Cecilia Cammisa, Natalia Dare, Mike Fakih, Dustin Liebenow, Lisa Sarma, Craig Tiede
PARSONS ADVISORY BOARD
Ben Barry, Cynthia Lawson Jaramillo, David J. Lewis, Sam Mejias, Rory O’Dea, John Roach, Yvonne Watson
MANAGING EDITOR
Audrey Singer
EDITOR AND LEAD WRITER
John Haffner Layden
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Hannah R. Brion, Sarah Fensom, Tory Mast, Julia Lynn Rubin, David Sokol
DESIGNER
Grace Hopkins
PRODUCTION COORDINATOR
Sung Baik
COPY EDITOR
Leora Harris
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re:D (Regarding Design)
2024
re:D—an award-winning showcase of work by Parsons students, faculty, and alumni—celebrates more than a century of changemaking creativity and critical thought
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Designing
Beyond Borders
In this issue of re:D, creativity takes our community across boundaries of all kinds: geographical borders, disciplinary limits, and the division between the academy and industry. We join students, faculty, and alums from Parsons’ School of Constructed Environments and School of Fashion as they meet in a new class focused on inventing and sharing new forms of making and inclusive research with the aim of advancing sustainability and social justice. We explore French and Italian architectural marvels visited in the 1940s by students attending Parsons’ Paris satellite school, established in 1921, the first academic center opened in that city by a U.S. university. And we listen in as industry leaders and members of our community discuss the mutual benefits of external partnerships—including a multistage engagement with the fashion brand Tory Burch and others in every school at Parsons—that are unlocking innovation and opening doors to professional success for our students. And as always, you’ll find news and profiles of students, faculty, and graduates who are dissolving boundaries and bringing together people and ideas with the goal of creating a better world.
ABOVE: The borders crossed in this issue range from geographical frontiers, as in the sketch shown above, made by a midcentury Parsons student traveling in France and Italy, to disciplinary boundaries, as in the waste awareness app created by MS Strategic Design and Management students Irmak Senyurt and Lucia Jaramillo (see page 20).
NEWS
Recent achievements of our community of student, faculty, and alumni innovators
BEST OF BOTH WORLDS
Tory Burch and Parsons are joining forces to dissolve the walls between classroom and company in a multistage partnership aimed at taking fashion into the future
A MOVEABLE FEAST
Discover Decolonized and Decarbonized Dinner Party, a new course that challenges students to move across disciplines and toward climate equity
FIELD NOTES
Students throughout Parsons are tackling real-world challenges in ways that demonstrate the benefits of collaboration—for students and external partners alike
PROFILES
Meet our changemaking students, faculty, and alumni and discover work that is making the world a better place for all
ABOVE: Arav Terawi’s creativity took him beyond the classroom to Times Square, where his prize-winning animation for the electronics company LG—a screengrab of which is shown above—was displayed publicly. The choker shown above is the product of a collaboration between Cellsense, a company founded by Aradhita Parasrampuria, BFA Fashion Design ’20, MFA Textiles ’22, and jewelry designer Nathalie Pommier. 34 35
WE’RE PARSONS
Learn more about us and what we offer
RE:WIND
In the 1940s, Parsons students visited important European architectural sites and collections, learning about art and design and refining their hand rendering skills by creating sketches in travel diaries, now preserved in The New School Archives
1 A NEW PRESIDENT
This past May, The New School Board of Trustees selected Joel Towers as the next president of The New School. A University Professor of Architecture and Sustainable Design and a former Parsons executive dean, Towers succeeded Interim President Donna E Shalala and assumed duties August 1. Towers’ practice focuses on sustainability, resilience, and the development of policy around and design-based approaches to climate change and the creation of healthy environments. Most recently, he served as co-director of the university’s Tishman Environment and Design Center, an interdisciplinary research center he founded in 2006. As Parsons executive dean from 2009 to 2019, he led initiatives to develop multiple new undergraduate and graduate programs, transformed the firstyear curriculum, and augmented students’ creative resources by establishing Parsons’ Making Center. In 2019, Towers was appointed by Mayor Bill de Blasio to co-chair the New York City Panel on Climate Change (NPCC). The panel was tasked with assessing the state of the science on climate change and providing the mayor and the City Council with recommendations for adaptation and mitigation policy. Towers earned a BS in Architecture from the University of Michigan and an MArch from Columbia University. In 1992, he co-founded SR+T Architects, which completed award-winning projects over nearly two decades and provided a testing ground for the integration of research, scholarship, and creative practice. In 2021, he and architect Martina Kohler established a research-based
practice focusing on systemic transformation of the field of architecture through innovation in construction methodology and material practice.
newschool.edu/red/president
2 FASHION ABLE
With the leadership of School of Fashion (SoF) dean Ben Barry , Parsons launched the Parsons Disabled Fashion Student Program in partnership with disability activist Sinéad Burke , founder of the advocacy organization Tilting the Lens (see page 21). The initiative is designed to diversify the school’s fashion programs—and ultimately the industry— through mentorships, funding, and specialized services for Disabled students. Recently featured on NPR’s Morning Edition , the program has attracted global attention and received support from the Ford Foundation. Applications are open to incoming students in the BFA Fashion Design , AAS Fashion Design , and MFA Fashion Design and Society programs.
newschool.edu/red/disabled
3 AI, ART & DESIGN
School of Design Strategies (SDS) faculty members Jeongki Lim and Mark Randall curated an exhibition that invited members from throughout the New School community— faculty, staff, students, alumni—to submit work created using artificial intelligence. On view in the Sheila C Johnson Design Center (SJDC ), the show was presented in partnership with the LG AI Research team, with whom Parsons has maintained a multiyear
partnership. The imaginative, provocative pieces drew parallels between human brains’ adaptation to new technologies and society’s handling of technological advances. newschool.edu/red/ai
4 PARSONS FESTIVAL
This year’s May festival brought campus to life with end-of-year exhibitions of student work. BFA Illustration and BFA Photography students and MFA Fine Arts students exhibited in the SJDC . The BFA Illustration program also hosted an animation festival with screenings and Q&As with the makers. BFA and MFA Design and Technology students hosted a joint popup show in the SJDC as well. The School of Art and Design History and Theory’s MA Fashion Studies and MA History of Design and Curatorial Studies graduating students presented research at a symposium held in Kellen Auditorium. The MA History of Design and Curatorial Studies program also hosted its 30th annual Voorsanger Symposium on campus. BFA Fashion Design students presented work in SYNERGIES, a livestreamed runway show; MFA Fashion Design and Society students installed pieces at 39 West 13th Street. Students from the BFA Integrated Design , AAS Fashion Design , and AAS Fashion Marketing and Communications programs showed work at the Theresa Lang Center; AAS , BFA , and MPS Communication Design students also held a reception there. BBA Strategic Design and Management students presented senior capstone projects at a symposium at 66 West 12th Street. The MS Strategic Design
and Management program hosted capstone presentations at 66 Fifth Ave and at 2 West 13th Street, where both MFA Textiles and MFA Photography students also displayed their work. The School of Constructed Environments (SCE ) exhibited work in all disciplines at 39 West 13th Street and 25 East 13th Street. Work by BFA Fine Arts students was on view at 25 East 13th Street. At Wollman Hall, MS Data Visualization graduating students delivered keynotes and demonstrated their theses. BFA Design History and Practice students displayed their thesis exhibitions at Someday Gallery in lower Manhattan. MFA Transdisciplinary Design students held a forum at which they shared their theses at the Williamsburg Public Library. newschool.edu/red/festival2024
5 PARSONS BENEFIT
This year’s Parsons Benefit, the 75th annual event celebrating NYC’s fashion innovators, was held at Cipriani Wall Street and raised funds for scholarships. Hosted by actor and entrepreneur Nicole Ari Parker, the gala showcased work by emerging designers and the transformative role fashion, design, and the arts play in society. Each year, the Parsons Table Award recognizes people who have made notable contributions to the design industry and inspired students. Recipients this year included award-winning designer and Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) chair Thom Browne , fashion advocate and documentarian Bethann Hardison , and J.Crew CEO Libby Wadle . They were joined by donors, professors, students, and industry
changemakers such as Donna Karan , Andrew Bolton , and Tory Burch . Benefit co-chairs were Carolina Herrera creative director Wes Gordon; Liz Rodbell , Hudson’s Bay CEO and chair of Parsons’ Board of Governors; and Gena Smith , chief human resources officer of LVMH Inc. North America. newschool.edu/red/benefit
6 CREATIVE SERVICES
The New School’s Center for Veteran Services was recently renamed in recognition of the university’s support for military-associated individuals. Now called the Center for Military-Affiliated Students , the office develops strategies to reach and assist service members, veterans, and military families who can benefit from New School offerings. Under the direction of Betsy Montanez , the center’s specialists—many connected to military branches themselves—consider the community’s unique contributions and needs. The center advances the mission of programs such as the Bachelor’s Program for Adults and Transfer Students (BPATS ), which was created for returning World War II veterans. Montanez says her community brings new perspectives and international experience to campus: “The more diverse businesses, organizations, and teams are, the stronger and more resilient they are. We’re seeing new students thrive and reimagine their futures.”
Recipients of The New School’s scholarships for military-affiliated students include three at Parsons: Kevin Sparkowich , BFA Fine Arts; Alejandro Aguirre , MFA Photography; and Staci Brundage , BFA Fashion Design.
Sparkowich, who began painting while serving in the U.S. Marine Corps, says of his experience at Parsons, “For fine artists, there’s no place like it. My professors, all working artists, encouraged me to stay open, and my practice expanded quite a bit.” newschool.edu/red/military
7 FIT FOR ALL
Leila Kelleher, an assistant professor of fashion design and social justice, and Emily Huggard , an assistant professor of fashion communication, recently established the Size Inclusion in Fashion Lab (SIF Lab), a School of Fashion–based center aimed at promoting body diversity and equity through research, partnerships, and programming. The first of its kind, the lab critiques the use of conventional sizing practices, works to destigmatize plus-size fashion, and develops industry best practices. Research initiatives include Fat/Sew: Making, Identity, and Fatness, a collaborative project exploring the relationship between making and wearing. Last fall, the lab presented at the De-fashioning Education conference in Berlin and in coming months will support Kelleher’s new co-authored book, Plus Size Patternmaking (Bloomsbury). An SIF Lab course, Fat Fashion, challenges students to design innovative plus-sized apparel. Students recently partnered with The New School’s College of Performing Arts to create two gowns for opera singer and body inclusivity advocate Tracy Cox , who wore them in a campus recital.
newschool.edu/red/size-inclusion
8 COMMUNITY ACHIEVEMENTS
Yingfei Zhuo , MFA Industrial Design ’24, won in this year’s Best of the Best category in the Red Dot Design Award competition for EcoShell, her corrosion-resistant oyster shell–based exterior tiles. Mara Hoffman , BFA Fashion Design ’99, recently won the CFDA Environmental Sustainability Award for her ethical practices. CFDA Design Scholar Awards, which carry prizes of up to $50,000, went to BFA Fashion Design ’24 alums Leonard Guarin-Peters , Evren Nelson , and Emily Caslli and MFA Fashion Design and Society student Kishan Singh Tehara . This year's Guggenheim fellows include Arthur Ou , associate director of the MFA Photography program, and Ben Thorp Brown , a part-time assistant professor also in the School of Art, Media, and Technology (AMT). The firm of associate professor of architecture Andrew Bernheimer received Architect’s Newspaper ’s 2024 Best of Practice Award in the Northeast Medium category. MFA Interior Design '24 graduates Cheng Chen and Joyce Lai exhibited work at the NYCxDESIGN student showcase, and Madina Masimova , MFA Interior Design/MFA Lighting Design ’24, and Sanjana Gopalakrishnan , MFA Interior Design ’24, were cited in Metropolis magazine’s 2024 Future100 Schools Showcase list. Cherisha Surana , MPS Fashion Management ’24, was chosen to represent The New School in the Women@Dior and UNESCO Mentorship and Education Program. Yasmine Anlan Huang , MFA Photography ’20, was included in the 2024 Whitney Biennial. Carolina Trinker, MFA Textiles ’23, took the Fashion Communication prize in the 2024 Gucci Global Design Graduate Show. BFA Integrated
Design alum Noemi Florea ’ 23 , founder of the tech start-up LÆRO, was selected to join UNICEF’s Innovation30 initiative, which sponsored presentations of her low-cost compact water treatment system, Cycleau, at events worldwide. First-year students Alesya Zaytseva , BFA Communication Design, and Tamara Benarroch , BFA Photography, won AIGA Worldstudio Scholarships, awarded to students who demonstrate a commitment to promoting social change, environmental responsibility, and cultural awareness. The 2023 Women in Architecture Award, presented by Architectural Record magazine, was given to Distinguished Visiting Professor of Architecture Dr Sharon Egretta Sutton . Two recent fashion graduates, Mel Corchado, MFA Fashion Design and Society ’23, and Ahmrii Johnson , BFA Fashion Design ’23, were included on Teen Vogue ’s list of six “exceptionally talented creatives.” Healthy Materials Lab cofounders Alison Mears , associate professor of architecture, and Jonsara Ruth , associate professor of interior design, were both included on the Design Observer Twenty list of remarkable people, projects, and big ideas addressing urgent social needs. AMT part-time lecturer Golnar Adili earned a NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship in Printmaking/Drawing/ Book Arts. Isaiah Winters , MFA Photography ’22, an assistant professor of photography at Parsons, was among the 20 artists who received grants from Aperture and Google. This year’s Core77 Design awards included Tower of Faces by AMT part-time assistant professor Aya Karpinska and projects by MFA Industrial Design '23 graduates Mara Zimmerman (SEAD) and Blanca Codina Bernat (BigSteps). MS Strategic Design and
Management graduate Adrian Schmidt ’24 founded Ant-Mobility, a company receiving investment from Mercedes-Benz to launch a line of small electric ambulances for use in India. Parsons Paris graduate Logan Goff, BFA Fashion Design ’23, is one of ten finalists competing for the main award, the Première Vision Grand Prize; the 19M Chanel Métiers d’Art prize; the Mercedes-Benz Sustainability Prize; and the Atelier des Matières Prize, to be presented at the 39th Festival D'Hyères. Kylie Rose Carroll , MFA Fashion Design and the Arts ’23, won the Absolute Prize for Creativity from the International Lab of Mittelmoda. BFA Illustration professor Nora Krug received the Gerty-Spies-Prize for literature and political education for her book Diaries of War: Two Visual Accounts from Ukraine and Russia Atlason, the studio founded by Hlynur Atlason , BFA Product Design ’01, recently won a Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum National Design Award for Product Design. Thomas Szolwinski , MA Design History and Curatorial Studies ’21, was appointed curator of architecture and design at the Museum of Wisconsin Art (MOWA). AMT assistant professor of fine arts Jonah Groeneboer was awarded a grant from Creative Capital for his multichannel sound installation The Sound We Make Together. BFA Product Design program director Barent Roth and School of Constructed Environments (SCE ) faculty member Tucker Viemeister, along with alums Marc Thorpe , MArch ’04; Elise McMahon , MFA Industrial Design ’20; and Hjalti Karlsson , BFA Communication Design ’92, created objects for the NYCxDESIGNxSOUVENIR exhibition. SCE associate dean and professor Daniel Michalik showed cork furniture in the Crossroads
exhibition presented by Rockwell Group at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair and glassblowing tools in Paraphernalia at the gallery of Eliza Axelson-Chidsey , BA Liberal Arts/BFA Product Design ’06. In Interior Design magazine’s NYCxDESIGN competition, Ko Asuka , MFA Industrial Design ’24, won an award in the Student category for a lamp made in Barent Roth’s class; MFA Industrial Design student Madhmitha Palanivel Rajan won in the same category for her bentwood side table, made in Mark Bechtel ’s course. MFA Textiles ’24 graduating students recently used ECONYL® nylon and craft techniques to create innovative recyclable lighting designs, which were presented at Chicago’s NeoCon trade fair by Julieta Gaitan Rubio, Shao-chi Lin , and Mehak Surana , along with program director Preeti Gopinath
9 ALUMNI SCHOOLERS
The Joseph and Gail Gromek Institute for Fashion Business , led by Abrima Erwiah , has invited two BFA Fashion Design alums— Lazaro Hernandez ’ 02 and Jack McCollough ’ 02 , founders of the fashion brand Proenza Schouler—to campus to share business insights through a new fellowship. The 16 students in the Proenza Schouler cohort represent programs across Parsons and will receive mentoring on topics ranging from design and sales to merchandising and human resources to résumés and job interviews. The Gromek Institute draws on Parsons’ offerings to advance the interdisciplinary study of fashion business and design with the aim of convening, educating, training, and supporting a more diverse fashion business community. newschool.edu/red/gromek-fellows
10 INCORPORATED INK
Each year, our students, alumni, and faculty share creative research in digital and print outlets. Recent publications include Fashion Education: The Systemic Revolution (Intellect Ltd.), a blueprint for justice-driven, inclusive fashion pedagogy co-edited by SoF dean Ben Barry Marie Geneviève Cyr, director of the BFA Fashion Design program and associate professor of fashion design, published FASHION+ (Academic & Scientific Publishers), an analysis of the significance of inclusive fashion. Contributors include faculty members Lucia Cuba , Otto Von Busch , Jennifer Whitty , and Ben Barry . Emeritus professor Steven Guarnaccia ’s pasta cookbook—The Story of Pasta and How to Cook It! (Phaidon)—received a glowing review in the Washington Post Rory O’Dea , dean of Parsons’ School of Art and Design History and Theory (ADHT), published Robert Smithson, Land Art , and Speculative Realities (Routledge), which frames the artist’s work as proposing alternate realities. ADHT assistant professor Petya Andreeva published Fantastic Fauna from China to Crimea (Edinburgh University Press), which explores the zoomorphic imagination and image making of Eurasian nomads. Parsons DEED Lab–affiliated researcher Carmen Malvar released Collaborative Social Design with Mexican Indigenous Communities: Critical Craft and Transformative Practices (Taylor & Francis), a work examining colonization and Indigenous experience. In Design Theory, Language and Architectural Space in Lewis Carroll (Routledge), ADHT assistant professor Caroline Dionne dissects Carroll’s texts as a means of highlighting the role of language in place making. Parsons Healthy Materials
Lab’s new book, Material Health: Design Frontiers (Lund Humphries), promotes the integration of recent findings and Indigenous knowledge to address the climate crisis and foster public health; it was one of ten books recommended by Metropolis magazine. Peter de Sève , BFA Illustration ’80, published Local Fauna : The Art of Peter de Sève (Cernunnos), a survey of four decades of award-winning illustration and animation work, from New Yorker covers to Ice Age movies. For Dark Data—a course taught by associate professor of media design David Carroll —MFA Design and Technology students Juwon Lee , AnneIsabelle (Leo) de Bokay , and MJ GomezSaavedra , along with MPS Communication Design student Dayna Brislane and MFA Transdisciplinary Design student Max Emrich , produced the digital zine Dark Data 2023 Contributors explored the intersection of design and democracy and included MFA Design and Technology students Juliana Serna Mesa , Sidsel Ostbjerg , Marshall Wang Meixuan , Haoxin Tao, Joseph Wang , and Guanhao Zhu , along with Rishi Shankar, MS Strategic Design and Management; Shravani Bagawde , BFA Communication Design; Gracia Goh , MS Design and Urban Ecologies; Rebecca Hart , MPS Communication Design; and Johann Yamin , MA Media Studies. Celebrated art director Ezra Petronio, BFA Communication Design ’99, released a monograph titled Ezra Petronio: Visual Thinking & Image Making (Phaidon).
Best of Both
Taking Fashion into New Terrain with Tory Burch
Together Tory Burch and Parsons are dissolving the walls between classroom and company in a multistage partnership aimed at taking fashion into the future
By Sarah Fensom
In mid-March, about halfway through the spring 2024 semester, third-year BFA Fashion Design student Silin Gu presented her design for a luxury accessory to the New York–based fashion designer Tory Burch and her team. Gu had created a wearable wine bottle carrier emblazoned with Burch’s iconic double-T logo. The carrier featured an adjustable braided orange strap, a cylindrical body reinforced with waterproof rubber, heavy silver hardware, and an ovoid cutout designed to show off the wine bottle’s label. But the accessory’s most surprising feature may have been what it was made from: a pastseason Tory Burch rain boot, some surplus trimmings,
and the box and dustbag the shoe came in.
Gu created the bottle holder for a partnership between the BFA Fashion Design program and Burch, which took the form of a sweeping Project Runway–like design competition. All 268 students in the program’s junior class participated in the challenge at the beginning of the spring semester. Each received a mystery package of production samples, material, and trimmings or packaging donated by Burch’s label, along with the challenge of upcycling them. Students had three weeks to conceptualize and construct a piece and to sketch or digitally render an accompanying capsule collection of eight looks. Their creations had to embody the design language of the Tory Burch brand—a timeless, relaxed East Coast glamour. After the projects were completed, the Parsons faculty leads chose eight finalists to present their designs to Burch. The finalists were competing for three paid summer internships at Burch’s New York headquarters—a highly covetable prize for an ambitious young designer.
On this and the facing pages are images
The BFA Fashion Design program developed the upcycling project and asked Tory Burch to join as a partner, lending materials, a strong brand vision, and a creative eye. “We tasked students with creating new
garments out of discards from our studio—prototypes, deadstock fabric, even shoelaces. They only had a few weeks, so we knew the project would be a lot, but the students were more than up for the challenge,” says Somphone Sikhounmuong, the design director at Tory Burch. For the Parsons leadership, the strict parameters of the project were a means of sparking innovation and providing students with practical, real-world experience. “It was a quick project,” says professor Mariana Vidal-Escabi, who serves as the BFA program’s associate director of Partnerships and Culture and developed the Tory Burch collaboration. “The materials provided limits, and time was a limitation as well, but when you have constraints, you are more creative—and that’s what we wanted for the students.”
from Silin Gu’s presentation to Tory Burch, showing her source object (a boot) and the wine tote she created from it.
th Worlds
The project’s many variables introduced students to new making methods. Many of the participants, like Gu, found themselves constructing garments, accessories, or textiles in unfamiliar formats and materials.
“I had never worked with rubber before,” says Gu, whose materials package included a rain boot. “At first
RIGHT: For Silin Gu and other students competing for internships, presenting to the Burch team their concepts, creative processes, and approaches to blending their creative vision with Burch’s brand voice was an invaluable learning experience.
I was blindsided—I had to think for a week to figure out what to do.” Gu engaged in intensive research in the vast image holdings of the New School Library and the New York Public Library; consulted videos, runway photographs, and press archives provided by Burch; and even Googled “how to remake rain boots” in the process of developing a strong on-brand idea and construction technique.
“ We knew the project would be a lot, but the students were more than up for the challenge.”
—Somphone
Sikhounmuong, design director at Tory Burch
The concept Gu settled on resulted from a discussion with her boyfriend about wine bottle holders they had seen couples bringing to BYOB restaurants. “I realized that the boot was the perfect size to hold a bottle and then started looking at how I could work with its shape, material, and texture to create an accessory, even though I was more used to making garments,” she says. It was also important that her final product fit in with her own work and the items displayed in Tory Burch’s showrooms. “Ultimately, my direction involved merging my style with the brand style, because that was the main goal in this project,” says Gu. “In a way, it’s what every designer for a brand has to do.”
Gu was one of the eight finalists who presented their upcycled creations and capsule collection concepts to the Burch team, which includes a number of Parsons alumni. At the conclusion of the presentations, Burch pulled her team aside for a brief consultation as students awaited the announcement of the three internship winners. To the surprise of the Parsons teams—students and faculty alike—Burch announced that her team were so impressed by the finalists’ concepts and designs that they decided to award internships to all eight.
“Tory brought a lot of her team from different departments, so they all got excited and started discussing how one student could be in the handbag
Tory
who
department or another in the womenswear department, and so on,” says Vidal-Escabi. She notes that the range of products showcased in the students’ work for Burch reflected the different areas of focus in the BFA Fashion Design program.
“ The students’ ingenuity was on another level; the solutions and work-arounds they came up with kept surprising us.”
—Somphone Sikhounmuong, design director at Tory Burch
Vidal-Escabi explains that the students choose a pathway, a sequence of courses focused on a facet of fashion design. Those in the Collections pathway concentrate on lines of apparel. Students in the Fashion Products pathway focus on accessories. The Materiality pathway challenges students to explore the materials and techniques driving innovation. And the Systems & Society pathway familiarizes students with sustainability, circularity, and social impact in relation to the fashion system. Students working on the upcycling project received materials relevant to their pathway, from which they created a range of items aligned with Burch’s multifaceted product line and goals. Seeing innovation emerge from the brand’s discards energized
Students used recent Burch promotional materials to research the company’s brand voice and develop concepts that took Burch collections in new directions. Olive Eng-Canty documented her process in this image from her presentation deck.
Burch (in gray) is surrounded by students
participated in the upcycling challenge and were shortlisted for internships. At far left and far right are faculty leads Marie Geneviève Cyr and Mariana Vidal-Escabi.
Burch’s team. “It was inspiring for us to see our familiar materials and garments in a new light. And the students’ ingenuity was on another level; the solutions and work-arounds they came up with kept surprising us,” Sikhounmuong says. “One student wove shoelaces into a full look; a shopping bag became jewelry; a cocktail dress became tennis gear.” The students’ “out-of-the-box thinking” generated considerable excitement about what they might create over the summer as company interns.
Burch founded her eponymous label in 2004. Now a global brand with more than 370 stores worldwide, the label offers collections including ready-to-wear, handbags, footwear, accessories, jewelry, housewares,
and beauty products. But much like Parsons, the company has roots in New York City, maintaining a presence at New York Fashion Week, a flagship store in Nolita, and a design studio and headquarters on Fifth Avenue. When the firm was launched, Burch served as both designer and CEO, but in 2019 she stepped down as the business lead. Her husband, Pierre-Yves Roussel, a former LVMH executive, took over as CEO, freeing Burch to focus on her role as
“ Students placed in the Tory Burch atelier participated in ongoing in-house creative projects as well, learning how the business operates.”
Preeti
Gopinath,
director of the MFA Textiles program
Tory Burch and Marie Geneviève Cyr, director of the BFA Fashion Design program. Burch’s association with Parsons’ School of Fashion led to a collaboration with students, which familiarized them with her brand and allowed her to observe their work with materials and technique.
This decision proved pivotal. “Tory told our students that the easiest thing she ever did was give away the title of CEO—she really wanted to give her energy to the design part of the business,” says Marie Geneviève Cyr, director of the BFA Fashion Design program and a major force behind the partnership with Burch. In recent years, the fashion press has praised the brand’s creative direction, dubbing this era “the Toryssance.” “The moment she became creative director, everything about the design got elevated, and I think that’s why for her, creativity is a priority.”
It’s no coincidence, then, that Burch decided to invest in creativity and establish a long-term partnership with Parsons. The idea, which emerged in fall 2021, Sikhounmuong says, was to develop a range of programs in conjunction with the institution, including courses, mentorship opportunities, and projects like the design competition. “We wanted the
In fall 2022, the BFA Fashion Design program asked Tory Burch to partner on a course that drew inspiration from the designer’s Spring/ creative director.
For her MFA Textiles studies, Aradhita Parasrampuria continued her experiments with biomaterials-based beads in an Atelier internship at Tory Burch, where she created garments like this dress.
partnership to feel organic and natural, knowing it would evolve along the way,” says Sikhounmuong.
In 2020, even before an official relationship was established, Burch’s studio started discussing a joint initiative with Parsons’ MFA Textiles program. Then in early 2021, the studio set up a partnership with MFA Textiles through its innovative externship program, called Ateliers. “The Atelier courses are unique to Parsons; there’s nowhere else in the world where you can do this course,” explains Preeti Gopinath, director of the Textiles program and an associate professor. “Unlike conventional internships, where students may have to fetch coffee and pick up drycleaning or cut fabric swatches for slack racks, our students take their own textile project to a design or art world atelier and develop their work under the guidance of professionals. Students placed in the Tory Burch atelier were mentored by the creative director and designer, and the students participated in ongoing in-house creative projects as well, learning how the business operates.
After enduring pandemic lockdowns and isolation, MFA Textiles student Shradha Kochhar came to work in the Tory Burch studio in summer 2021. The studio, with its hard-to-come-by materials, fabrication tools, and support, was “truly a gift I’m so grateful for,” she says. “I got to think as expansively as I wanted to—the world truly was my oyster.” Kochhar describes the creative inspiration and encouragement she got from the brand’s team; its former creative director, Alistair Carr; Burch herself; and Gopinath as critical to her development. During the internship, Kochhar continued exploring khadi knit, a handspun and handknit textile she produces from Kala cotton, a highly sustainable cotton indigenous to India with a long and rich history. Her work with the brand led to a number of opportunities, including a placement as a knitwear development consultant with John McGrath, a creative director in the label’s footwear department. Aradhita Parasrampuria and Lelia Bacchi Levy followed Kochhar at Tory Burch in fall 2021. Parasrampuria, who has invented methods of making beads and sequins out of algae dyed with bacteria, cellulose, and jellyfish protein (see pages 22–23), continued to develop her biomaterial beadwork and use it to create garments in the atelier.
Summer 2022 collection, an homage to the groundbreaking midcentury American sportswear designer and Parsons graduate Claire McCardell, and The Met Costume Institute’s exhibition In America: An Anthology of Fashion. Vidal-Escabi and Julian Guthrie, the BFA Fashion Technology coordinator and an associate professor at Parsons, developed the research and design course for third-year students, and Burch got on board, donating fabrics, materials, and other resources. “Our first initiative was a course about lesser-known American women designers, in which students researched women like Elizabeth Hawes and Ann Lowe and designed capsule collections inspired by their contributions to fashion,” Sikhounmuong explains. Students visited the brand’s headquarters, where Burch’s team walked them through the development process used to create the McCardell collection. “They showed us all their mood boards, all their material development, all their samples, everything,” says VidalEscabi, an instructor for the course. Burch visited the Parsons classroom as well. “She told her story, and the students asked a lot of detailed questions. It was very intimate, and the students really connected to Tory and the brand,” says Vidal-Escabi.
Like most BFA classes, the class was small, consisting of only 16 students. “Tory wanted to have a bigger engagement,” Cyr says. “And we said, ‘Well, if you want bigger engagement, Tory, let’s go much bigger. Let’s build a project for all 268 of the year-three students in the first three weeks of their spring semester.’” The BFA Fashion program, with VidalEscabi as the partnership lead, developed the idea of the upcycling challenge, and Burch was more than happy to get involved with a project of its scope. In fact, Cyr says that the Burch partnership touched a greater number of students in a program than any other that she knew of from her 14 years at the university. The project kicked off with another campus visit by Burch in January 2024, in which she introduced the contest. Parsons faculty members leading the program’s pathways gave students in the classes their packages of materials and explained the
deliverables for their pathway tracks.
Limiting waste and upcycling were major focuses of the partnership, especially when it came to the spring 2024 design sprint for third-year BFA students, which were titled Transformative Futures: Responsibility, Refresh, Remake, Reboot, Repair.
Forging environmentally sustainable models is the bedrock of all Parsons programs, including those in the School of Fashion, and a central concern of students. For Tory Burch, Sikhounmuong explains, sustainability measures entail creating timeless, long-wearing garments with lowimpact materials and production methods in partnership with suppliers and factories who share the brand’s goal of environmental preservation. Says Sikhounmuong, “Reducing waste has always been a priority; we use what we have, and we carry over fabrics from season to season. When we do have overage, we usually donate it to New York design schools.”
Olive Eng-Canty, a BFA fashion student who won a Tory Burch internship, was already addressing the challenge of reusing garments and samples. “A lot of my work is centered on sustainability, so I had previous upcycling experience,” she says. Eng-Canty turned a silk polka-dot dress into a garment featuring chains of fabric spheres that cascade down the body from a bra top. The garment, which was paired with hot pants, dazzled the judges and reinforced Eng-Canty’s belief in the path she has chosen. “I’ve always focused on sustainability and textiles, but the positive reception of my piece proved that I am doing the right thing with my work,” she says. Eng-Canty’s internship is in the company’s knitwear department. “I’ve been focused on fiber arts for the past year, so I will be taking all I learn into my thesis during my senior year at Parsons,” she says.
RIGHT: Olive Eng-Canty applied her experience in upcycling to the task of deconstructing a silk productionsample dress and fashioning fabriccovered balls from it for her new garment, shown in a sketch. BELOW: Eng-Canty presents her concept and finished dress to Burch and her team.
“I’ve always focused on sustainability and textiles, but how well my piece was received has proved that I am doing the right thing with my work.”
— Olive Eng-Canty, BFA Fashion Design student
Alicia Corradini designed a fitted jacket inspired by Tory Burch’s equestrian interests. The jacket is detailed with ribbon discards from Burch’s company. Shown above are Corradini’s sketches and presentation collages and below is her finished garment.
Alicia Corradini, another BFA student who received an internship, was inspired by Burch’s story and the messaging of the brand. “I focused on the more recent Tory Burch collections—her prints, her colors, and their energy, but then also her equestrian background,” Corradini says. “I found a pattern for vintage riding breeches, and then developed my own new pattern.” She ended
up turning a piece of knitwear and some trimmings into a suit inspired by traditional jockey uniforms, with a capsule
“It was important to maintain the energy that Tory Burch’s company has while bringing in something new with my own design perspective.”
Alicia Corradini, BFA Fashion Design student
collection to match. In her designs, Corradini sought to promote women’s empowerment, a cause she sees as essential to Burch’s brand and her own work. “My conception of female empowerment is about subverting gender stereotypes. So my design philosophy centers on taking something that is typically masculine and making it more feminine.” By adapting a traditionally masculine uniform into a women’s garment, she was able to combine her aesthetic with that of the brand—one of the goals of the project. “It was important to maintain the energy that Tory Burch’s company has while bringing in something new with my own design perspective,” she says.
Working within the parameters of a major fashion brand gave Corradini a new vantage point from which to view her future as a designer. “During this experience, I asked myself how I could adapt to fit into a company’s vision while staying true to myself,” she says. “Learning to find the balance felt instructive as I go into my thesis and then, beyond that, potentially work for a brand.” Cyr agrees that working with a major fashion label was a powerful experience for the students—one that familiarized them with the demands of the mainstream fashion industry. “It was incredible practice for students to present professionally to a design team,” she says.
The work that the students produced was so impressive that Burch asked to see more portfolios at the conclusion of the presentations, says Vidal-Escabi. “Tory said, ‘I’m just so curious. I want to see how other students interpreted the project; we have a lot of internships to fill,’” Vidal-Escabi says. “She was already asking if we could do it again.”
Sarah Fensom is a writer based in Los Angeles.
A new course challenges students to move across disciplines and toward climate equity
By Julia Lynn Rubin
The Decolonized & Decarbonized (D&D) Dinner Party—begun as a Parsons-led multidisciplinary learning workshop aimed at building community, sharing regenerative practices, and promoting a broader range of sources in design—has become a university course that is sending innovative ideas out into the world.
Sometimes what begins as a one-time extracurricular learning experience evolves into something bigger. But rarely does such an event succeed in bringing makers together to both build community and advance pressing goals such as promoting regenerative and restorative practices while expanding the design canon. It is still more unusual for an extracurricular project to become a university course, inviting students to apply their own experience and approaches in experimenting and problem solving. But the Decolonized & Decarbonized (D&D) Dinner Party—which began as a series of workshops and events for Parsons
undergraduate and master’s students—evolved in exactly that way, to become a full-fledged course that was offered this year for the first time.
The endeavor began in 2020 with conversations between program directors Michele Gorman (MFA Interior Design), Yvette Chaparro (MFA Industrial Design), and Preeti Gopinath (MFA Textiles). The group discussed ways to help students address two issues of increasing concern to contemporary designers—decolonization and carbon capture in production—using creative approaches that draw on non-Western, and often more regenerative, traditions. A major goal was to
equip young designers with the tools they need to foster climate justice through their work. The trio also wanted to create a communal, cooperative learning experience for students just
“The success of the dinner party event is in its interdisciplinary approach, with each offering on the table representing a new design framework to address our climate crisis.”
Michele Gorman, director of the MFA Interior Design program
LEFT: MFA Textiles student Rachel Dana lays out the materials used in the sumac-based ink she shared at the Decolonized and Decarbonized Dinner Party course’s Earth Day public event. OPPOSITE: Each dinner party is documented in a book that explains how projects were created.
emerging from pandemic lockdowns. The first iteration involved three weeks of extracurricular workshops that culminated in an Earth Day dinner party at which students informally shared their design research.
Gopinath describes the aim of the original workshops as critical. “Our role is to nurture students’ passion for developing work that is layered with meaning and consequence.”
“The Decolonized & Decarbonized Dinner Party started out as workshops and grew to include a symposium,” explains Chaparro. “In the first two iterations, we developed themes connected to regenerative materials and processes and socially just practice—food
waste and water—that students could use as research prompts.”
The prompts involved exploring ways to simultaneously decarbonize and decolonize the design canon and extended projects from courses such as MFA Interior Design’s Studio 2 (Interior Food Ecologies), MFA Industrial Design’s Studio 2 (Local Production) and 4 (thesis projects), and MFA Textiles’ Major Studio 2 and Anthropology of Textiles. Students brought research conducted for those classes and for their theses to the workshops, sparking ideas for artifacts for a carbon-free dinner party.
“The dinner party allowed us to explore new ways to approach problems caused by the climate crisis that disproportionately affect marginalized bodies and that design has had a hand in creating—and is increasingly helping to address through co-design practices,” says Gorman. “Our Interior Food Ecologies course came directly out of Decolonized & Decarbonized Dinner Party work, and Interior Design students brought their food systems learning to the workshops and back to their own projects.”
“The faculty were inspired to develop a special elective course designed to broadly share the aims and spirit of the original extracurricular workshops,” says Chaparro. “The new class gave us time to develop the intersections between decolonization and decarbonization as a group through additional readings and discussions.”
Chaparro co-taught the first iteration of the course with fellow faculty member Barent Roth , director of the BFA Product Design program. Both sought to maintain in the classroom the openness that was important to past participants. They created a syllabus that allowed students to incorporate their disciplinary and personal research interests, such as natural dyeing, and knowledge drawn from their own backgrounds, including research about Indigenous materials and methods. Grades are now given at the end of the semester instead of on an assignment-by-assignment basis. In Gorman’s words, “Grades shouldn’t drive the work.”
“Students are passionate about creating solutions aimed at the thornier realities of historical colonization and climate change while staying hopeful.”
Barent Roth, director of the BFA Product Design program
"Having hosted last year’s Earth Day Dinner Party workshop at Circular Economy Manufacturing, our waste plastics upcycling microfactory, I’ve seen firsthand that students are passionate about creating solutions aimed at the thornier realities of historical colonization and climate change while staying hopeful,” says Roth.
On the day I visited the class, 18 students in a range of design disciplines were gathered around two tables arranged as if for a banquet.
They were setting up projects to be explored, touched, and even tasted by the public. This was not a traditional course but rather an interactive experience as organic as the materials being used.
“This is the most experimental class I’ve ever taken,” says Veronica Speyer, a third-year BFA Product Design. At first glance, her project appeared to involve an ordinary place setting, complete with a glass of red wine, on a rosered patterned tablecloth. Speyer informed us, though, that her goblet held cow’s blood—the pigment used to dye her hand-painted table linen. Through her subversive project, Dying to Dye, Speyer drew us into a tableau of domestic normalcy only to challenge us to rethink the ethics of meat consumption and our inhumane and unsustainable food system. Speyer reported that a class field trip to the Woodstock Farm Sanctuary helped students better understand the ethical significance of the animal-derived materials they often work with; visits to the National Museum of the American Indian and the Climate Museum provided further context. And the Dinner Party on Governors Island enabled them to present their innovative projects to a wider audience.
Litian Li, a first-year MFA Industrial Design student, agrees with Speyer. “Our class is different because of the experimental element,”
“What drew me to this class was the freedom to explore.”
— Jonah Goodman, MFA Industrial Design student
he says. “Everyone is doing something unique— from making dishes to preparing kombucha to baking cricket crackers.”
The students soon began examining one another’s projects with interest. We tasted biscuits made from crickets—a high-protein, sustainable food source—that first-year MFA Industrial Design student Leonardo Possati created with ingredients from Bologna, his native city, such as seasoned salt, blended with cricket flour, an ingredient eaten daily in countries such as China and Thailand. We touched kitchen tiles that fourth-year MArch students Rebecca Bran and Nick Cuervo-Torello created from oyster shells bound together in a natural matrix and drank first-year MFA Industrial Design student Jonah Goodman’s home-fermented kombucha varieties, tailored to individual gut health needs.
The workshops and course culminated in the publication of a recipe book designed to introduce decarbonization and decolonization to readers in accessible and experiential terms and provide detailed instructions for replicating the students’ projects.
“You can follow other people’s ‘recipes,’ re-create their projects, and share in everyone’s learning,” explains Jimena Bedoya, a first-year MFA Textiles student. Bedoya’s project, BioAmend, was inspired by kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken objects. She created swatches of biomaterials from flowers, wool yarn, and natural dyes and stitched them together to form a vessel. First-year MFA Textiles student Rachel Dana encouraged me to touch and examine the furry fruit of a staghorn sumac plant, explaining that she used it to produce the ink used for writing on the parchment pages displayed beside it. “Anyone with access to New York–native sumacs can make this natural ink without expending much energy,” she says of her affordable, eco-friendly recipe.
“What drew me to this class was the freedom to explore,” says Goodman. “We’re
Jonah Goodman’s project—kombucha shots tailored to individual gut health needs—arose from his interests in and experience with fermentation and natural healthcare.
Veronica Speyer’s dinner party place setting featured linens dyed in cow’s blood to draw attention to the ethics of meat consumption.
Leonardo Possati shares his cricket protein crackers with peers in a D&D Dinner Party class meeting.
ABOVE: At the 2023 D&D Dinner Party, MFA Interior Design student Tatiana Konstantinidi shared work created for her MFA Interior Design Studio 2 Interior Food Ecologies class. Shown here are serving pieces made from brewery waste, agar agar, glycerol, water, and calcium propionate.
turning speculative design into reality. I’ve always wanted a class like this, where art, design, science, the future of food, and social benefits are combined.”
“For the university course, we had to add the rigor of deliverables, grades, evident progress, and participation. This process is an example of how we approach interdisciplinary learning and teaching at Parsons,” says Chaparro. Like the workshops, the new class features lectures by outside experts and creative practitioners. Over the years, these have included Mike Renzy, assistant director of GrowNYC’s Green Space project; Peruvian design scholar Maria Linares Trelles; Christopher Schlottmann, co-author of a book used in the class; and Jessica Thies, MFA Industrial Design ’23, who took part in the 2022 and 2023 workshops and today works as a biomaterials researcher at Parsons’ Healthy Materials Lab.
“The dinner party gave us an opportunity to talk to one another outside of our majors and programs.”
—Sydney Moss, MFA Interior Design alum
To better understand the evolution of this immersion in integrated learning, I contacted past participants to get their insights. I first spoke to Thies, who is now a postgraduate research fellow at Parsons’ Healthy Materials Lab (HML).
"For me, the original workshop series was really powerful,” says Thies. After years of school with masks and being unable to be with people in person and collaborate, it was
BELOW: The public D&D Dinner Party Earth Day event enabled students to share their work with peers from other classes and the public.
also the first time I was in a room eating and sharing—that was really special.”
Sydney Moss, a former MFA Interior Design student, valued the 2023 workshop's crossprogram collaboration. “The dinner party gave us an opportunity to talk to one another outside of our majors and programs,” she says. “We all have different studios, so it was good to just be in the room with students from other departments, to ask them what their classes are like and about their work.” Gorman concurs, adding that “the success of the dinner party event is in its interdisciplinary approach, with each offering on the table representing a new design framework to address our climate crisis.”
Lina Celis Rengifo, MFA Textiles ’23, signed up for the 2022 workshop in part because it offered a space free from hierarchy among students and faculty. Her thesis involved creatively repurposing bags used to transport coffee from Colombia to the United States.
“Not having set expectations about what I was going to get out of the experience was great,” says Celis. “I enjoyed the process of questioning and the option to move between practices.”
2022 workshop. “I wish I had had access to the information from the workshop before I finished my thesis; the experience inspired me to expand upon my design for a communal kitchen.”
“Students have the opportunity to explore materials and projects without the pressure of it being their thesis,” agrees Thies, who was encouraged by Chaparro to take part in the initiative. “We think about the ingredients in food, but not necessarily about the ingredients in the materials we’re creating when building.”
My final D&D 2024 course visit followed a ferry ride to Governors Island for the Earth Day Dinner Party. I found Gorman, Chaparro, and Roth helping students arrange their work on a long table in neat rows that resembled place settings. Students from MFA Interior Design classes contributed their own research on food rituals and biomaterials to the table and examined the creations of their fellow students with interest. Others joined Earth Day visitors at Roth’s Microfactory, where he explained how his solar-powered facility converts city plastic waste into planters, lamps, children's furniture, and traffic cones.
Gorman emphasizes that it was also important to create a place where students could draw on their own cultures, regenerative practices, and rituals around decolonization. “My thesis involved looking at food as a tool for preserving immigrant identity, resisting colonialities of power, and encouraging exchanges within a diverse economy,” says Sam (Jia Wei Samantha) Tong ’22 , an MFA Interior Design alum who participated in the
Like the class itself, the event sparked lively conversations. Passersby stopped to engage with students and discuss their work. Chaparro told me that it was just what the Parsons faculty team had hoped for. “We try to create communal learning experiences that build transformative human connections,” she says.
I thought about what Celis described as the most important outcome of the D&D learning experience: “We built a community that, like a tree branch, starts to expand and grow, adding new disciplines that make the community stronger, both emotionally and academically.”
Julia Lynn Rubin is a graduate of the MFA Creative Writing program at The New School. She is the author of three young adult novels and currently serves as a copywriter for The New School’s Marketing and Communication team.
Students labeled the materials used in their projects to draw attention to their efforts to decolonize and decarbonize design work.
The dinner party event offered attendees a banquet of natural foods to sample—such as honey-sweetened kombucha and crackers flavored with spices—and new ideas to sustain their creative design work.
D&D Dinner Party faculty leads and program directors Barent Roth (BFA Product Design), Michele Gorman (MFA Interior Design), and Yvette Chaparro (MFA Industrial Design) at the 2024 Earth Day public event on Governors Island.
field notes
Students throughout Parsons’ schools and at the Paris campus are tackling real-world challenges facing a range of design fields. Their work is demonstrating the many benefits of collaboration—for Parsons students and external partners alike
By David Sokol
One day this past March, half an hour after the Guggenheim Museum’s usual Thursday closing time, the doors to the Frank Lloyd Wright–designed building were reopened to a crowd not normally associated with the Manhattan gallery circuit. Parsons students led adults and children in a creative workshop on the museum’s third floor. Together they sketched, prototyped, and built miniature kites, to be whisked down the rotunda’s iconic spiraling ramp at the evening’s close.
As the workshop participants made kites, other attendees interacted with anthropomorphic sculptures in an installation titled Picos in the museum’s lobby. Made from kitchen trash bags affixed to oscillating table fans, the figures sported what looked like beaks (picos in Spanish) and swayed in the air. One pair seemed to be nuzzling each other; another did battle with their beaks. A third group tipped their beaks when museumgoers approached and seemed to kneel reverentially before them.
The sculptures called to mind interactions typical of art-world settings, where cozy alliances, competition, and assertions of authority abound.
The Picos installation and the interactive workshops were part of Float, a public event representing the culmination of the Parsons course Kite City taught in fall 2023 by professors Neva Kocic , a product designer, and Marisa Morán Jahn, an artist who is also the director of the BFA Integrated Design program in Parsons’ School of Design Strategies. Chitra Ramalingam, the Guggenheim’s director of Academic Engagement, had initiated Kite City by inviting Jahn to partner with the museum through its Innovation Lab program, designed to create collaborations
Chitra Ramalingam
LEFT: Students in Parsons’ BFA Integrated Design program recently partnered with the Guggenheim Museum on a kite-making workshop for young museumgoers. In a lively procession that BFA program director Marisa Morán Jahn (seen in white) led down the museum’s spiral ramp, youngsters proudly showed off their creations, animating the space in a new way. OPPOSITE: Images of the people and partnered projects discussed in this article.
Since then, Parsons has sought to deepen the relationship between scholarship and career preparation by organizing outside collaborations for students. This effort is evidenced by a 1952 New York Times article applauding E. Camill Solari, an interior design student, for winning a competition sponsored by Baker Furniture. Twenty years later, the Times reported that S. Klein Department Stores had invited Parsons students to conceive a new facade, signage, and lighting for its flagship on Union Square.
Now that in-person partnerships have returned to pre-COVID-19 levels, Parsons faculty are once again creating opportunities for students to work in the field. And they are setting their sights even higher, developing a broad array of ambitiously conceived collaborations with external partners. Tuomas Laitinen has long seen the value of such collaborations. Laitinen, a Finnish-born fashion designer who taught for
“We’re looking to make the museum a platform for student creativity but also to produce feedback for ourselves about our museum’s work.”
— Chitra Ramalingam, director of Academic Engagement, Guggenheim Museum
for New York–based college students. Ramalingam says that this was the first time her department worked with transdisciplinary designers. “The way Parsons’ Integrated Design program gives students cross-disciplinary experience—and Parsons’ emphasis on developing external partnerships and design processes with institutions—made the project an especially good fit.”
Bridging academic study and real-world experience is in Parsons’ DNA. Frank Alvah Parsons, hired by William Merritt Chase in 1904 to teach at the New York School of Art (Parsons School of Design’s precursor), launched curricula aimed at facilitating young people’s professional development in fashion, graphic, and interior design. Previously entry into these industries had taken place largely through informal apprenticeship networks.
a number of years at Aalto University, joined Parsons Paris to prepare the 2021 launch of the Master of Fine Arts in Fashion Design and the Arts program. His focus on external partnerships is the result of years of experience bringing scholarship and industry together in his own career.
“You have to be in industry to understand whether an idea is relevant,” he says.
Laitinen now heads the MFA program at Parsons Paris and serves as the BFA Fashion Design program’s creative director. In the three years since the MFA program’s inception, he has kicked off each fall semester with “collaborations that should be a fashion student’s dream,” as he puts it. Initially Laitinen and MA Fashion Studies program director Marco Pecorari brought first-year students into the world of Versace, where they conducted archival research and incorporated the celebrated fashion
house’s long-standing “design codes” into looks of their own creation. A similar and equally successful partnership with MM6 Maison Margiela followed. “It’s a trial in combining your creativity with the heritage of a house,” says Laitinen of these matchups.
This year, 20 MFA students from Parsons Paris immersed themselves in the legacy of Mugler, the fashion house established by Thierry Mugler and overseen by Casey Cadwallader since 2018. “Students are working on the same challenge that Casey and all house designers face every season, which is, How do you go into this incredible archive and make modern, desirable garments that don’t just repeat the past?” says Laitinen.
The students applied a modern sensibility in reinterpreting Mugler’s sculptural approach to construction. MFA candidate Wendy Kuo used 3D printing to create attachable forms designed to exaggerate the features of the female silhouette. Kuo’s classmate Araz Yaghoub Nakhjavan Tapeh wedded the Mugler codes of anatomical seaming, lingerie, and corsetry to the power dressing of the Reagan-era office. Taking a cue from the way Mugler himself conceived themes for collections, Tapeh drew inspiration from the famous 1980s bodybuilder Lisa Lyon.
She explains, “I wanted to delve into a specific universe and let it inform my design choices.”
“Understanding how to express their ideas in a visual and textual way will be developed further when they work on their thesis collections.” For years, Parsons students have benefited from engagements with fashion luminaries in both Paris and New York. Figures ranging from Christian Dior to alums Norman Norell , Donna Karan , and Jack McCullough and Lázaro Hernández of Proenza Schouler have critiqued student work on Parsons' two campuses. But the Mugler x Parsons Paris project stands out as an example of the kind of intensive, wide-ranging creative collaborations that working designers must now undertake to bring their ideas to the runway—and the global public's awareness. The Mugler project and other ambitious collaborations underway at Parsons are serving as a blueprint for future partnerships with prominent companies and organizations seeking to foster innovation while promoting sustainability and inclusiveness. These exercises will serve students as they work toward their thesis collections and in the industry after graduation.
According to Ramalingam, successful collaborations require openmindedness from both partners. For Kite City, that flexibility was reflected in a project brief that was surprisingly general, allowing the participants to explore ideas freely. “Even though the Guggenheim is an art museum, it’s also a unique building with a potential for a kind of radical public space,” Ramalingam explains. “We’re looking to make the museum a platform for student creativity but also to produce feedback for ourselves about our museum’s work.” In Parsons’ fall 2023 course catalog, Kite City was described simply as an exploration of flight.
“You have to be in industry to understand whether an idea is relevant.”
Tuomas
Laitinen, director of the MFA Fashion Design and the Arts program
The MFA students also worked with professor Chris Vidal Tenomaa to style and photograph classmates’ garments as if they were producing a campaign. “This visual representation is a way for students to demonstrate how their visual and creative worlds look,” Tenomaa says.
The evening in which Float took over the Guggenheim rotunda materialized organically from Kite City’s spirit of unfettered inquiry and engagement. “Walking down the ramp, people have this impulse to throw things off the balconies or to roll or skate down the ramp,” Jahn says of the origins of the course. In developing Kite City, the faculty members were guided by the idea of “embracing this desire and quickly prototyping different things that caught our attention.”
But a fluid project brief does not spell limitless possibilities. “It’s critical that students have design constraints and guidelines and audiences to work with,” Jahn says. After specialists told the class that flying a giant kite inside the museum rotunda wasn’t technically feasible, the group turned their sights to other activities that could be set up with ease. Their exploration of the functional and expressive possibilities of fan technology resulted in Picos, while their interest in sharing with young museumgoers the creative processes they employed in their course led them to develop workshops.
The results were revelatory. Noting that Float “gave people the chance to do things that seem to go against the rules of the museum, like flying a kite,” Ramalingam promises that the evening will guide future programming at the Guggenheim. “Seeing how participants found their own choreographies within that installation was not unexpected, but the intensity of the experience really surprised me.”
“Surprise us” could very well have been the project brief from Brompton, a British inventor and manufacturer of folding bicycles. While the collaboration between the BFA Integrated Design team and the Guggenheim was taking place, School of Constructed Environments (SCE) associate dean Daniel Michalik and MFA Industrial Design program
Parsons Paris MFA Fashion Design and the Arts student Araz Yaghoub Nakhjavan Tapeh interpreted Thierry Mugler’s signature design features—intricate seams, corsets, boning—and exaggerated feminine silhouette in this look created for the Mugler brand partnership.
Wendy Kuo
Araz Yaghoub Nakhjavan Tapeh
founder and professor Rama Chorpash were spearheading the Metro Cycling Studio, a partnership between the company and master’s and undergraduate students at SCE. The Parsons x Brompton partnership challenged students to “explore the intersection of design, urban movement, public space, and cycling culture,” according to the company’s North America president, Juliet Scott-Croxford. MFA student Craig Wei, a project participant,
Students participating in the Mugler partnership created publications designed to communicate their creative vision and document their projects. Shown here is a work featuring 3D molded hip accents by MFA Fashion Design and the Arts student Wendy Kuo.
surface that problem,” says Dizdar. “Brompton wanted to learn more about what makes us question things.” Both Dizdar and Wei recently graduated, not long after their designs won first prize among master’s students in the competition.
The studio’s undergraduate winners, 2024 BFA Product Design graduates Rachel Joo and Kyleigh Mogilewski, also developed several prototypes side by side, with an eye to making the bicycles accessible for Disabled and older people. After working on a raincoat that snaps together
“Brompton was impressed by the level of rigor that Parsons brought to the project.”
Daniel
Michalik, associate dean of the School of Constructed Environments
explains, “We weren’t asked to redesign the bicycle” to better integrate it into city living. “Instead, the brief made us think about how bikers would use Brompton for the next 50 years.”
“Brompton is not a company looking for an exercise,” Chorpash says of the student–manufacturer relationship that unfolded from the loose directive. “Neither Brompton nor the Parsons students have the answers, and although the project involved a student competition, the ensuing search was an authentic, more equal endeavor.”
Wei teamed up with MFA student Melis Dizdar on three concepts. In the weeks leading up to their final presentation, they focused on a bike-mounted storage case that expands and contracts by means of an accordion-pleated textile. “Whether we faced a problem of urban bicycling or identified a problem that someone else is facing, it was our decision to
ABOVE: MFA Industrial Design students Melis Dizdar and Craig Wei created a collapsible carrier that can be attached to a folding bicycle frame. BOTTOM RIGHT: BFA Product Design students Rachel Joo and Kyleigh Mogilewski drew on Parsons’ wide array of making tools to design mobile bike repair stations and an app with which to locate them.
with magnets and developing several carrier devices, they opted to create a portable repair station and app that match cyclists requiring service with a network of Brompton-certified mobile mechanics.
“If I need to solder an electronic piece for my prototype, there’s a workshop at Parsons for that. If I need to get help dyeing textiles, I can go to the Fashion Design department. Parsons uniquely allows multidisciplinary work for partnered problem solving,” Mogilewski says of the project’s development. “Brompton was impressed by the level of rigor that Parsons brought to the project,” Michalik says.
Chorpash attributes the success of the Brompton partnership in part to the company’s heritage of progressive innovation paired with the public’s increasing embrace of design that promotes social and environmental good. “I think it’s less that Parsons has changed in the last decade or two than it is that the level of consciousness in the world has changed,” Chorpash says. He notes that the collaboration with Parsons helped Brompton amplify its social impact while benefiting financially.
“This is a moment not of critique, but of imagining another future.”
Chorpash points out that “the role of the university is not just professional training. It’s to help shape the world we live in. That’s the scholarship our
Melis Dizdar
Rachel Joo
Craig Wei
Kyleigh Mogilewski
ABOVE: A-wa(y)ste is a data-driven interface designed by Irmak Senyurt and Lucia Jaramillo to encourage resource conservation and bio-based solutions.
faculty is working on.” The goal of re-shaping the world—whether by supporting an industry partner with a progressive mindset or introducing a whole industry to new principles and best practices—is central to the new generation of Parsons partnerships.
There is evidence of this ambition in recently minted collaborations, such as the Lens of Impact initiative just established between the Swiss government–supported cultural research consultancy Swissnex and
MS Strategic Design and Management students Irmak Senyurt and Lucia Jaramillo present their project, A-wa(y)ste, at the 2024 Biodesign Challenge conference hosted at Parsons.
chemicals and carbon-intensive materials and to address other challenges through biotechnology. The competition was conceived by the team running the independent Brooklyn biology lab Genspace, one member of which, Alison Irvine , a 2014 graduate of both the BA Interdisciplinary Science and the BA Theater programs at Eugene Lang College, now
“Parsons’ reputation, global networks, and expertise at fostering understanding and reflection make the school an ideal partner.”
Marc Streit, head of Arts and Creative Industries, Swissnex
Parsons’ School of Art and Design History and Theory (ADHT). An ongoing discussion series organized by professor Caroline Dionne and staff in Swissnex’s Boston and New York offices, Lens of Impact examines emerging concerns in the art and design disciplines, such as human–animal relationships and queer identity. A recent public talk brought together ADHT professor Radhika Subramaniam and Swissbased performance artist Daniel Hellman to discuss creative ways to challenge dominant anthropocentric worldviews. According to Marc Streit , Swissnex’s head of Arts and Creative Industries, such endeavors are essential for his organization, as they “give us critical tools for examining the ways local political, social, and cultural landscapes shape design practice. Design is a shared collaboration language and lever for societal progress toward better futures for all. Parsons’ reputation, global networks, and expertise at fostering understanding and reflection make the school an ideal partner in cultural exchanges.”
These recent efforts are modeled on long-standing partnerships. Among these is the Biodesign Challenge (BDC), which Parsons’ School of Art, Media, and Technology (AMT) has co-hosted and competed in since the competition’s inception in 2016. The BDC invites high school and college teams from around the world to create alternatives to toxic
serves as treasurer of the BDC executive board. Irvine shared the idea with her contacts at Lang and Parsons, among them AMT faculty member Jane Pirone.
As Pirone recalls, “Because Alison had an interdisciplinary science background, the original question that we discussed was, What if it weren’t just engineers WQusing and asking questions about biotechnology? How would that change the way these things get developed and deployed in the world?” Parsons’ involvement in the BDC’s development is reflected in the program’s attention to questions of ethics and social justice.
This focus is evident in a project developed by Elana Farrell and Leah Hughes, both BA Interdisciplinary Science '22, which was overseen by Pirone and AMT colleague Harpreet Sareen. Farrell and Hughes brought the public into the project, in which they developed a culture of bacteria and yeast genetically modified to detect environmental toxins. Farrell has gone on to work at the National Institutes of Health, where she has analyzed lung cancer risks. Hughes has completed grant-funded study at Parsons’ Healthy Materials Lab and, through the Cambridge, Massachusetts–based nonprofit Innovators for Purpose, has taught a pilot course on bias in AI and machine learning to Boston-area youth. She currently serves as an educator at the MIT Museum.
“A lot of successful work comes directly out of the BDC,” Sareen says, pointing to TômTex as a notable example. TômTex is a bio-based fabric
ABOVE: Parsons’ School of Art and Design History and Theory offers curricula designed to develop students’ analytical capacities. The Lens of Impact events, created with the cultural organization Swissnex, carries forward this aim through conversations between scholars and practitioners on timely topics including sustainability and identity. LEFT: Faculty members Carolina Obregon, Harpreet Sareen, Jane Pirone, and Katayoun Chamany meet with Senyurt and Jaramillo after the two students presented A-wa(y)ste at this year’s Biodesign Challenge.
developed by MFA Textiles graduate Uyen Tran ’21, who received acclaim for the concept at the 2020 BDC and launched a namesake company the same year, while still in school. Whether competition alumni pursue jobs or develop enterprises focusing on biotechnology, Pirone says, “they have formed professional relationships and a community of practice. And our longtime relationship with the BDC allows us to stay closely connected to this community and engages us in ongoing education and capacity building, so that everybody can continue to thrive.” Professor Katayoun Chamany, a geneticist and cell biologist who leads Eugene Lang College’s Interdisciplinary Science program and works with AMT to support its BDC partnership, has even created curriculum modules that BDC organizers make available to participants.
“When you think of the word biodesign, medicine, engineering, and behavioral science may come to mind, but there is no one definition for it,” Sareen says. “We are helping to crystallize its meaning, with an emphasis on design and criticality.”
A similarly robust community of practice is emerging at the School of Fashion. In December, university leadership announced the founding of the Parsons Disabled Fashion Student Program (PDFSP) in partnership with the accessibility consultancy Tilting the Lens. Over four years, the pilot program will focus on recruitment, instruction, and mentorship of Disabled
students, with the aim of promoting equitable access to careers in fashion. “Typically in fashion education and in industry, design teams have invited Disabled folks into a design process as users, as testers,” says the school dean, Ben Barry . “When that’s the primary vehicle for Disabled folks to engage with design, it devalues our knowledge as designers and reasserts a hierarchy in which non-Disabled folks are the ones who hold design knowledge. Part of this program is recognizing that disability experience is also design experience.”
Shifting from consumption to production is one of incoming
LEFT: Caity Briare will join the fall 2024 cohort of the MFA Fashion Design and Society program as an inaugural participant in the Parsons Disabled Fashion Student Program. RIGHT: Disability advocate and founder of Tilting the Lens Sinéad Burke and dean of Parsons’ School of Fashion Ben Barry in the University Center.
the Lens CEO Sinéad Burke explains that PDFSP students should not feel confined to designing clothing for Disabled people. Nor should they assume responsibility for singlehandedly creating a more equitable fashion industry. “We cannot place the expectation of radical change on three people,” Burke says. The work of PDFSP thus involves several external partners. The program is underpinned by a Ford Foundation–supported study of Disabled fashion students’ experiences at ten schools. The grant has been renewed to fund a partnership with the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) for a study of potential accommodations for Disabled designers and other employees of American fashion companies.
“Given that around 11 percent of working-age Americans have disabilities, our commitment to enhancing visibility and advocating for a more inclusive, accessible industry is crucial,” says CFDA CEO Steven Kolb, speaking of the upcoming research and the forging of professional pathways for young Disabled people. “Together with Parsons and the wider fashion community, we aim to foster a fashion ecosystem that is inclusive and empowering for all abilities and to make a significant move toward a more equitable and dynamic fashion future.”
According to Barry, “The PDFSP is not just a scholarship program, but a cultural change.” “I can only imagine how much more vibrant the fashion
“ The Parsons Disabled Fashion Student Program is not just a scholarship program but a cultural change.”
—Ben Barry, dean of Parsons’ School of Fashion
MFA Fashion Design and Society program student Caity Briare’s goals. “Growing up, it was especially difficult for me to find clothing that fit me, and I felt confined to certain clothing options because I had to think about how it would need significant alteration to fit me. In 2020, the first time I made something that fit my body, I was filled with immense joy and determination,” she recalls. Speaking of being a member of the PDFSP’s inaugural cohort, Briare says, “I have never wanted to be a part of something so deeply.”
industry will become,” says Briare. Burke adds, “This feels different from how we have historically perceived partnerships between schools and companies and institutions. What is really powerful about this work is that we’re able to improve their systems as well.”
The approach of the PDFSP, like that of Parsons’ other programs, points to a future in which partnerships serve as opportunities for professions to transform themselves. Thanks to the leadership of Parsons professors and their students, this vision is bound to become reality.
David Sokol is a New York–based writer specializing in design.
Tilting
Meet our changemaking alumni, students, and faculty and discover work that is making the world more beautiful, just, and sustainable
Alumni Aradhita
ParasrAmpuriA
Biodesigner cellsense.bio
Cellsense’s innovative manufacturing process enables Parasrampuria to create panels of beaded textiles in one step, eliminating the need for the laborious task of sewing beads together. The beads are made from an algae-cellulose polymer; jellyfish protein makes them bioluminescent.
Having grown up in Gujarat, India—a textile production region—Aradhita Parasrampuria, BFA Fashion Design ’20, MFA Textiles ’22, was familiar with the apparel industry. But upon returning to the area as a Parsons student to work in a textiles plant years later, she learned that the industry was heavily dependent on the use of toxic chemicals and began to see it in a new light.
The experience spurred Parasrampuria to think about safer alternatives. “Dye production stood out as an area ripe for innovation,” she says. “Vegetable dyes, which sound eco-friendly, are not as sustainable as they appear, and their range of color is limited.” During the junior year of her BFA program, Parasrampuria was introduced to Genspace, the world’s first community biology lab, where she explored the use of bacteria in fabric dyeing. After months of research and development, she succeeded in engineering bacteria that produced vibrant pigments. It was a novel and natural approach to creating dyes with minimal resources.
Parasrampuria also devised a unique polymer using cellulose fibers from textile waste and algae—extremely fast-growing antimicrobial and carbonsequestering organisms—to create natural embellishments such as beads that could replace the petroleum-based plastic varieties typically used in clothing, cosmetics, and other products. In 2022, Parasrampuria founded the start-up Cellsense, which aims to manufacture these sustainable bioembellishments at scale. Cellsense recently won the Earthshot Innovation Challenge and the Ikea Foundation's Redesign Everything Challenge; it also received a Swarovski Foundation Creatives for Our Future grant and an ACCEL fellowship, sponsored by Microsoft and Greentown Labs. Cellsense’s work was also featured at the United Nations Water Conference and was mentioned in connection with Forbes’ 2023 30 Under 30 list of innovators.
Parasrampuria’s career defies labels, bringing together the roles of designer, entrepreneur, inventor, environmentalist, teacher, and researcher. She credits Parsons with nurturing the interdisciplinary approach she employs in her work. “Parsons encourages systems thinking, which is the foundation of my work now,” says Parasrampuria. “My professors always asked, ‘What’s next?’ This led me to think outside the box.”
Her professors also emphasized the importance of understanding the practical applications of her work. “They encouraged me to make things that people want,” explains Parasrampuria. “It’s not just about sustainability; if it’s not beautiful, then people aren’t going to want it.”
Parasrampuria’s work and new business are already benefiting industry workers and the environment while contributing to the broader effort to transform the fashion system as a whole.
Microbial pigments are used to dye beads in a spectrum of colors and help make the nontoxic beads compostable at home.
Bead strands and panels can be connected to create garments such as the one shown here.
ABOVE: Drops of Cellsense’s biopolymer can be deposited in customized arrays, allowing for elaborate patterns that would otherwise require hours of handwork.
ABOVE: Parasrampuria creates garments like this one by applying the knowledge she acquired in the BFA Fashion Design program and from her MFA Textiles program experiments in dyeing fabric using bacteria.
“Parsons encourages systems thinking, which is the foundation of my work now.”
Alumni Arley Torsone
Letterer
and
Illustrator ladyfingersletterpress.com
For Arley Torsone, BFA Integrated Design ’04, lettering and printmaking are more than crafts—they're a means of amplifying voices and making connections. Torsone and his wife, Morgan Calderini, started Ladyfingers Letterpress in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, in 2010 after their own handlettered wedding invitation went viral. They began designing custom wedding invitations for others and later expanded to a line of greeting cards infused with wit, personality, and purpose. “We thought about the type of cards we would want, and saw there was a void in the market for cards that were truly inclusive and created connections with different communities,” says Torsone. The beauty and authenticity of their work struck a chord. Their greeting cards and other products are now sold in more than 1,000 stores worldwide.
Torsone and Calderini also create hand-lettered posters with messages promoting inclusivity and social justice, which often appear at protests and marches. For Torsone, the posters are meant to spark dialogue around important issues. “We’re using creative tools at our disposal to create a space where people can be seen and hear one another,” he explains.
In 2014, Torsone and Calderini relocated to Colorado Springs, where they opened a storefront that serves as both a retail shop and their studio. It soon became a center for the community. “We wanted to make sure our business was inclusive—not leaving anyone out or making anyone feel like they didn’t belong,” says Torsone. “As a queer couple, we knew what that felt like.” Their store attracts people struggling to find their voice and connections with others.
Torsone’s time at Parsons was a formative influence on his practice. “The students and faculty reflect New York City’s culture and diversity, and their unique perspectives helped me see things in new ways,” says Torsone. Parsons also helped Torsone view design as a multifaceted approach to problem solving. “I got so much out of the Integrated Design program,” he says. “The program helped solidify my desire to effect change and make a difference.”
“The program helped solidify my desire to effect change and make a difference.”
ABOVE: Witty greeting cards carry messages relevant to communities often overlooked in the marketplace. LEFT: Hand lettering, which Torsone first employed in the invitations he created for his and Calderini's wedding, has become a distinctive feature of the couple’s product line.
Ladyfingers Letterpress creates affordable justice-promoting posters in Torsone’s signature hand lettering.
Alumni M. Florine Démosthène
Creative Voyager florinedemosthene.com
Sometimes an artist needs to travel far from home to discover what makes them unique. For M. Florine Démosthène, BFA Fine Arts ’98, a move from New York City to Ghana in 2015 revealed what had been missing from her art practice.
“In Ghana, I was truly solo,” says Démosthène. “There was this sense of discovery.” At the time of her arrival, the country was experiencing an art renaissance. Démosthène was inspired by the artists there, who were less careerist and competitive than those she knew in New York.
In Ghana, Démosthène began taking self-portraiture in radically new directions. “I was able to be more vulnerable in my art and explore personal themes like wounds or rejection in pictorial ways,” she says. She used herself as a model in figurative collages, creating dramatic silhouettes from hand-painted polyester film. She also experimented with new materials and hired West African artisans to fabricate items to be incorporated into her work. “At Parsons, I learned the value of constant cross-pollination,” she says. Broadening her perspective in a new location enabled Démosthène to find her voice.
Démosthène returned to New York in 2019 and experienced new success. Her paintings, prints, and sculptures have been exhibited widely, and she was awarded a prestigious Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant and a New York Foundation for the Arts Artist Fellowship.
For the next step in her art journey, Démosthène is spearheading the Oracle Project, an interactive interface aimed at preserving Indigenous African languages in diaspora and in danger of dying out. Démosthène will create a shrine-like sculptural installation with a digital interface that visitors can use to submit questions. Creative technologists will program the interface to respond in an Indigenous language as a means of evoking the past and underscoring the need to preserve aspects of African culture threatened by AI biases. The project will draw on Démosthène’s eclectic art-making practice and promises to take her into new creative terrain.
“At Parsons, I learned the value of constant cross-pollination.”
ABOVE: The Weight of Rejection, Part 2 (38” x 50”), a collage on paper from Démosthène’s exhibition Master the Dream, presented at the SCAD Museum of Art.
LEFT: Démosthène’s show Master the Dream presented collages and sculptures representing women and groups of people. These works were inspired by her time in Ghana. ABOVE RIGHT: A collage on wood panel titled The Dream Master 3 (24” x 36”), part of Master the Dream
Aviva Shulem, BFA Product Design ’02, loves teaching design at Parsons— especially to first-year students. “The first year at Parsons is like a tasting menu,” she explains. “The first year is when students decide what will be their main course—that is, their major.”
Shulem teaches core classes such as Space and Materiality and Integrative Studio 2. These classes cover essentials of the design process and skills with broad application to majors such as architecture, photography, and fashion, product, and interior design as well as other fields. Shulem notes that the mix of students fosters cross-disciplinary learning and collaboration, even if the students are interested in different creative practices.
N o matter what Shulem’s students are creating, they are encouraged to understand that “designers must learn to ask the right questions. This helps them develop the empathy needed to design for the end user.” Primary research and direct observation are critical to the process. “I am a demanding teacher and have high expectations of students; therefore, I push them,” she says. “But I tell students I’ll be there to catch you if you fall.”
Shulem’s teaching approach is honed by years of experience in multidisciplinary product and furniture design for companies such as Donghia and Swarovski. She is also passionate about preserving traditional crafts and has worked with artisans in Kashmir, Mali, and Haiti to modernize and market their wares.
When Shulem, the daughter of tailors, was herself a first-year student at Parsons, she thought she would major in fashion. But her Foundation classes exposed her to new 3D making techniques, and the use of different materials set her on a new path. Encouraging first-year students to engage with new forms of creativity and the possibilities they open up connects Shulem to the next generation of designers in their journey through Parsons.
New marketing materials—including this image, created in collaboration with Shulem—promote craft goods and enable makers worldwide to reach new audiences.
“Designers must learn to develop the empathy needed to design for the end user.”
Shulem worked with Indian artisans to update their designs for papier-mâché home decor items, aiming to broaden the market for their work.
Shulem’s Athena Bassa table lamp of hand-blown Murano glass, created for Donghia.
Student Demir raMazanov
Multidisciplinary Designer demirramazanov.com
Born in Germany, raised in Kazakhstan, and now living in Paris, fourthyear BFA Art, Media, and Technology student Demir Ramazanov draws inspiration from a range of sources. “Having a multicultural background has definitely shaped my creative approach,” he says of his work, which explores time, place, and media.
Ramazanov’s thesis project—I saw flowers growing from a chair encompasses furniture design, film, set design, and CGI in a reflection on the complexity of our relationship with nature. Ramazanov digitally designed furniture pieces and then placed them in different environments using game software that gives the tableaux a cinematic feel. He is producing some of the furniture for a gallery setting.
“I’m really interested in our relationship with nature and human influence on the environment,” says Ramazanov. His large-scale mural Syn-Vios, which depicts a human body as part of the natural landscape, was selected for display at LA CASERNE, a multipurpose sustainable fashion hub in Paris.
During an internship at L’AiR Arts, an international artist-in-residence nonprofit organization, Ramazanov participated in creating Ukrainian artist Vasyl Grubliak’s installation Russian Kiss. The work is a site-specific piece consisting of bomb fragments collected from towns and villages across Ukraine and suspended from the gallery ceiling—a poignant reminder of the effects of war. Ramazanov helped design the exhibition materials and produced a video documenting the installation process.
Ramazanov’s work with artists in various media has allowed him to develop a sophisticated aesthetic and approach to art direction. For a recent collaboration with accessory designer Oihana Lasa Pérez, a Parsons Paris graduate, Ramazanov created At the Lake, a photographic series featuring Pérez’s jewelry modeled in idyllic natural settings. “Oihana and I have similar artistic interests,” says Ramazanov, “and we’re both intrigued by representations of water and people’s relationship with water.”
For Ramazanov, being at the center of one of the world’s art and fashion centers has been an important part of his success. “I’m so grateful,” says Ramazanov. “Parsons Paris offers so many opportunities.”
“Parsons Paris offers so many opportunities.”
A still from Ramazanov’s thesis, I saw flowers growing from a chair, created using Blender, Unreal Engine 5, and Quixel Bridge software.
ABOVE: An image from Ramazanov’s creative campaign for designer Oihana Lasa Pérez, a friend from Parsons Paris. LEFT: A still from Industrial Ecology 3, featuring shiny metallic shoes in a dystopian setting.
RIGHT: Selim oversaw the refresh of the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields’ Design Gallery, updated to make it more visitor-friendly. The entryway features a design timeline, images of period interiors, and masterworks by midcentury designers from the collection.
BELOW: A 1959 illustration for an electric car, from the Detroit Institute of Arts, where Selim recently began working as a curator.
“I had such a magical time at Parsons, being surrounded by people with various areas of expertise.”
Highlights from Selim’s design survey exhibition at the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields include historical and contemporary chair designs, Tejo Remy’s You Can’t Lay Down Your Memories chest of drawers, works by Memphis, and a piece by Midwestern ceramicist Claude Conover.
Alumni Shelley Selim
Inclusive Curator
@shelleyselim
A curator must wear many hats, according to Shelley Selim, MA History of Design and Curatorial Studies ’13. In Selim’s case, that entails not just scholarly research but also close collaboration with colleagues responsible for the many behind-the-scenes tasks it takes to create exhibitions: “It's a team effort that involves caring for and displaying objects, creating signage, shipping pieces, handling image rights, registering objects, and overseeing exhibition products.”
Selim puts her skills to work daily in her newly created position as the Mort Harris Curator of Automotive, Industrial, and Decorative Design at the Detroit Institute of Arts, covering American and European art and design. She is especially excited by the opportunity to build the museum's collection of automotive design renderings and showcase its connection to Detroit, home to GM, Ford, and Chrysler.
Selim, who claims she is not a “gearhead,” has discovered a new fascination with midcentury automotive design through an exploration of renderings from the time. “The 1930s to the 1970s was a period of robust design experimentation, especially in America,” says Selim, citing the “great tailfins” and bold use of color and textiles characteristic of the era. She plans to reveal to museum visitors the many parallels between automotive design and other forms of industrial design and fine art of the period.
Selim honed her curatorial skills at Parsons, which offered her the opportunity to study at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. “I had such a magical time at Parsons, being surrounded by people with diverse perspectives and areas of expertise,” she says. A curatorial fellowship at Cranbrook Art Museum in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, situated her in “the hotbed of midcentury design and crafts” and prepared her for her subsequent role as curator of Design and Decorative Arts at the Indianapolis Museum of Art.
Scholarship and design knowledge are crucial, but Selim believes “what’s most important is how a curator treats people”—from colleagues to artists to philanthropic organizations to visitors, including schoolchildren. “I want to be part of a museum that operates like a town square,” she says, “where you’re welcome and free to roam.”
“Design is a way that you view and interact with the world,” says Mark Randall, associate dean of and assistant professor in Parsons’ School of Design Strategies. “As a designer, you’re a lifelong learner.” It’s a belief reflected in his wide-ranging design practice.
Randall came to Parsons as a consultant to the BBA Strategic Design and Management program, a position in which he helped develop external partnerships for the senior capstone class and taught its first cohort. The course connects students with businesses and helps prepare them for their professional lives. “Students love working with external partners because it enables them to see how the abstract concepts they’re learning in the classroom can be applied in the real world,” says Randall. Later, in his role as associate director of the BBA program, he cultivated a diverse group of program partners ranging from start-ups and nonprofits to Fortune 500 companies.
In Randall’s own career, he has embraced exploration and bridged disciplines. One of his many interests is honeybees. He has kept bees for more than 20 years and in 2017 started B-Line Ice Cream, a small business in upstate New York that produces ice cream using wildflower honey from his own hives. For Randall, the business is about much more than selling ice cream. “My ice cream company is a platform for raising people’s awareness of issues related to sustainability, climate change, and the importance of pollinators,” he explains.
Randall has brought his passion for bees to the classroom in the form of Honeybee Colonies: Art, Design, Science, and Culture, an interdisciplinary course he created and teaches. A perennially popular class, it attracts students from across Parsons and the rest of The New School, who learn lessons from the world of honeybees and apply them in exploring their own interests and fields of study.
E arlier in his career, Randall co-founded Worldstudio, a design and communications firm that employs creativity to advance social change, along with the nonprofit Worldstudio Foundation and its college scholarship program, which promote diversity in the creative professions. The foundation has awarded nearly $1.5 million in scholarships, and two recipients have gone on to become Parsons faculty members.
Randall champions the use of an interdisciplinary approach to design as a way to explore ideas and solve problems: “I want my students to come away with an understanding that a design education is not about learning a specific skill; it is a process, a way to engage with the world to have a positive impact.”
“A design education is not about learning a specific skill; it is a process, a way to engage with the world to have a positive impact.”
LEFT: In his role as a faculty member and the associate dean of Parsons’ School of Design Strategies, Randall has developed creative business courses and a group of external partners students can work with.
A cup of Randall’s B-Line ice cream, sweetened with local honey from his bees and accompanied by information about environmentalism and sustainability.
ABOVE: Randall and two B-Line Ice Cream associates outside their shop in Narrowsburg, New York.
“If there’s one major that’s constantly changing, it’s Design and Technology.”
Student Arav Tewari
Polymathic Prodigy @arav_colliderscope
Making ideas come to life seems to be in Arav Tewari’s DNA. Arriving from India to begin his first year, Tewari was already well-versed in coding and animation; he had also begun exploring AI. “You have to leave your comfort zone,“ he says in explaining why he crossed the globe, his sights set on Parsons’ BFA Design and Technology program and its unique curriculum.
A s if freshman year weren’t busy enough, Tewari took on an additional challenge: entering LG Electronics’ Wonderbox Showcase, a competition for U.S. art and design college students. Contestants were asked to create an original animation interpreting the company’s slogan, “Life’s Good.”
“For me, what makes life good is experiences—being outdoors and in nature,” says Tewari. His submission, titled Peace Is Within, features a pair of animated characters surfing and relaxing in a verdant landscape. He and the two other finalists were invited to appear on The Drew Barrymore Show, on which his first-place win was announced. Tewari took home a $25,000 cash prize from the competition, and his 3D animation was featured on LG’s billboard in New York City’s Times Square.
Tewari is excited by the creative potential of the metaverse and immersive experiences, even as he remains wary of the ways “the algorithm” can rule our lives. He is now planning to engage in a design exploration of the opportunities and pitfalls presented by today’s technology. “I would like to take my existential thoughts and bring people into them,” he says.
Parsons seems to be the perfect environment for Tewari to explore his passions. His Design and Technology program classes push him to delve into new worlds and learn new skills while remaining mindful of the bigger picture. “The world is changing faster than anyone can anticipate,” he says, “and if there’s one major that’s constantly changing and helping us keep pace, it’s the BFA in Design and Technology.”
Tewari's interpretation of LG’s “Life’s Good” slogan, an animation created with Blender, is titled Peace Is Within
Tewari’s winning short animation, created for LG’s Wonderbox Showcase contest, played on the company’s Times Square billboard.
Peace Is Within debuted on The Drew Barrymore Show and was then screened in Times Square, familiarizing the public with Tewari’s name, his winning design, and his school.
Alumni hanadi alMArzouq
Design Documentarian
@hanadialmarzouq
“My art is conceptual and my role as a product designer is educational, to provide critique,” says Hanadi Almarzouq, MFA Industrial Design ’20.
A lmarzouq’s upbringing in Kuwait provides much of the impetus for her conceptual approach. She saw how the oil industry brought immense wealth to her country but was also “a destructive force,” connected with catastrophic oil spills and pollution, the disappearance of traditional crafts, and the demolition of historic buildings.
When Almarzouq began her master’s program at Parsons, she had been running her own retail shop in Kuwait, selling designer goods and gifts. “I felt like slow design was my destiny instead, but I didn’t know how to do it,” she says. She wanted to learn about more sustainable ways of designing and manufacturing. “At Parsons, I visited recycling facilities and learned about responsible processes,” says Almarzouq. “The MFA program opened my eyes to what it means for an industrial designer to have a moral compass.”
After graduation, Almarzouq was offered an artist’s residency with the Sadu House, a Kuwaiti cultural organization promoting textiles and other traditional artisanal work. She used the opportunity to create Traces of Nostalgia, a multimedia exhibition built on her master’s thesis at Parsons. Drawing on the fact that Kuwait has the largest “tire graveyard” in the world, Almarzouq used tires and their tracks as a powerful visual motif to symbolize the destruction caused by the oil and automobile industries. Tire imagery also figures in her short film Anthropocene, which focuses on a Bedouin girl who has lost her “weaving memory.”
“ The exhibition functions like a story about place and environmental threats,” says Almarzouq. Her hope is for this and future stories to build awareness and promote change. “I think of everyone viewing the exhibition as a designer,” she says. “My message of change is activated through viewers.”
“At Parsons, I visited recycling facilities and learned about responsible processes.”
ABOVE: Almarzouq’s Traces of Nostalgia includes this piece in which a tire—a product made with petroleum, a resource whose discovery has profoundly shaped Kuwait’s identity—is patterned with traditional Kuwaiti textile designs. The tire tracks are meant to remind viewers of the impact the petroleum industry has had on Kuwait’s physical, economic, and cultural landscape. BELOW: A collage juxtaposes items reflecting Kuwait’s cultural heritage with artifacts of the petroleum industry.
FagerStrom
Fashion Innovator petrafagerstrom.com
While choosing a fashion design program, Petra Fagerstrom, BFA Fashion Design ’22, came across conceptually rich work created by Parsons Paris students and knew that the school would be the right fit for her. “I didn't even consider other options for my undergraduate study, which was quite bold,” she says.
Inspired to create similarly forward-looking work, Fagerstrom moved to New York from Sweden. Today, as she reflects on her time at Parsons, she points to the fashion education she received at Parsons Paris as the foundation for the innovative work that now brings her acclaim. “I had never really learned the creative process before,” she says. Fagerstrom says she also benefited from a curriculum that honed her skills in collaborating, meeting deadlines, and critiquing work.
After graduating, Fagerstrom won two awards at the 38th Festival de Hyères in France for pieces created from upcycled surplus parachutes, which were also featured in Vogue Italia. In creating the collection, Fagerstrom engaged in a kind of fashion storytelling, drawing inspiration from her grandmother’s military attire. The collection also reflected the expertise in sustainability that she developed at Parsons Paris and applied in her undergraduate thesis work.
Fagerstrom cites Tuomas Laitinen as her most valuable faculty mentor. “He’s constantly in contact with designers and people in the industry and is aware of how the field is changing,” she says. Collaborating with experienced faculty contributed significantly to her success, leading to prestigious internships at Acne Studios and Balenciaga Paris. “A designer from Acne noticed my work at a school event, which led to my interview,” Fagerstrom recalls. The Balenciaga internship arose from a school posting, and she received faculty assistance in preparing for interviews and refining her portfolio.
Fagerstrom is currently enrolled in a master’s degree program and is working with the Swedish Fashion Council to launch her own brand. She aspires to direct a womenswear brand. “It’s my dream to make something that goes beyond fashion and build community around my work,” says Fagerstrom.
“It’s my dream to make something that goes beyond fashion and build community around my work.”
Fagerstom created this smocked and pleated dress from a military surplus parachute.
This “para-puffer” jacket, made from down-filled surplus parachute nylon, and the dress shown above are from Fagerstrom’s SS24 collection. Lugged Mary Jane shoes feature industrial chains on their soles, much like the ones attached to car tires for added traction in the snow.
tanyA taylor
Artful Entrepreneur tanyataylor.com
With her team of 45, Tanya Taylor, AAS Fashion Design ’09, has built a beloved line of women’s apparel praised for its lush colors and wearable silhouettes. Ten years after she started her brand, the collection is sold in retailers such as Neiman Marcus and Saks; Taylor has also opened her own brick-and-mortar store on Madison Avenue. She can often be found there, helping customers style looks and holding events at which she talks to customers about their needs.
Taylor graduated from McGill with a finance degree but realized she wanted a more creative path. She moved to New York to pursue a fashion degree at Parsons. “From the very first day, Parsons underscored the importance of curiosity. Teachers push you to explore your ideas, to fall in love with the city and see it as a playground for creativity.” She remains close to faculty members who helped her find her voice.
“At Parsons, I was never made to feel I was doing something right or wrong as long as I could clearly explain my creative concepts.”
T he school’s focus on empathetic design allowed Taylor to achieve what many fashion designers fail to do: make size inclusivity a priority. She works with models of all body types and has developed a unique core collection of elevated essentials that offers women a sustainable wardrobe—and gives her business a solid foundation.
W hile at Parsons, Taylor interned with The Row’s Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen and worked with them for several years after graduation. Inspired to create a place in the market for what she calls a “feminine voice and an authentic new point of view on prints and color,” she left the company to launch her own brand, for which she serves as CEO and creative director. Seeking a press-worthy place to debut her line, Taylor found a Museum of Modern Art sponsor who donated a time slot in the museum’s lobby. The event won the attention of prominent fashion media.
“ It’s how Michelle Obama saw the collection and how retailers discovered it,” says Taylor. She still keeps Obama’s dress form in the studio, “so we can react quickly and create what she wants.”
Today she dresses First Lady Jill Biden with her usual attention to fit and color and is working on an evening line with Maisonette that shows “there’s something between super-sweet and hyper-sexy.” If anyone can thread that needle, it’s Tanya Taylor.
Taylor’s long-standing passion for art is reflected in the hand-painted patterns she creates for looks such as the Bellflower print for these versatile dresses, offered in a range of sizes, from her SS 2024 collection.
ABOVE: Moodboards reveal Taylor’s love of color and patterns such as polka dots, featured on her Joy Dress, a popular strapless dress with an oversized bow that debuted at her company’s tenth-anniversary party. RIGHT: Taylor’s Madison Avenue store offers her apparel and handcrafted home decor items.
We’re Parsons— and we’re designing a world you want to live in
Parsons School of Design—consistently top-ranked among art and design schools in the United States and around the globe—has sent changemaking artists and designers out into the world since its founding more than 120 years ago. Today we’re part of The New School, a major university in New York City offering programs in subjects ranging from the liberal arts and humanities to the performing arts to media, management, and more. Here and at our Parsons Paris campus, a diverse community channels its creative and critical capacities into fostering a more equitable, sustainable, and beautiful world through innovative art, design, and architecture.
WHAT CAN YOU STUDY HERE?
Degree Programs
Architectural Design (BFA)
Architecture (MArch)
Architecture and Lighting Design
Dual Degree (MArch/MFA)
Art, Media, and Technology (BFA) Parsons Paris only
Communication Design (BFA, MPS, AAS)
Data Visualization (MS)
Design and Technology (BFA, MFA)
Design and Urban Ecologies (MS)
Design History and Practice (BFA)
Fashion Design (BFA, AAS)
Fashion Design and Society (MFA)
Fashion Design and the Arts (MFA) Parsons Paris only
Parsons also offers courses that help you prepare a portfolio, explore art and design, or fast-track your career or entrepreneurial ambitions. newschool.edu/parsons/continuing-education
facts at a Glance
#1 art and design school in the U.S.1
5,600+ students at Parsons (10,000+ at The New School as a whole) 2
47% international students at Parsons
45,000+ Parsons alumni worldwide
1 Quacquarelli Symonds World University Rankings, 2024.
2 Fall 2023.
CONTACT US
Admission Offices
Parsons Undergraduate thinkparsons@newschool.edu
Journals capture in vivid detail the impressions of Americans seeing historic European sites and important artworks firsthand. They also record itineraries, purchases like meals and souvenirs, and details of travel, giving readers today a sense of the early days of study abroad.
Drawing Inspiration from Paris and Beyond
Students’ travel diaries from the midcentury
In the 1940s, Parsons offered summer immersions in classical European art, design, and culture through its Paris campus. Several students documented their travels in journals that are now part of The New School Archives. These records offer a rare glimpse of their experiences and testify to Parsons’ position on the leading edge of art and design education.
The program traces its roots to 1921, when Parsons (then called the New York School of Fine and Applied Art) opened the Paris Ateliers, becoming the first school in the United States to establish an international outpost. It was at this location that the iconic Parsons Table was designed, in a 1930s drafting class taught by Jean-Michel Frank.
The Ateliers closed during World War II, but Paris became an important hub for Parsons once again with the start of the summer program after the war. Students took courses on art history and architecture and embarked on extensive tours through Italy and France, visiting some of Europe’s most notable palaces, gardens, and museums, such as Versailles’ Grand Trianon, Rome’s Villa Borghese and Palazzo Colonna, and Genoa’s Palazzo Reale.
The students’ journals reflect Parsons’ emphasis on hand skills: Journals abound with sketches and watercolors of art and architecture. They also provide a window on postwar life in European artistic and intellectual circles. Students write about attending lectures by Van Day Truex (then president of Parsons and later the creative director of Tiffany’s), receiving a house tour by Elsie de Wolfe, and mingling with the likes of Truman Capote and Peggy Guggenheim at parties and on outings.
The journals bear witness to students’ creative growth and document the start of lifelong friendships. They also reflect Parsons’ embrace of cross-cultural exchange, a tradition that continues today.
ABOVE: A watercolor-and-ink sketch by Raymond Waldron of a period room in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris.
RIGHT: Another Waldron sketch, dated 1948, of the Basilica di Santa Maria Della Salute in Venice.
