Images

shapes. Women who love their bust could choose a low-cut top. Those with a smaller bust and wider

hips might prefer a tankini top paired with a bottom that provides more support.

Her suits are sturdy and fully lined. Instead of traditional swimwear fabric, a tricot that stretches four ways, she uses a more expensive 83/17 nylon/spandex circular knit that stretches Lady Gaga wore Borochov’s armor rings encrusted with gold rocks, bees, thorns, and chains, $3,750, and two gold-plated cuffs, $950 each, for her perfume launch at Harrods in London.

in every direction. Strategic ruching at the seams creates a slimming effect. But Petersen

emilY Burns perrYman, aDvertising anD marketing

of the time it’s going to pop out somewhere else anyway.”

is an e-marketing and communications specialist for Freed Maxick CPAs, PC, where she integrates online strategies into the firm’s marketing and communications plans.

Twice a month she writes the “Fashion & Finance” column for the Accounting Today blog. Recent posts covered bow ties, iPhone accessories, and bare legs in the office. She is also the founder of the Buffalo Dachshund Club, a group of almost 400 wiener-dog owners.

CommuniCations,

rejects the gimmicky “tummy tuck panels” and “power mesh lining” that promise to hold in bulges. “I want these women to feel proud and happy in the skin they’re in,” she says. “Most She canceled a print in her first collection because retailers balked. But customers begged for bolder colors and prints. The second collection, launched this fall, comes in royal blue, teal, magenta, black, and a print that goes with all of them. Most swimsuits cost less than $200.

Petersen expected to sell mostly through upscale chains like Everything But Water, but she found that her customers feel shunned at boutiques that carry sizes 0 and 2. Stores that cater to plus-size women, as well as Sorella Swim’s website, move the most product.

“Most retailers are scared of this business,” she says. “They view this customer as very picky. But 62 percent of the population is size 14 or larger, and retailers are starting to hear it.”

2008

2009

nina mata, illustration,

Cori mCConnell, Fashion merChanDising

drew the pictures for Dawn’s Hiccups (Oxford University Press, 2013), a story about a girl who tries myriad remedies to cure her hiccups.

Creating the e-book version, Mata explains, An illustration from Dawn’s Hiccups. was labor-intensive, involving not only animation but also slightly different versions depending on the device. She also illustrates the backgrounds for video games that help teach kids how to read.

30

Sorella Swim signature medallion one-piece, $218.

hue | fall/winter 2012

is author of the style blog, LadyBowTie.com, and selfproclaimed “consigliere of style.”

This summer, she launched shopladybowtie.com, a web storefront that sells her favorite accessories and apparel, not to mention bow ties for men or women, from wholesale lines and independent designers.

She also produces fashion shows in Bethlehem, PA.

management,

2011

maggie kerviCk, aCCessories Design, founded

Bags

By Mags, a line of PVC bags that look as if they’re made of LifeStyles condom packages. Her third year at FIT, she made two condom handbags as a joke, but the response was so positive that she had the bags produced. “I’m trying to change the stereotype that if a man carries a condom, he’s considered prepared, but if a woman carries one, she’s considered a slut,” Kervick says. Her biggest buyer? The Museum of Sex.

Bags By Mags’ cosmetics case, $25.

sources of inspiration

Novel possIBIlIty Angie Cruz Fashion Design ’94

While researching the book I’m working on, In Search of Caridad, I took a playwriting workshop in Spain—I like to take classes outside my field to develop my writing. The instructor’s first prompt was to think of two or three important objects or pieces of architecture to help tell a story. I immediately thought of the window in my childhood living room in Washington Heights. It faced the Audubon Ballroom, where Malcolm X was assassinated in 1965. That was the year of the U.S. occupation of the Dominican Republic, and around the time my father met my mother there.

I had wanted my book to be about the civil rights movement through the perspective of my parents, but even though the African-American and Dominican communities were living side by side in Washington Heights, they were in separate worlds.

And during these big historical moments, most people were just going about their lives. As a child in the ’70s, I remember looking out our window at the Audubon Ballroom and seeing people protesting. I asked my mother what they were doing. She said, “It’s not your problem.” Only much later did I realize that building was very significant.

After the playwriting workshop, I decided to make my story fiction and to start it in 1965, with my character, Ana, looking out the window and witnessing the commotion on the street after the assassination of Malcolm X. My story completely changed. That window helped me connect the Dominican community with the civil rights movement.

Cruz is the author of Soledad (Simon & Schuster, 1999) and Let It Rain Coffee (Simon & Schuster, 2005). She teaches at the University of Pittsburgh.

fitnyc.edu/hue

31

227 West 27 Street New York, NY 10001-5992 RETURN SERVICE REQUESTED

Nick parisse, photography and the Digital Image ’09, and his six-legged friends, p. 14.