Parsons MFA Show Signals Hope for Future of Creativity

‘Generation Six,’ a group of nine students from Parsons’ illustrious Masters of Fashion and Society program showed their collections during New York Fashion Week providing a nourishing dose of creativity to editors and bloggers now staring down a looming month of fashion shows across the globe.

Nihl took stereotypical notions of masculinity to task subverting them through beading on shirting, shiny boxing shorts from which shirt tails protrude, and dressing one model in an eyewateringly high cut one-piece once the exclusive domain of only the most amazonian of 80s supermodels.

Australian knitwear designer, Zoe Champion, explored the emotional responses triggered by the clothing of others, particularly her recently passed grandmother, and the idea of holding garments up to the body to imagine inhabiting them.

Shanel Campbell’s collection strived to open a dialogue around the female body and celebrate today’s independent woman by juxtaposing nakedness with armor. Chinese designer Tingyue Jiang re-evaluated how textile application can challenge the silhouette as he translated inspiration about what is happening culturally and politically in his country of birth into bright bluntly patched knits for the NYC runway.

Shizhe He is interested in the mundane, the everyday, and the routine, and her attempts to subtly disrupt these elements formed the basis of her layered menswear collection. Her love of fine arts and devotion to patternmaking married wonderfully in a slouchy suit topped with overcoat in a shade of cornflower blue straight out of a Johannes Vermeer work.

Di Gao took crochet techniques into new frontiers creating semi-transparent dresses in colors of henna, charcoal and rust with white stripes and dangling drawstring toggles that evoked the eternal charm of traditional African tribalwear.

A current finalist for the Dorothy Waxman International Textile Prize, run by Li Edelkoort Inc, Venus Lo’s menswear collection was inspired by her hoarder father and incorporated felting and knitting with unwanted scraps and donations of everyday items into unique new assemblages because she believes perfection can be ugly.

For the finale, Caroline Hu, who makes no bones about calling herself a romantic designer whipped tulle into such a blizzard that it seemed to have scooped up everything else in the sewing room on its way out: froths of net, ribbons, beading, knit, frills and lace sponsored by French fabric company, Sophie Hallette.

All photos Monica Feudi, Parsons, Homepage image: author’s own.

By contributing guest editor Jackie Mallon, who is on the teaching faculty of several NYC fashion programmes and is the author of Silk for the Feed Dogs, a novel set in the international fashion industry.