New York’s Seventh Avenue is rightly known as Fashion Avenue. On this thoroughfare, between about 14th and 34th streets, all aspects of garment making and selling have, and do, exist. Designers, patternmakers, manufacturers, and showrooms have addresses here as did, once upon a time, Barneys New York. The doors to the now empty department store were opened one last time for the Parsons graduate show where enough work to fill the space was presented—and then some.
Putting something new into the world is a hopeful activity. As such, the talent on display was uplifting, but at the same time it was overwhelming: 263 students participated in the show, which was called A Common Thread, each showing one look. Thoughtful groupings of looks provided some coherence and cadence to the exits, but as the students were not in any way identified the takeaways were limited to broad trends. Among them was a sense of something dystopian. Some research into the students’ online portfolios revealed that one model carried a quiver of arrows and another a gas mask; there were breastplates on the runway, as well as references to samurai armor. Among the students blending protective elements into street-smart looks were June Chen (look 5) and Kwen (look 140). Daewoong (Dae) Um (look 83) and Laurence Wei offered sophisticated distortions of streetwear; Caitlyn Lin (look 18) did much the same with tailoring.
The completion of studies corresponds to a definitive break with childhood, which many students seemed to long to hold onto. There were a number of naive looks, some taking the form of character dressing—queens, medieval knights, yetis, and anime types. Jizhuo Li’s fascination with ball jointed dolls and the color pink resulted in an elaborate confection of a dress (look 111) that was intended to challenge the ideas of perfection.
Among the mastery of craft on show, that of Ryan Gdovin (look 46) and Ruoning Ma (look 191) was particularly meticulous. Gdovin, a trans designer, hand-strung innumerable glass beads as a means of “ritualiz[ing] the process of hormone replacement”; while Ma puzzled intricate folded pieces of fabric together. Romantic deconstruction describes the work of Zengyu Liu (look 185) whose work also melds East and West. Che Won Han Cho (look 137) mined his own mixed Korean/Mexican heritage, resulting in a look that was expressive and austere. Similarly, an element of romance was introduced to the all-black collections of Dawn Fang (look 32) and Rui Zhu through drapery (look 176).
Among the students representing the menswear renaissance are Georgia Wenig, who works only with existing materials (look 1), and Julian Wolfe, who considers identity and beauty through a queer lens (look 77). Wolfe’s work has some connection to that of Willy Chavarria, who, alongside Artemis Patrick, President and CEO of Sephora North America, and Madelyn Wils, CEO of the Fifth Avenue Association, was honored at the Annual Parsons Benefit. The evening raised $1.2 million and drew the likes of Calvin Klein and Donna Karan.
