Fashion Marketing Online Weekend

Parsons Festival created the space for students and faculty across all of the schools to visit exhibitions, discuss new concepts and share experiences.  The Parsons Fashion Marketing Online program was pleased to participate by bringing 10 online students to New York City for this experience.  Students flew in from places such as Atlanta, San Diego, Boulder, and Chicago, to see each other for the first time, and feel part of the school campus in NYC.

Thursday, May 19th started off with a meeting with campus Advisors, someone they normally see only on a Skype call!  They met with the Director of Fashion Marketing, Alice Demirjian, before getting ready to attend the Fashion School presentation and Open Studios later that evening.

Friday, May 20th was full of fun and learning as we kicked off the day at Barney’s New York. Lindsay Stadig, Manager of Display Production, walked us through the process of building their artistic and celebrated windows on Madison Avenue. This was very meaningful for one of the students, Nicola Randolph, as she looks to take her career in this direction upon graduating this semester.  We were joined on the tour by a handful of Online Faculty members, including myself, Kevin Calica, Jeanine Polizzi and Mary Kassner, as well as New School Online Director Jim O’Connor. When Jim announced to the group that he in fact started the Fashion Marketing Online program, he was met with wild applauds and cheers.  Without him, the program would not have launched just 2 years prior and for this, the students were grateful.

The tour of windows continued down historic Fifth Avenue, where we stopped to admire Bergdorf Goodman, and hid from the rain at Henri Bendels. We ended the tour by visiting Saks Fifth Avenue to see our BFA Fashion Design students garments in the windows and on the 2nd floor.

After a tasty lunch of salads and truffle french fries in Chelsea, we headed to a small photo exhibition on super model Kate Moss. Traversing the city despite pouring rain proved not to be a challenge for these Parsons students.  Whether walking, taking a cab or subway, we were all so happy to be together, smiles were on everyone’s face all day long!

We visited a few thesis exhibitions at the downtown Parsons campus, MFA Design and Technology was one of note.  Then, the subway took us all back up to the Metropolitan Museum where we stood in a quick line to see the fabulous Alexander McQueen exhibition.  It was a long and exciting day in NYC for all of us.

Saturday, May 21st included graduation ceremonies for some, and Parsons Street Festival for others.  Plans are to hold an Online weekend/campus visit for continuing students each semester and I’d like to thank everyone who participated. I look forward to having you all on campus in December!