Fashion Department Update
Bay State College’s Fashion Department will visit New York City this coming October. Students will visit designer and production companies like Nanette Lepore’s Studio, Mood, and Rootstein Mannequin’s Suppliers.
In the past, Nanette Lepore’s assistants have spent a lot of time with the students demonstrating how their clothing production process works (from CAD, to designs, to textiles, to Gerber Technology, to pattern drafting, to production, to the show room). Lepore is an example of someone who does it all “in house” in New York City, which is impressive and inspirational in today’s fashion business world.
Last year, one of our Merchandising students showed up with a prepared resume to hand to Nanette Lepore’s assistants. She was granted an interview and hired for an internship!
This year, students will also visit “Mood,” the three story textile store made famous by “Project Runway.” Students will be able to source their fabrics for future designs and assignments, as well as gather information on trend forecasting the newer textures and colors.
The students will continue onto the FIT Exhibit entitled: Proust's Muse, The Countess Greffulhe, which will feature 40 extraordinary fashions and accessories from the fabulous wardrobe of Élisabeth de Caraman-Chimay, the Countess Greffulhe (1860-1952). A famous beauty celebrated for her "aristocratic and artistic elegance," the countess fascinated her contemporaries, including Marcel Proust who told the countess’s cousin, "I have never seen a woman so beautiful." When Proust wrote his great novel In Search of Lost Time (À la recherche du temps perdu), the Countess Greffulhe was one of the primary inspirations for his immortal fictional character. "Each of her dresses,” he wrote, “seemed like...the projection of a particular aspect of her soul."
“I was blown away by the amount of inspiration and information,” one of our merchandising students said last year. “We learn this material in class but we got to see it actually being used in a professional way.”
Donna-Marie Cecere, Ed.D.
Chair, Fashion Department
Bay State College