VOLUME 17 NUMBER 1 FALL 2023
The Magazine of the Fashion Institute of Technology
This is a box! Here’s how to make it. 1. Pop out pattern along perforated edge. 2. Fold along the scored lines. 3. Use clear tape to attach box flaps to sides.
Inside: O N
T H E
C O V E R
When we redesigned Hue in 2022, we challenged ourselves to make each issue feel like a gift. With this issue, we’re providing an actual gift. We featured Packaging Design grads working at PepsiCo and entrepreneurs striving for sustainable cosmetics and fragrance formulations and packaging. We couldn’t give you a can, a spray bottle, or a compact—but we could offer a keepsake box, with prints designed by Masha Parfenov, Textile/Surface Design ’19 (read about her on page 19). We think the cover is pretty uncommon—and that’s part of our mission: to represent FIT’s wildly unconventional community in magazine form. What will you put in the box? Send a photo to hue@fitnyc.edu.
Winning! Hue’s 2022 print redesign, art directed by Alexander Isley Inc., received first place in the Editorial Design category of PRINT magazine’s annual competition, edging out The New York Times! And the new Hue website, designed by GoodFolk, won Best UI Design, Best UX Design, Best Innovation, and the Special Kudos Award in the 2023 CSS Design Awards.
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6 Packaging for a New Generation
PepsiCo’s branding innovation
12 Skin Deep? Go Deeper
She helps implement L’Oréal’s comprehensive eco-initiative
14 Sustainable Beauty
Three companies focus on their footprint
19 Prints Charming
Get to know Sogé Studio, a rising star in textile design
20 Brilliant Work
Magnificent projects from a master of lighting DEPARTMENTS
26 27 & 7 31 Alumni Notables 34 What Inspires You?
Three case studies in branding at PepsiCo
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raditionally, packaging designers were responsible for the graphics and structure of the package, while advertisers and marketers handled the rest of the branding: ad campaigns, slogans, promotions. That divide is quickly being erased. “Packaging design is the profession that understands how to capture the brand narrative and express it to a consumer audience quickly and effectively,” Marianne Klimchuk, professor of Packaging Design, says. “Very often, we are now involved in motion graphics, in social media, in all the different ways that the brand connects with consumers, on pack and off.” BY JONATHAN VATNER hue.fitnyc.edu HUE
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One reason for this shift, she posits, is that consumers now encounter brands well before they walk into a store. Sometimes the first encounter—this “moment of truth,” as Klimchuk puts it—happens on social media, sometimes on an e-commerce site. (While traditional advertising has long exposed consumers to products before they shop, she says relatively few brands could afford that.) This is especially true for Gen Z adults, an essential demographic for brands that want to stay youthful and relevant. nowhere better exemplified than at PepsiCo, a brand that Klimchuk calls “the top of the top” for their industryleading investment in design. And the company has continually recognized the excellence of FIT’s Packaging Design program, hiring numerous grads for key positions. The following case studies by alumni working at PepsiCo reflect the brand’s innovative stance and show what packaging designers do today. “Packaging is not just packaging anymore,” says Daniela Maldonado, Packaging Design ’14, senior design manager for the PepsiCo Design and Innovation Center in Los Angeles. “We’re really shaping brands that can change the culture.” 8
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Daniela Maldonado,
Packaging Design ’14, Senior Design Manager, PepsiCo Design and Innovation Center Product launch: Starry Maldonado is part of a Los Angeles–based innovation team that incubates and launches beverage brands for PepsiCo, often in new categories for the company like mixers (Unmuddled) and mood enhancement (Soulboost). When she joined the team in January 2022, moving from a Miami-based position doing beverage design for the Latin America region, they were working on a new lemon-lime-flavored soda. “We wanted to create a unique offering that connected with Gen Z adults,” Maldonado says, “a brand that would generate love and recognition.” PepsiCo R&D formulated a new lemonlime soda with “a crisp, clear, and refreshing flavor” that beat Sprite, Coca-Cola’s categorydominator, in blind taste tests. Finding the perfect name was a major challenge. The soft drink’s ethos is “a pick-me-up when life feels like a lot,” a sentiment geared toward Gen Z adults, who have grown up in an increasingly chaotic environment with an uncertain future. Not only did the name need
Headshot illustrations by Heekyung Hur, MA ’08; all other images courtesy of PepsiCo
This evolving role for the packaging designer is perhaps
The soft drink’s ethos is “a pick-me-up when life feels like a lot,” a sentiment geared toward Gen Z adults, who have grown up in an increasingly chaotic environment with an uncertain future.
LEFT: Brand mascots Lem and Lime
bring lighthearted, whimsical energy to Starry’s marketing. BELOW: Starry’s bold can designs.
to resonate with that ethos, feel distinctive, sound like a delicious beverage, and test well with focus groups, it also had to be available for copyright. The winning name was Starry. The team felt it sounded bright, optimistic, and imaginative. Starry would be sold in multiple sizes of cans and bottles, and the team designed the packaging for all of them. The 12-ounce can is the iconic format, with the most room for visual branding, whereas the label on the 20-ounce bottle is more space-challenged. Since the packaging designs were just one part of a complete branding and marketing system, the Design and Innovation team also brainstormed ideas for introducing Starry to the world. To help make the brand irreverent and cool, they looked to fashion, particularly streetwear, for inspiration. Brands like A Bathing Ape, Supreme, and Louis Vuitton were using cartoon characters on their clothes, and Gucci did a fashion collection with Snoopy, so the Design and Innovation team created brand mascots to bring Starry to life. Mascots Lem and Lime would appear in advertisements and other brand activations.
The team thought through not just the fruits’ physical features (Lem is a lime in a lemon costume, and Lime is a lemon in a lime costume) but also their personalities and the way they move and act (Lem is more relaxed than Lime). Marketing decided that Starry’s first big partnership would be with the NBA All-Star Game in February 2023, a month after cans hit shelves. Maldonado’s team worked with PepsiCo’s sports marketing team to ensure that this partnership would feel authentic and fully considered. Starry sponsored the three-point contest, All-Star Game attendees got to taste the soda, and the TV broadcast introduced Lem and Lime to millions of basketball fans. Many groups within PepsiCo came together to launch Starry: marketing, design, R&D, food service, sales, and retail, to name a few. But Maldonado says her collaborative team was crucial to the new brand’s success. “It all came together because we were constantly talking to each other. We were able to create and launch this brand so quickly because we were working in the innovation hub.” hue.fitnyc.edu HUE
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Corinna Hutter,
Packaging Design ’13, Senior Designer, International Beverages, PepsiCo Global Rebranding: Mirinda
The Mirinda redesign affected not just the beverage containers but also brand marketing and advertising.
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Mirinda, a Spanish soda brand founded in 1959 and acquired by PepsiCo in 1970, isn’t sold in the U.S. but is uber-popular overseas, with almost 50 fruit flavors across different markets worldwide. Corinna Hutter, who was hired for PepsiCo’s international beverage team in Dublin in 2022, helped steer a rebrand to target Gen Z adults. The previous packaging, which launched in 2015, was a bit monotone, and it was getting lost on the shelf. The original Mirinda can, which debuted back in 1959, featured a graphic “M,” and Hutter’s three-person design team focused the new logo around
that letter. The new “M” introduces a pop of white that contrasts with the bright colors representing the fruit flavors. The white also links the design back to the previous iteration, which had a white circle behind the logo. The team also brought in accent colors to help the labels stand out and to modernize them further. Orange, the most popular flavor in most markets, is still an orange-colored can but now has fuchsia highlights, and the purple pomegranate can includes a touch of yellow. The rich green used for the lettering of “Mirinda” was punched up slightly from previous iterations. Hutter points out that the Mirinda letterforms were formerly a bit disjointed and wacky, and her team reined them in to modernize them. “Throughout the 2000s, you saw energetic typography as if to say, ‘This is a fun, creative brand!’” she explains. “Now you don’t have to be as over-the-top.” The team added fizzy bubbles that zipped around the Mirinda logo and developed more than 25 complementary fruit illustrations that matched the vibrant new look. As with every other design decision, obsessive care went into the smallest details: How thick should the rinds be? What rind texture matched each fruit: zigzags, dots, or another pattern? Where should the motion lines be placed? Because all the packaging designs were interrelated, each decision affected every product format. The can design was part of a larger rebranding. Mirinda’s brand book, finalized in early 2022, presents visuals and guidelines for in-store displays, billboards, commercials, and social media campaigns. Mirinda photography, for example, should have a raw, real quality, and the actors for TV spots should “own their own creativity and personality, making their own ‘M-pact,’” Hutter says. She is proud of what the team accomplished. “I’d never tried Mirinda or been exposed to it,” she says. “Seeing these new cans, I would want to collect them and try all the flavors.”
Through type and graphics, the PopFizzAhh billboards communicated the feeling of opening a can and taking a sip.
Hayley Shore,
Packaging Design ’13, Design Manager, PepsiCo Europe Ad campaign: PopFizzAhh In 2022, after a two-year stint at PepsiCo Global based in Dublin, Hayley Shore relocated to PepsiCo’s London office. One of her first projects was a billboard campaign for Pepsi called PopFizzAhh. “We were looking for a way to celebrate summertime and Pepsi Max but introduce a more emotive expression of the brand into the U.K. market,” Shore says. The target for this emotional advertising was adult Gen Z “cola switchers”: those who didn’t drink cola but could become interested through advertising. The most
influential audience in terms of purchasing power, Shore says, is “Mom at the shop picking up Pepsi Max for the family”—but targeting that audience often relegates the advertising to the functional space, that is, focusing on product information. “PopFizzAhh was about celebrating the ritual of drinking a can of Pepsi,” she says, “from the pop of the cap … to the fizz that appears in the can … to that sip moment.” Most soda ads focus on the can and the splash of the beverage. This campaign was typographic, with letterforms crafted to represent feelings. “Pop” explodes onto the billboard, “fizz” sizzles with a string of z’s, and “aah” slides out like a satisfied sigh. Also, soda ads typically include a tagline— recent Pepsi Max slogans include “best taste, no compromise,” and “maximum taste, no sugar”—but the PopFizzAhh billboards minimized the words to focus on the images, which Shore describes as more like artworks than commercial visuals. Shore and one other designer carefully rendered every cola droplet and arranged them around the letterforms. “We gave a lot more consideration to every aspect.” Billboard advertising—referred to as “out of home”—can’t take too many risks because billboards can’t easily be taken down. “Social is a space where you can play the most, because it’s the least permanent,”
Shore explains. “If it gets a negative response, you can just delete it.” Packaging is meant to be evergreen because it represents the core values of the brand and serves as the foundation for everything else. In the U.K., limited-edition cans appear only during major football (read: soccer) events. In other words, Shore is a packaging designer but rarely touches packaging. “Our can is iconic,” she says, “but we are able to play with everything around it.” Using location data about foot traffic and demographics, the design team worked with the marketing team to identify billboard locations in cities throughout the U.K. where young professionals would encounter them. For maximum impact, they chose large billboards, including a 57-by-22-foot 3D sign at an upscale shopping center in East London. The 3D sign combines two LED images to create the illusion of depth: The can seems to jump off the screen. Also, small posters that alternated among “pop,” “fizz,” and “ahh” lined the escalators of the London Underground. As a result of the campaign, Pepsi Max beat out its competitors in the amount of positive online buzz, including the number of people who recommended the drink. “We made a measurable, direct impact on the market,” Shore says. “And we did it with cola art.” ■ hue.fitnyc.edu HUE
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SkinDeep? GoDeeper Joe Carrotta, Photography ‘17
BY N A N CY A . R U H L I N G
Morgan Hagney, MPS ’17, helps L’Oréal deliver on its sustainability promises
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he beauty industry is giving itself a complete makeover in response to climate change—and consumer demand for sustainability. Brands are reviewing and reimagining packaging, formulas and ingredients, and production methods. In 2020, L’Oréal, the largest beauty company in the world, announced a set of global sustainability targets for 2030 called L’Oréal for the Future. Commitments include reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 50% per finished product compared with 2016; recycling 100% of the water used in its industrial processes; ensuring that all bio-based ingredients used in formulas and packaging are traceable, sustainably sourced, and not linked with deforestation; and sourcing all plastic used in packaging from recycled or bio-based sources. Morgan Hagney, Cosmetics and Fragrance Marketing and Management (CFMM) MPS ’17, is leading this initiative for the U.S. Consumer Product Division, the company’s largest entity. Hagney also teaches communication and presentation skills in FIT’s CFMM program and serves as its alumni chair. “Morgan has always had incredible vision: beyond the moment, beyond the trends, beyond any individual brand,” says Stephan Kanlian, professor and associate chair of
CFMM. “She also believes passionately in corporate social and environmental responsibility and its power to effect positive change.” Hagney, the first person in the new role at L’Oréal, works to engage and empower the division’s 1,000-plus employees across iconic brands like Maybelline, L’Oréal Paris, and Garnier to drive results on its environmental and social commitments. “You have to have courage and conviction to challenge a dominant way of thinking,” she says. “We don’t always have perfect solutions; it’s about having the resilience to adapt, learn, and try again.” Hagney adds that “taking action is not only in the best interest of our communities and our industry, it’s also smart business.” Indeed, according to a fall 2022 study by global consultancy Simon-Kucher, 71% of consumers worldwide have changed their buying habits to be more sustainable, and 66% rank sustainability as one of the five key reasons behind a purchase, an increase from 50% in 2021. L’Oréal, which has long worked toward sustainability, is “making it a central part of our business model,” Hagney says. L’Oréal for the Future is part of a broader strategy for making the world better. The company’s 36 international brands have committed to benefit 3 million people by 2030 through dedicated social programs that address causes like Black maternal health, depression and anxiety, and women’s rights. Hagney says L’Oréal is well on its way to meeting its ambitious goals, noting that 97% of new or renovated products have already improved their social and environmental footprint; U.S. manufacturing and distribution sites are using 100% renewable energy; 61% of formula ingredients are derived from renewable, abundant, or natural sources
versus petroleum-based ingredients; and 2.5 million people have directly benefited from the brands’ social programs worldwide. A core component of the 2030 sustainability initiative, L’Oréal’s Product Environmental and Social Impact Labeling system provides greater transparency and helps consumers make more informed choices about the products they buy. The labeling system, developed with scientific experts and verified by independent third parties, grades L’Oréal’s products on a variety of environmental and social factors: greenhouse gas emissions, water use, manufacturing conditions, and packaging materials, which are measured across every stage of a product’s life cycle. The grades are posted on product pages of the company’s websites. The initiative, which launched in France in 2020, has since been rolled out in 27 countries, including the United States, where it started with Garnier hair care in fall 2022 and Kiehl’s in spring 2023. L’Oréal plans to implement the system across more of its brands in the coming year and to share its findings with the 60-member EcoBeautyScore Consortium, an international alliance of cosmetics and personal care companies working toward a unified rating system. “It’s important to realize that there’s no competition in this space,” Hagney says. “Change happens when we stand together and take action. We’re all trying to get to the same goal.”
Nancy A. Ruhling writes about art, architecture, antiques, real estate, and design. Her stories have appeared in more than 50 print and online publications, including The New York Times, HuffPost, and Vogue.
Sustainable
Beauty How the cosmetics and fragrance industry is reducing its footprint
BY RAQUEL LANERI ILLUSTRATION BY SAM KALDA, MFA ’14
hue.fitnyc.edu HUE
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hat drugstore shampoo you use? It gets its suds from skin-irritating sulfates. The aluminum-free deodorant? It comes in a plastic container.
The nozzle that spritzes your perfume? Not recyclable. Even the “clean”
moisturizer or lipstick that boasts all-natural ingredients likely traveled more
than 5,000 miles via carbon-spewing planes and trucks to get to your door.
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human-rights practices—is no longer a niche concern, but a requirement for many consumers. “Nowadays, if you are going into the market, sustainability is almost a given,” Treska says. “You have to create sustainable products. Being socially responsible is important. Giving back is important. Creating products with an ethical value behind them is important. These are the things that I teach constantly in my classroom.” Virginia Bonofiglio, associate chair of CFM, says sustainability is central to the program. “We do not have one course devoted to sustainability; the sustainability agenda is woven into every major core class,” from product development to packaging to marketing, she says. “It is the major topic of discussion across the beauty industry.”
Treska’s cosmetics brand, Pinch of Colour, uses no water in its formulations and donates to nonprofits that ensure access to clean water.
Bonofiglio says such concerns are top of mind not just for new brands but also for conglomerates like Estée Lauder and L’Oréal. These large corporations “are very happy that we are becoming a hub for sustainability,” she notes, adding that several of her former students work in that area at these companies. After all, she points out, sustainability is more than a trend: “It is a must-have and must-do if we expect to maintain life on this planet.”
Clean Formulas
As a product developer, Tara Kearns, CFM ’02, prides herself on keeping an eye on the future. She didn’t need a crystal ball to see how the world was heating up, and that the beauty industry needed to minimize the damage it inflicted on the Earth. “At a certain point, it was time for the industry to have a better impact on the planet and consumers,” she says. So in 2018, she joined the perfume company Clean Beauty Collective (CBC), as the head product and fragrance developer. CBC first gained recognition in 2003 with a fresh-smelling fragrance inspired by a bar of soap, called Clean. It was made without any parabens, phthalates, dyes, gluten, or toxins. Since then, the company has expanded into face, hair, and body products, with a focus on sustainability in sourcing and packaging. Kearns’s first task more than four years ago was expanding the company’s extensive list of banned ingredients—which include carcinogens, animal byproducts, palm oil, sulfates,
Courtesy of Pinch of Colour
The $400 billion global beauty industry has an ugly secret: It is harming our planet. Chemicals in sunscreen are damaging coral reefs and other marine life. Skincare products and lipsticks, which rely on ingredients like soy, palm oil, and sugarcane, contribute to the loss of 18 million acres of forest annually. The cosmetics industry produces 120 billion units of plastic packaging a year, according to data compiled by Zero Waste Week. (The Environmental Protection Agency says 70% of plastics end up in landfills.) Some personal care products are harming people, too, with cancer-causing chemicals such as formaldehyde and coal tar. “I have been working in beauty for about 17 years, and I was part of the problem,” Shannon Goldberg, Cosmetics and Fragrance Marketing (CFM) ’06, says. “I always say I was sleepwalking a little bit.” Now Goldberg is one of several FIT alumni working to change the industry to something more, well, beautiful. In 2020, she founded Izzy Zero Waste Beauty, whose nontoxic mascaras, brow gels, highlighters, and lip glosses come in 100% recyclable, endlessly refillable containers. “With all the information we’re armed with today—not just in terms of sustainability but in terms of the impact on our health—we need to do better,” Goldberg says. Linda Treska, CFM ’03, an adjunct instructor at FIT and founder of “waterless” makeup company Pinch of Colour, says sustainability— which she says encompasses not just the environment but also ethical labor and
“The earth takes care of us. It gives us food and a beautiful place to live, and if we don’t take care of it, it won’t be around forever.” —Tara Kearns ’02
Images courtesy of Tara Kearns and Clean Beauty Collective
talc, and many more—to help its developers create “products that are more thoughtful and green,” she says. CBC follows guidelines set by the European Union, which are much stricter than those in the U.S. “We have a reasoning behind every ingredient we don’t use. There’s transparency behind it, why we don’t want these ingredients in our products. We don’t fearmonger; that’s not what we want to do. But we want to give you synthetic and natural ingredients that work well together.” Kearns not only works on the ingredients but also the manufacturing and packaging, finding vendors and suppliers that adhere to CBC’s values. For example, the company uses corn-derived compostable cello for its packaging. The ink used in its branding is nontoxic and water based.
LEFT: Kearns helps
Clean Beauty Collective meet its sustainability promises. BELOW: In addition
to fragrances, Clean Beauty Collective offers sustainable skincare products.
“The earth takes care of us,” she says. “It gives us food and a beautiful place to live, and if we don’t take care of it, it won’t be around forever.”
A Zero Waste Mascara
Shannon Goldberg used to love cool packaging. As someone who worked in marketing, she believed the way to stand out at retail was through an aesthetically pleasing box or container, sometimes multiple boxes and containers. In 2020, she launched Izzy, a cosmetics company that eliminated all that. Izzy’s signature mascara—made from jasmine and rice waxes—comes in a medical-grade stainless steel tube. Every three months, the customer sends it back in a reusable black cloth mailer to get it refilled. There are no labels, just QR codes. Every ingredient and packaging material is sourced from within a 400-mile radius: The brand’s entire supply chain is located in Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey. “It’s truly zero waste,” she says. Goldberg’s change of heart came at the beginning of the Covid lockdown in 2020 after she read a National Geographic article about waste in the beauty industry. “I remember just seeing the numbers and spiraling and being like, ‘Oh my gosh: billions of single-use plastic containers and it just never goes anywhere.’” She wondered
whether it was possible to make a brand that was truly sustainable. “Then I saw the term ‘zero waste’ being thrown around and got really curious,” she recalls. Zero waste means that “absolutely nothing from your production goes to landfill or waterways,” Goldberg says—not the packaging, not the ingredients, not even anything used in the brand’s facilities. She found that even so-called “sustainable” brands often fell short. Most products come in containers made of PCR (post-consumer resin) plastics, which can be recycled only once before ending up in a landfill. The idea of cutting down trees to make paper or cardboard packaging also felt incredibly wasteful. Goldberg came across medical-grade stainless steel, used by dentists and nail technicians, which can be washed and reused more than 10,000 times—and is fully recyclable. She decided to launch Izzy with mascara because many women had chosen to forgo lipstick while masking during the pandemic and because consumers are supposed to replace their mascara every three months to avoid eye infections. When the customer sends the reusable mailer back to Izzy, the tube is cleaned and refilled with fresh carbon-free product. (The plant-based resin wand is reground and remolded each time.) “I loved the business models of Rent the Runway and food-box delivery systems,”
FAR LEFT: Izzy’s tubes are
disinfected and refilled with locally sourced cosmetics. LEFT: After waking up to the
problem of excess packaging in the industry, Goldberg founded the zero waste beauty company Izzy.
Sustainably Packaged Perfume
When Ashley Boyce, Cosmetics and Fragrance Marketing and Management ’13, started the data-driven fragrance brand Noteworthy, she paid special attention to reducing packaging waste. Boyce had spent over a decade at Unilever helping launch new products and brands for the likes of Dove and Axe. She saw how augmented reality and AI had revolutionized shopping for skincare, hair care, and makeup, making it easier than ever to match the consumer with the right product. But when it came to fragrances, shoppers remained as lost as ever. “It’s extremely overwhelming,” Boyce says. “You see these terms like ‘woody,’ ‘floral,’ ‘fruity,’ and most people don’t know what they even mean—let alone if they would like them combined together.” That’s how Noteworthy came about. Over the course of 18 months, starting in 2021, she and cofounder Luke Weston (a friend and fellow beauty industry veteran) developed 18 HUE F A L L 2 0 2 3
a bank of 14 fragrances, based on data about the most popular scents, that would appeal to a broad swath of people. Then they worked with a data scientist to create a fragrance finder online. Visitors answer a series of questions, and the algorithm puts together a personalized discovery kit with four scents tailored to their responses. Boyce says that 89% of customers find a perfume they love in the kit. “No one else is doing this,” Boyce says. “There may be quizzes out there, but they don’t have the same root in science that ours does.” The perfume industry also lagged behind the times in another aspect: sustainability. “The majority of perfumes on the market, particularly anything above an ounce, have pumps on the bottle that you can’t remove without heavy-duty pliers,” Boyce says. “It took us a long time to find a vendor that sold both a beautiful bespoke bottle and a pump” that could easily be unscrewed for recycling purposes. They also wanted to eliminate the excessive packaging used to ship perfume bottles.
Instead of wrapping their bottles in cellophane, they use a lightweight sleeve made from recyclable, biodegradable tissue paper. Noteworthy recently began offering refills, so customers don’t need to buy multiple bottles. “We are on a constant journey to figure out what else we can do to make our product more sustainable.” Boyce adds, “For us, it’s really about minimizing the footprint that we leave on the planet, because we both have children. I don’t want to be more sustainable than another brand; I’d like us all to be sustainable.” ■
Raquel Laneri is an editor and writer based in Brooklyn. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, New York Post, Bustle, and other publications.
Noteworthy sends samples tailored to customer preferences in recyclable packaging.
Boyce cofounded Noteworthy to match customers to their ideal fragrance.
Courtesy of Izzy and Noteworthy
Goldberg says. “Izzy allows someone to do their sustainable good deed of the day without really trying.” Currently, Izzy has 5,000 subscribers. Goldberg says the company averages 1,000 shipments per month. Izzy has since expanded its product line to include brow gels, lip glosses, and highlighters. There’s also a moisturizer called Dew Bomb, which looks like a Tide Pod but dissolves in water to become a cream. “I believe that one day zero waste will be the ultimate goal not only in beauty, but across categories like food as well,” she says.
Charming A fashion-forward textile design studio is shaking up the industry
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BY JONATHAN VATNER
n a bright, airy loft in Dumbo, steps from the East River, six designers hand-draw and paint prints that will embellish fashions by DKNY, Fila, Guess, Kensie, and many other brands. Though their work is often the most noticeable aspect of a garment, and they are on the front line of dictating trends, they rarely receive credit.
Portrait: Lorenzo Ciniglio; Gabrielle Union; prints courtesy of Sogé Studio
“Print designers are the unsung heroes of the industry,” says Stephanie Ogé, Fashion Design ’06, founder of Sogé Studio. “A garment is always going to have a base structure, but it’s the artwork that elevates the design.” The job is dizzyingly creative. Head designer Masha Parfenov, Textile/Surface Design ’19, creates two to three collections of six pieces every week. Ogé directs, finding inspiration at art shows, in outfits she spots, and in cultural moments.
A snapshot on the street could inspire a collection. Ogé worked as a fashion designer before discovering that she preferred making textile art. In 2016, she took a risk and founded Sogé Studio, a mashup of her first initial and last name. She quickly developed a loyal following. “It was like throwing a Hail Mary, and it got caught,” she says. Sogé Studio is known for bold, fresh colors and the graceful movement of the designs—and
Sogé Studio is an all-women company, including founder Ogé and head designer Parfenov.
the fact that it is possibly the only Black woman–owned print studio. “When I came on the scene, people would ask, ‘Where’s your boss?’” Parfenov, who designed the prints for the opening pages of this issue of Hue, joined the company in her final year at FIT. “I was convinced I was going to open my own studio,” she says. “I took management classes and had a business plan. I was going to change the industry, designing stuff from scratch.” When Rena Sussman Silverman, adjunct associate professor of Textile/Surface Design and Fabric Styling, connected Parfenov with Ogé for an internship, her plans suddenly changed. “I realized Steph was already doing what I wanted to do,” Parfenov says, “and that I did not want to own my own business.” Four years in, Parfenov has designed more than 2,000 prints for the company. How does she stay motivated and inspired? Every few weeks, samples of all the studio’s recent work are printed in Belgium on a single bolt of crepe de chine. Unrolling the fabric and seeing the shapes and colors billow and sway is a delight that never gets old.
ABOVE: Gabrielle Union wore a Sogé
print to a pre–Met Gala appearance in 2021. Parfenov painted it in homage to the floral poncho Cicely Tyson wore to the 1974 Emmy Awards. BELOW: This sophisticated
conversational print, sold to Fila, combines a zebra stripe with giraffes in a tossed design. BOTTOM: Parfenov created this floral
repeat, sold to The Iconic in Australia, by dragging a ball chain through paint.
hue.fitnyc.edu HUE
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Four projects by FIT alum
Dean Skira,
Brilliant Work an internationally renowned lighting designer
BY J O N AT H A N VAT N E R
Skira’s office building, the House of Light, can be illuminated in bright colors at night.
“Light and music have the same characteristics,” Croatian lighting designer Dean Skira says. “They are invisible, but they both influence our emotions.” For the Interior Design alumnus, emotion is both the starting point and the goal of any lighting project, regardless of whether it is for a public park or memorial, an arena, an office building, or a luxury hotel. His work may be technical and precise, but it is very much art: Before he completes a project, he must be moved by the play of light and shadow—and the “consequence,” the feeling that arises when the eye perceives a space.
Roman Theater
even consider his plan. Disappointed and disillusioned, he left the country in 1986 to study architecture in New York. A friend of a friend connected Skira with a job at a lighting showroom on the Bowery, working for the lighting designer Eduardo Rosso. Skira fell in love with the romance of lighting and, forgoing architecture school, took Interior Design courses at FIT, the only college in New York that had a lighting lab. In 1994, he moved back to Croatia and founded his company. These four standout projects offer a brief overview of Skira’s work.
Pula, Croatia
2022
The only preserved and functional theater built by the Roman Empire still in use is located in Skira’s hometown. The theater was recently modernized with a 4,000-seat steel seating structure and a huge LED video screen on the adjacent archaeological museum. The town hired Skira to light it.
House of Light
Pula, Croatia
Skira customized almost every element of the House of Light.
“We don’t do lighting for architecture,” he says. “We do lighting for people.” This human-centered approach has brought international acclaim and plenty of business for his 12-person eponymous firm. The company has won 50 major awards, including 15 for innovative light fixtures, 30 for lighting design, and five for the company’s own office building, the House of Light. That last project is a surreal white box in seaside Pula, Croatia, with indentations that collect geometrical shadows that shift as the sun crosses the sky. Skira fell into lighting design by coincidence. He was working as a computer programmer in Croatia, employed by a Yugoslavian electric company. He devoted two years of his spare time to building software to automate the maintenance of the region’s high-voltage infrastructure—and the company did not 22 HUE F A L L 2 0 2 3
Skira’s own office building, which he calls the House of Light, is both a beautifully considered workplace and an award-winning minimalist showplace. Every surface in the 7,500-square-foot building is white—floors, walls, and ceilings—an ideal canvas for Skira’s medium. (One presentation room is dark.) A lighting lab on the upper floor exhibits the latest technologies. As with many of Skira’s projects, most of the fixtures throughout the building are hidden, so that the illumination seems a natural extension of the architecture. “I wanted to prove that what is coming out of the fitting is more important than the fitting itself. If you go to a mechanic, you don’t need him to show you all his tools. But without the tools, he cannot fix your car.” The deep window niches, affording generous views of the picturesque Soline Bay, are not just striking; they prevent the hot summer sun from shining directly into the building to keep cooling costs to a minimum. Solar panels on the roof absorb enough energy to accommodate the building’s electrical needs. At night, dramatic splashes of colored light play on the white exterior. An artist friend of Skira’s chose the colors to match Piet Mondrian’s most famous painting, “Composition with Red, Blue, and Yellow.”
All photos courtesy of Skira
2006
The restored Roman theater is used for films, concerts, and presentations.
Skira created four preset scenes: one with impressive lighting for tourist visits, a second with low light to be used during events, a third to facilitate ingress and egress before and after events, and a fourth with basic security lights to use when the theater is closed. The theater was built with two colors of stone, a cool gray and a warm sand, and Skira matched the color temperature of the lights to the hue of the stone. With the press of a button, the lights can turn a deep red. Construction took much longer than planned.
When the developers dug deep to stabilize the steel structure, they kept hitting architectural elements, such as foundation walls and a water reservoir, that needed to be excavated. The dig also breached the Zerostrasse, the underground tunnels used to shelter the population during World War I that are now a tourist attraction. (Skira also designed the lighting for the Zerostrasse.) Once the excavation was finally complete, his team placed the 200 lights as they usually do, working at night to observe the effect
and adjust the intensities, and using special cranes to position the fixtures in areas too high to reach. No simulation can predict how light will reflect against stone, so a hands-on installation was crucial. As usual with Skira’s projects, the fixtures are all hidden, so that viewers see only the effect of the light, not the source or the glare. All told, from conception to execution, the project took a full decade. “Our job usually takes years before the conceptual part is realized,” Skira says, “but not ten years.”
Skira’s team of 12 is based in Croatia but works on projects around the world.
Vatican City 2022
Every Christmas, the Vatican is the focus of celebrations around the world. For the 2022 season, Skira was given the high-profile assignment of lighting the Nativity scene in St. Peter’s Square. Woodworkers in the town of Sutrio in the northeastern region of Italy carved 18 life-size sculptures depicting the crèche, and Skira needed to bring them to life with light. His team first scanned all the sculptures to create a 3D model, because the scene would be far too complex to plan with a hand-drawn map. On site, they positioned an intricate system of reflectors to illuminate each sculpture without revealing the light sources: For Skira, seeing the fixtures detracts from the effect. Then they synchronized the lighting to music, infusing the reveal of each sculpture with drama. In the show, which took place every evening from Dec. 3, 2022, to Jan. 8, 2023, the angel appeared first, as if calling the people to
attention. Then light shone on the children, followed by the other townspeople and the Three Kings. Next, Joseph and Mary were illuminated, and finally, to a swell of organ music, the baby Jesus glowed with light. The greatest reward for Skira from this notable assignment was meeting the Pope. “I had the privilege to shake his unbelievably warm hand,” Skira says. “It was a very touching emotional experience.”
Evolution Tower
Moscow
2019
The Evolution Tower is a 55-story skyscraper in the shape of a double helix like DNA, designed by British architect Tony Kettle and Scottish art professor Karen Forbes. Skira planned a comprehensive, fully automated lighting system for the interior and exterior that is not only stunning, it also saves millions in electricity costs. The project was incredibly complex. Each floor of the building was rotated 2.5 degrees, but the stairways and elevators remained in
the same place, which made every floor plan different. Existing fixtures on the market would not offer the precision Skira needed to provide consistent illumination to the oddly shaped rooms, so he developed a new energy-efficient LED. Their small size made them easy to install, and the fact that all 24,000 of these lights are identical simplifies maintenance. The lights dim in the evenings to match circadian rhythms, and the window shades are programmed to harvest daylight, an energy-saving technique of supplementing artificial light with sunlight. Skira also lit the outside of the building to display its unique shape to the city—but because of extreme temperature swings in Moscow’s summer and winter seasons, he positioned 3,500 light fixtures inside the windows, pointing outward. The network of LED fixtures can be programmed to put on a show. Because of the system’s precise modulations, the tower emits minimal light pollution. And it saves 3 million euros per year in electricity costs, enough to pay for itself within seven years. “No bank on the planet would give you that rate of return,” Skira says. ■
The Vatican’s nativity scene tells the story of the birth of Jesus using music and light.
Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images
Nativity Scene
The Evolution Tower won an Illuminating Engineering Society Award and a LIT Lighting Design Award for energy savings.
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V I E W
F R O M
O U R
Leave Your Mark on FIT
C O R N E R
FIT’s new academic building is rising on 28th Street, with an expected opening in summer 2024. A new Donor Walk, in front of the building, will be a place to honor a loved one, a graduate or graduating class, or a notable person or organization. The walkway will be a permanent part of the FIT campus and the New York City landscape. Individuals and companies are invited to purchase an inscription at fitnyc.pub/donorwalk.
In addition to the popular minor in Ethics and Sustainability, the college now offers a minor in Sustainable Materials and Technology. This program of study, open to students in any major, instills a scientific and technical understanding of the most pressing environmental challenges—and gives students tools to help find solutions. 26 HUE F A L L 2 0 2 3
A Scrumptious Museum Show Food & Fashion, an exhibition on view through Nov. 26 at The Museum at FIT, explores the intersection of these two human necessities and modes of artistic expression. Foodthemed garments, accessories, and textiles by Chanel, Comme des Garçons, Issey Miyake, Moschino, and other designers comment on cultural identity, sustainability, and other important issues.
These miniature leather bags, created in 2018 by Delvaux, look good enough to eat.
Delvaux bags: The Museum at FIT
More Sustainability in the Curriculum
Hip-Hop Fashion
R IG HT: Co-curators Romero and Way at the Fresh, Fly, and Fabulous symposium on Feb. 24. B EL OW: “Fly Girls of Flatbush” by
Jamel Shabazz, 1982.
A shearling coat from a recent MFIT show inspires intense memories
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worn to the 2022 Met Gala by Megan Thee Stallion—complemented the humbler looks. Established brands with reputations in the culture (Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger) were included. So was master logo remixer Dapper Dan, whom co-curator Elizabeth Way called one of the most important designers of the 20th century for creating a dialogue between streetwear and luxury. The everyday styles worn by ordinary people, however, drew the most attention. A Kangol hat, Air Jordan sneakers, chunky gold earrings, shearling jackets: These and other seemingly unremarkable items took on significance because they were worn to gatherings where hip hop was played. Romero contributed a pair of her daughter’s shoes—Reebok Freestyles known as 5411s because they cost $54.11 when first sold in New York in 1982. Images by noted street photographer Jamel Shabazz complemented
crowdsourced photos of people wearing looks popularized by MCs and DJs, or just spotted around the neighborhood. “Museum shows are usually about things so far removed,” Romero said. “Anyone who comes here sees some part of themselves.” One shearling jacket featured in a Shabazz photo sparked an emotional reminiscence. “It was the one thing I couldn’t have as a kid,” Romero said. “I wanted a navy blue one. Back then they cost about $200. I wanted one when I was 12, in 1985. It wasn’t about a brand; it was just a shearling you’d buy on Delancey Street.” Reflecting on the contemporary reliance upon luxury labels in the culture, she said, “In some ways, it’s disappointing. We didn’t have that. We made the style.” —Alex Joseph
Fly Girls: courtesy of Jamel Shabazz; Symposium: courtesy of MFIT
or curators, exhibitions are passion projects, requiring years of exacting research. The commitment ran especially deep for Elena Romero, assistant professor of Advertising and Marketing Communications, who co-curated The Museum at FIT’s spring 2023 show, Fresh, Fly, and Fabulous: Fifty Years of Hip Hop Style. Celebrating the synergy between irresistible music and knockout fashions, the show also signified something personal for Romero and the audience. “I keep equating this exhibition with a family reunion,” she said. “What brings people together is a love of fashion and music—and the memories.” Young, working-class Black and brown New Yorkers invented hip hop and its related clothing styles, which were first worn to parties and clubs. Most of the exhibition was sourced from personal collections, though high-end pieces—like a Moschino gown
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27&7
RETAILSPOTLIGHT INSIDE AN ALUM’S STORE
Worshiping at the Altar of Cult Gaia The must-see boutiques created by Jasmin Larian Hekmat ’10
BEST SELLER
The Hera Nano Rhinestone shoulder bag in Champagne.
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come and ask you, ‘What’s that?’” She opened Cult Gaia’s first physical space—a pop-up in Miami (which will become a permanent location in the future)—in May 2022, followed by Los Angeles and New York stores in early 2023, and another pop-up in Saint-Tropez in summer 2023. The LA store features Aegean-influenced tones and natural textures combined with Space Age-esque metallic accents—“like a shrine in another world,” Hekmat says. It also boasts an intricate, puzzle-like travertine floor. The New York store’s design references ancient temples (as well as the Louvre, Hekmat says), with arched windows and high domed ceilings. Limestone and neutral plaster surfaces create a soothing backdrop “so your eye never stops.” An S-shaped, terracotta-hued sofa provides a warm pop of color, and lights are plotted in the shape of Hekmat’s zodiac sign, Leo. Given Hekmat’s divine source of inspiration, it’s no surprise that her business got its start with crowns—flower crowns, to be exact, which she made as a student at FIT. Whenever she wore them, people would ask to buy them off her, so she began selling them online. From flower crowns, she branched out to turbans and hair accessories, and then handbags. Her now iconic, basket-like Ark bag was a surprise success. When she introduced it in 2013, “it didn’t sell at all,” she says. Once Instagram gained popularity several years later,
A B O V E: Cult Gaia’s New York City
boutique features earthy hues in an airy 1,900-square-foot space. L EF T: In addition to running Cult
Gaia, Larian Hekmat is also the creative director of Bratz dolls.
she posted a campaign to sell off inventory and “it just went viral.” The luxury store Fivestory New York featured the Ark bag in its window. The New York Times called it the “must-have bag” of summer 2017. And its goddess-level credentials were solidified when it was photographed on the arm of Beyoncé. After handbags, Hekmat started creating apparel,
shoes, and more—partly so that promotional photographs would feature 100% Cult Gaia designs. “I always wanted to do clothing, and I also didn’t want to shoot our product with other people’s. I wanted to curate a whole look,” she says. Opening brick-and-mortar stores was an essential accomplishment for Hekmat. “I felt like an imposter until I had one,” she says. “When you’re trying to get across the craftsmanship of pieces over the computer, it doesn’t feel as special as when you’re in a physical space.” And when it comes to those spaces, Hekmat is thinking very long term. “If someone found our stores a thousand years from now, they should still feel epic.” —Vanessa Machir
Boutique: Jacob Snavely; other images: Dominique Rawle
I
magine a serene space, full of light, where the names of goddesses are spoken with reverence. This isn’t an ancient Greek temple—it’s a Cult Gaia store. The Los Angeles–based clothing and accessories brand, founded by Jasmin Larian Hekmat, International Trade and Marketing ’10, Fashion Design ’10, gets its moniker from Gaia, the Greek goddess of Earth, mother of life, “which to me is an extremely creative force,” Hekmat says. Hekmat’s designs (also named after goddesses like Hera and Eos, as well as her friends and family) include sculptural handbags in retro-cool materials like acrylic, resin, and wood; bold, playful apparel; and attention-grabbing accessories. “Cult Gaia is for grace, glory, and good times,” she says. “What we make celebrates the body and femininity. It’s ‘peacock pieces’—everybody’s going to
FACULTY NEWS & INSIGHTS
The Marriage of Fashion and Art
Daniel Benkendorf: Smiljana Peros; Theanne Schiros: Jon Brown
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ashion exhibitions have become an increasingly popular draw at museums. Meanwhile, major brands such as Prada and LVMH have started foundations for displaying art. The work of Andy Warhol prefigured these developments, says Natasha Degen, professor and chair of FIT’s Art Market MA program. Her new book, Merchants of Style: Art and Fashion After Warhol (Reaktion), examines the convergence of fashion and fine art and teases out its troubling implications. “Art reaps many benefits from collaborating with fashion and luxury brands: financial rewards, visibility, mainstream relevance,” Degen says. “If there’s something to be afraid of, it’s that a more limited idea of art takes hold.”
A PROFESSOR’S ADVICE FOR EASING CLIMATE ANXIETY By Daniel Benkendorf
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ildfires. Floods. Recordbreaking heat. Ocean acidification. Microplastics. If you, like me, are preoccupied by ecological disasters, you’re in good company. Large majorities of people across the world, especially young people, worry about climate change. But what can we do when climate anxiety weighs us down under a blanket of despair? This question has been addressed by quite a bit of psychological research. Anxiety and worry are not the same. Worry is specific and temporary, tends to be grounded in reality, and doesn’t impair functioning. Anxiety, on the other hand, tends to be generalized and chronic, and often leads to catastrophic thinking. Whereas anxiety depletes us and often results in rumination and inaction, worry can motivate us to act—which reduces anxiety and could make a difference for our planet. Researchers at Yale have shown that the best thing you can do to address climate change and reduce your anxiety is to engage in collective action. Individual behaviors
like recycling, composting, and thrifting are important but have not been shown to reduce climate anxiety. By contrast, collective action—like environmental advocacy and cultivating green space—offers multiple benefits, including satisfying our human need for connection. Social support is one of the strongest predictors of mental well-being, and working with others who share similar goals and values makes us more hopeful about the future. In New York City, we are surrounded by groups like GrowNYC, the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance, and the Natural Resources Defense Council. Nearly every environmental issue already has a local group devoted to it, and most of these groups welcome new volunteers. Also, monitor your media diet. The news is designed to keep us scrolling, watching, and reading. It certainly is not designed with our mental health and well-being in mind. Yet we can take control of what we see by adjusting our notifications, being mindful of whom we
follow on social media, and seeking out good news. (Check out dailyclimate.org, which devotes a newsletter to hopeful stories.) Climate change is one of the most serious problems our species has ever faced, and confronting it takes an emotional toll. But we are a resilient species, and we can learn to cope with these emotions in the service of our own mental health and the health of this beautiful planet. Daniel Benkendorf is a professor and assistant chair of Social Sciences. His areas of study include the psychology of sustainability.
A Biotech Pioneer The National Geographic Society honored Theanne Schiros, associate professor of Science, with a 2023 Wayfinder Award for her work in developing clean energy technology and regenerative performance textiles. Wayfinder Award recipients, according to the society, are “the next generation of influential leaders, communicators, and innovators whose critical work inspires us to learn about, care for, and protect the wonder of our world.” hue.fitnyc.edu HUE
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27&7 ONE QUESTION FOR AN FIT COMMUNITY MEMBER
The FIT community might be surprised to learn there’s a campus food pantry for students. Can you tell us about it? Corie McCallum, Interim Assistant Vice President for Student Success; Dean of Students We surveyed FIT students before the pandemic, and about 42% of respondents had experienced food insecurity in the previous 30 days. Some students have to decide whether to eat or come to class, to buy that 18-by-24 canvas or get a snack so they don’t get a headache because they’re hungry. We don’t want them to have those kinds of dilemmas. To address that, we opened a food pantry in January 2019, soon after SUNY launched an initiative to fight the problem. There are other food pantries nearby, but there can be a stigma around needing help, and we wanted to eliminate barriers to access. In spring 2023, 462 students used the food pantry. About a quarter of them have a prepaid meal plan and just come in for snacks. We don’t turn them away, but we need to ration what we offer so we have enough for everyone. We’re transitioning from a snack-based to a meal-based model so there’s food students can take home, like boxes of spaghetti. I’m excited about our new freezer. Now we can offer meat-based protein options and more nutritious vegetables. There are also fresh fruits, vegetables, and salad mixes, along with shelf-stable items According to SUNY, about 50% like ramen and of college students nationwide experience some degree of food canned beans. We insecurity, lacking sufficient food or order food through good-quality food. FIT’s food pantry Aramark, but our funding comes from Aramark, which team also shops. runs FIT’s dining facilities; the Office of the Dean of Students; and the FIT We have couponers! Foundation. A SUNY grant paid for You’ll see me with the freezer. To donate food, email a big bag coming dean_of_students@fitnyc.edu. from Trader Joe’s. 30 HUE F A L L 2 0 2 3
I CONTACT
A STUDENT IN FIRST PERSON
Brooke Singer
Direct and Interactive Marketing ’24, Fashion Design ’22
Q: You started a fabric recycling program at FIT. How did you make it happen? A: When I was a Fashion Design student, I realized pretty quickly how expensive fabric was and how much we were wasting. This is something that the fashion industry is not mindful about. I made sustainability the basis of my studies, learned zero-waste patternmaking from [Assistant Professor] Amy Sperber, and ran for the secretary of sustainability position in the Student Government Association. I started the recycling program at FIT with two other SGA senators, Grace Cooper [Fashion Design ’24] and Rebecca Dillenberger [Textile Development and Marketing ’23]. Recycling is weirdly difficult—there are all these little nuances, depending on the kind of fabric. Recycling stretch fabrics and anything with synthetics is not impossible, but a lot of companies don’t want to take the extra step. And a lot are only taking fabric on a sometimes basis; we needed a constant place for all our fabric to go. Through networking, I was introduced to the CEO of Scrap NYC. He 100 percent saw our vision and the bigger picture. Scrap NYC will do weekly pickups, and they can recycle all fabrics, 98% of what we give them. We are piloting the program in 10 classrooms with just muslin, since that is the easiest to recycle. Scrap NYC works with Renewcell, a company that reworks cellulose fiber into new products like towels. They’ve
For her capstone Fashion Design project, Singer hand-shredded waste fabric to fill this clear puffer vest.
partnered with Marriott, Target, and Patagonia, and some of their fabric becomes McDonald’s employee uniforms. We’re also taking 10% of what we collect and composting it in FIT’s natural dye garden. Our goal is to have complete fabric recycling in every single classroom by 2024.
Corie McCallum: Smiljana Peros; Brooke Singer: Ryan Singer
HUE Q
ALUMNI NOTABLES the tale relatable despite its potentially scary subject.” Vargas recently signed with the CAT Agency, a boutique agency for children’s book artists—a longtime dream. “Now that I have a book under my belt, they took me more seriously.” —Jonathan Vatner
Beyond the Text Ashley Vargas,
Illustration ’21, drew a children’s book about Hurricane Irma in Puerto Rico
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t FIT, Ashley Vargas studied children’s book illustration in hopes of breaking into that incredibly competitive field. After graduation, she responded to countless open calls without success. But a tweet seeking a Puerto Rican illustrator turned out to be her ticket in. Vargas illustrated Our Roof Is Blue (Charlesbridge, 2023), the story of a family in Puerto Rico whose roof is torn off by Hurricane Irma in 2017. Lacking the resources to repair the roof, they cover their house with a blue tarp. When the youngest child responds to his fear and confusion by becoming nonverbal, his sister helps him through his trauma. She uses her
Needle Work imagination to turn the tarp into an ocean full of aquatic life and a parachute for an aerial journey. The book, for children ages 4–7, includes actions that kids can take to help fight climate change, like recycling and starting a school awareness group. As inspiration for the drawings, Vargas turned to old family photos and snapshots of friends’ houses in Puerto Rico. Early sketches were too literal, and the book’s designer advised her to “go beyond the text.” “She said, ‘You can put them in a dark blue forest. They’re kids. It’s nighttime. They can be dreaming anything they want,’” Vargas recalls. “That unlocked something for me.” The book, also published in Spanish, has garnered lots of praise. Kirkus Reviews wrote that “Vargas’ art has a scribbly, childlike feeling that makes
Bongjin Jeon ’22 creates playful, intricate tattoos
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outh Korean tattoo artists are renowned for creating tattoos using a vibrant, traditional color palette called Obangsaek, but Bongjin Jeon, International Trade and Marketing ’22, Menswear ’18, prefers the elegant simplicity of blackwork. With wit and whimsy, Jeon juxtaposes natural and manufactured elements, like a butterfly with a switchblade torso or a soccer ball transformed into a heart, aorta and all. Jeon’s images unite the everyday with the odd, like an angel playing violin while reclining on a musical score. “I find it funny and interesting when two different things are mixed up,” he says. In his take on the classic American Gothic—a frog, not a farmer, holds the pitchfork. After studying for a fashion career that didn’t fulfill him, Jeon turned to tattooing. The two careers have some things in common, he points out. Stitching garments for his Menswear degree made his hands deft enough for tattoo
A B OVE: Jeon’s tattoo of a $101 bill,
the ultimate flex.
work, and doing countless CAD sketches and technical fashion flats honed his drawing technique. And Jeon’s studies in International Trade and Marketing prepared him for entrepreneurship by teaching him how to create proposals, identify clients, and target them through the right channels. Both tattoo and clothing design “deal with threedimensional and sometimes pretty curvy things happening on our skin,” Jeon says. “I feel more comfortable expressing Continued on next page
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wave of recognition, including congratulations from Oprah Winfrey, has backers lining up to help Davis grow her business. “Initially I was thinking I would recreate the look for others, but we’ve gotten some interest from a couple of museums,” Davis says. So, the dress must remain one of a kind. “Right after the election, I got a call from the first lady’s team,” Davis says. “She wanted to come in for a consultation.” The duo came up with an abstract concept (color, comfort, and originality) chose one of the first lady’s favorite colors (offwhite) and determined the design had to be comfortable, not too heavy and not too light. Davis is known for her expert draping—her ability to fit a woman’s body with elegance and grace. Moore often tells
This Look Made History Jody Davis ’92 dressed the first lady of Maryland
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t the 2023 inauguration of Maryland Governor Wes Moore, first lady Dawn Moore rocked a remarkable outfit by designer Jody Davis, Accessories Design ’92, Fashion Design ’91. The white cashmere cape and dress was the latest manifestation of a decade-long designer–client relationship between the two women. The 32 HUE F A L L 2 0 2 3
Moore turned heads at the historic inauguration in Davis’ gorgeous white ensemble.
Flipping the Script Evette Vargas ’90 is helping Hollywood become more inclusive
Davis wears a dress of her own design.
Davis that she gets many compliments when she wears “a Jody dress,” and that she “loves the way it fits and feels.” The fittings were done using a sample fabric, and Moore ultimately requested very few alterations for the final ensemble. Davis would have preferred to source fabric from Paris or Italy, but had only five weeks to work, so there wasn’t time. On one of her weekly trips to New York City, she found what she was looking for: lightweight cashmere. She personally brought the completed look to Moore’s house in Baltimore. “When I took it out of the bag, her eyes lit up,” Davis says. “It fit almost perfectly.” On the day of the historic ceremony—Wes Moore is the state’s first Black governor and only the third in the country’s history—it wasn’t until Davis watched the 11 p.m. news coverage that she finally felt the awe of the moment and the magic of the dress she had created. “As I turned the television on, the governor and the first lady were walking down the steps. That’s when it hit me: She looks beautiful. She looks amazing.” —Diana McClure
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n June 2019, screenwriter, director, and producer Evette Vargas, Fashion Design ’90, announced she would be teaching two labs for writers who wanted to break into the film industry. These workshops sold out in a few hours. “I was shocked,” she says. After over a decade in Hollywood, with production credits for Amazon, MTV, and Bravo, the Puerto Rican Bronx native was more established than she realized. “Three weeks into the labs, I started to hear from the industry— producers, development executives, and agents— wanting me to refer alumni.” After Vargas learned that startlingly few people of color worked in her field, advocacy for diversity both in front of and behind the camera became her raison d’être. “I became very active, speaking on panels, giving lectures, and mentoring writers,” she says. “My intention was, and still is, to put writers of color in front of script buyers, employers, and creators.” When friends and colleagues encouraged her to create those two spring 2019 labs—“Pitching the Television Series” and “Writing the Television Pilot”— Vargas opened them to everyone but focused recruitment on underrepresented groups,
Jody Davis: Media Mogul Photography; Maryland Inauguration: Joe Andrucyk and Patrick Siebert, courtesy of the first lady of Maryland
myself via tattoo than clothing. That’s why I admire fashion designers—they do what I’m not too good at!” He creates tattoos that speak to the individual’s personality and interests. Some images are downright chilling, like his beautiful mermaid whose webbed hands end in monstrous claws. A favorite is a bankroll featuring a $101 dollar bill. “Everyone tries to flex with a hundred-dollar bill, right? But I wanted to flex even bigger. So, $101.” For the past year, Jeon has worked at Tenderfoot Studio in Bushwick. He loves Brooklyn’s vibe and plans to stay in New York City; he dreams of owning his own tattoo shop where he can match clients with their perfect tattoo. “It’s important, the tattoo that you choose to put on your body forever,” Jeon says. “It truly is part of your fashion.” —Winnie McCroy
2023 group photo: Ellen Davidson
including women, BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ students, persons with disabilities, and veterans. For entertainment executives, the value of Vargas’ work, now crystallized into a full-fledged passion project, fills a void in the industry. “As someone who’s been in that particular fight— diversity, equity, and inclusion—I realized how important what I was doing really was and that, somehow, I had to find a way to keep it going. And that was the birth of The Writers Room 5050,” she says. The “5050” represents the equity and equality she strives for.
Four years in, her program offers 12 classes in writing, directing, producing, and the TV and film business, and has five educators on staff. Program alumni are working in a variety
of areas: on TV series including Station Eleven, Never Have I Ever, and The Investigators, and for companies like Blue Monday Productions and the Gotham Group, which produced The Maze Runner series and many others. Other alumni have sold work to channels like AMC, and development executives and producers regularly tap alumni for projects, or as writers-forhire for film and television. Vargas believes the students are successful because of the hands-on experience they gain in the labs. “We workshop everything in a writers’ room format. It’s very interactive, and everyone’s held to a professional standard,” she says. At the end of “Writing the Television Pilot,” 20 pages of each student’s script get a tableread with professional actors. In the last session of “Pitching the Television Series,” writers pitch an idea to a development executive or producer who might take on the project. Vargas recalls how the experience helped transform a quiet, shy recent college graduate. “When we got to the table-read, her script, rooted in magical realism and based on her life, blew everyone away. She implemented everything she had learned. Everyone was floored and overjoyed. For her, with the confidence she developed, it was like two different people from start to finish.” Vargas adds, “We’ve been able to really change people’s lives. I believe that we’re creating a ripple effect in the entertainment industry.” —Diana McClure
Fearsome Foursome After three decades apart, they rekindled their FIT friendship
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t FIT, they were inseparable: Jennifer Witting Farrell, Kim Makowski, Eve Salyer Miceli, and Gia Paccione, all Marketing: Fashion and Related Industries students, class of ’91. They matched up their course schedules and, when they could, grabbed a bite together at the cafeteria, the diner on the corner, or Levy’s on Seventh Avenue. To make plans, they taped notes inside their shared locker, which always housed a jumbo canister of hairspray. They flaunted their sky-high perms at discos like Chicago’s in Lodi, N.J.; Hedges in Staten Island; and Pastels in Brooklyn—and got plenty of attention. “We used our hair to our advantage,” Paccione jokes. They lived off campus and worked, sometimes multiple jobs, to make ends meet. Miceli was so hard up, she stole toilet paper from campus bathrooms. “We all had something in common: We were poor,” she says. “We had to fight hard for our education.” After graduation, Paccione and Makowski remained close, but Farrell and Miceli drifted away. Paccione now oversees interns at a financial firm; Makowski is a kindergarten teacher in Englewood, N.J.; Farrell is the
T OP: Paccione, Makowski, Farrell, and
Miceli today.
A B OVE: Paccione, Farrell, Miceli, and
Makowski at FIT.
office manager at a chiropractor; and Miceli freelances as a merchandise coordinator. An offhand comment and a lucky game of telephone led to the four friends reuniting in early 2023. Paccione’s former CFO had recently mentioned that he golfed with actor Jason Bateman. She knew Bateman had starred with Farrell’s brother, Steven Witting, in the ’80s sitcom The Hogan Family. So she asked the CFO to ask Bateman to ask Witting for Farrell’s number. When Paccione phoned, Farrell remembered her instantly—and then reached out to Miceli’s husband on Facebook. The four friends met for lunch in February in Poughkeepsie and immediately started catching up, with no break in conversation. After 32 years apart, nothing had changed except their hair. “Jen was waiting for us in the parking lot,” Paccione recalls. “It was like we saw her the day before.” “People are who they are,” Miceli says. “The second we got together, we were back.” —Jonathan Vatner hue.fitnyc.edu HUE
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WHATINSPIRESYOU? Fantasy Fabric Madeline Faccenda Gardner, Fashion Design ’79 store, and one’s on the other. I like including everyone. As a designer, that’s fun because it’s the full spectrum. Recently we decided to start a couture line because it was time for something new and fresh. We start with the highest quality fabrications— hand-painted Italian silks, laces from France. The silhouette is
Walter Chin
I’ve designed wedding dresses for Morilee since 1985. When I started, I designed 18 dresses a year. Today, Morilee produces tens of thousands. We sell globally in 75 countries. In the ’80s, pretty much everyone wanted a satin gown with long sleeves and maybe a V-neck. Now brides are so diverse! Some want a classic Audrey Hepburn look, and some a gigantic ball gown with lots of sparkle. We have plus-size wedding dresses, gowns for same-sex weddings—sometimes, one bride is on one side of the
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The Magazine of the Fashion Institute of Technology
more extravagant. One gown is all beaded tulle, with huge organza flowers on the hem. A wedding is a bride’s redcarpet moment. It means so much to them; it really does. I feel like I still go back to why I started: I love lace and beading. When I was at FIT, we did everything by hand. Oscar de la Renta was my critic, and I hand-sewed and hand-blocked everything. He was such a mentor, so giving. He chose two of my outfits for the final show. Today, when I get a box of laces from a supplier, I
just feel so happy. Each one is like a blank canvas. I’ll think, “What am I going to do with this?” I’ll lay it across my desk. I’ll start thinking, “This belongs in a slim silhouette,” or, “How will it work in a neckline, or with some sparkle under it?” Somehow, this simple piece of lace just comes to life. – As told to Alex Joseph
Gardner has served as head designer for Morilee for 37 years. The brand’s new couture line offers intricate details, luxurious fabrics, and flattering silhouettes for all body types.
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IN THIS ISSUE
The most popular soft drink you’ve never heard of PAGE 6
A zero-waste beauty brand? PAGE 14
Unsung heroes of fashion PAGE 19
Mondrian colors illuminate an office building in Croatia PAGE 20
Got climate change angst? Try this Lace comes to life PAGE 34
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Courtesy of Skira
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