Parsons won the title of “Best Overall School” Sunday night at Fusion Fashion Show 2016 at the New School’s University Center, breaking rival FIT’s three year winning streak.
Despite being down a designer — Parsons had 14 contestants, compared to the usual 15 designers which the Fashion Institute of Technology had — the New School for Design was able to steal their fourth win in the past ten years of the annual fashion show competition.
The Parsons designers clearly showed a strong group of collections, as James Ramey, founder and director of Fusion, announced that “the judges had nine different designers chosen for the best designer award” and the runner ups for Parsons.
Interestingly, three out of the five industry professional judges were Parsons alumni. One, Chris Benz, Creative Director of Bill Blass, even participated as a Fusion designer during his time at the school. The other judges are Peter Davis, Editor at Large at Paper Magazine, Damien Nunes, Global Director of Men’s Trends and Concepts at GAP Inc, Daniel Powers, Vice President of Global Visual Merchandising at Alice + Olivia, and resident judge, Mary Kate Steinmiller, Fashion Consultant.
In the end, the judges chose James Chapman as “Best Designer” at Parsons and Suyeon Kim as “Best Designer” at FIT. At Parsons, the first runner up was Ruchika Kabra and the second runner up was Jared Ellner, who was also a runner up in last year’s Fusion. At FIT, the first runner up was Enoch Park and the second runner up was Yanxuan Cher Li.
Chapman’s winning collection, titled “Cells Consuming” was inspired by the stages of cancer and how the inside body is affected. It featured a spider web like material made of hot glue, feathers, and 3,000 strips of cut up X-rays prints. Kim’s collection was inspired by glaciers and was made up of laser cut details, neoprene, a light color palette, and clear plexiglass bags.
“This time the technical skills of Parsons matched their reputation for concept,” said Ujjwala Bhadu, a Parsons junior in fashion design. “They were very technically sound.”
Allie is the News Editor for the Free Press. She is a super senior finishing her fifth year as a Journalism & Design student at Lang and a Fashion Design student at Parsons. She also covers local news for the Staten Island Advance and writes about issues within the fashion industry for a not-for-profit online publication. A native New Yorker, Allie now calls Brooklyn home, where she resides with an orange cat and a pint of coffee ice cream hidden in her freezer at all times.
