Parsons School of Fashion, New York

[kimberwyn]

You've just gotta get started early on making as much money as you can. I dont go to parsons, but my debt would be comparable. I worked, saved money, and did a few investments to get part of the tuition. I would say atleast just focus on the first year first, and then worry about how you'll pay for the rest later.

 

[DosViolines]

Parsons' Articles & discussion

source: nytimes.com

April 20, 2006
Front Row
Project Parsons: Fashion School as Star

By ERIC WILSON


DONNA KARAN, Anna Sui and Narciso Rodriguez are among the most illustrious alumni claimed by Parsons the New School for Design, though truth be told, none of them actually completed enough courses to graduate before dropping out to join the real world of Seventh Avenue.

Ruth Fremson/The New York Times
FINAL PROJECT Tim Gunn, the fashion chairman at Parsons, and Jet Olivia, a student, discuss her collection.

"There was a time when there was not that much incentive for a designer to graduate," said Tim Gunn, the chairman of the fashion department, who can be credited, or perhaps held responsible, for giving Parsons a glamour makeover. The response to "Project Runway," the reality show on Bravo that is filmed at the school and features Mr. Gunn as its arch Socratic guide, has made a Parsons education, well, quite fashionable, and Mr. Gunn a celebrity.


Applications to the fashion program have increased by more than 20 percent since 2004 (to 903 this year), and the number of freshmen who declare fashion as their major at the end of their first year has more than doubled since 2001 (to 187 last year). Because of the increased enrollment in the department — 489 students in 2005 compared with 291 in 2001 — fashion is now the largest major at Parsons.


"It is likely that the biggest contributor is popular culture," said Bob Kerrey, the president of the New School, which includes Parsons. "A show like 'Project Runway' brands Parsons all the time, and that has had an impact on the number of people who want to become fashion designers. It's been largely good for the school."


IN the last five years Parsons has modernized the fashion department with new design technology and a curriculum that goes beyond basic dressmaking skills, and today it is expected to announce the creation of a graduate program in fashion.


Ms. Karan and Paul Goldberger, the dean of Parsons, plan to announce that Ms. Karan will underwrite a new professorship, the first step toward a master's program. She would not say how much she had committed, but the minimum requirement to endow a chair at Parsons is $2.5 million.


"Looking at fashion in the context of society and culture is going to be a key mission of this program," Mr. Goldberger said.


Ms. Karan said that the increasingly competitive atmosphere for fashion needs an approach that is both technically proficient and intellectually informed. It is no small thorn in her side that she famously flunked a draping course in 1968, then dropped out to work for Anne Klein. She completed her remaining credits in 1986 and was awarded an honorary doctorate in 2004. Ms. Karan expects to take an active role in planning the graduate curriculum. "I'm not short of ideas," she said.


"There was more room in the industry when I went to school, but like everything else, fashion becomes more complicated. We're at a time when everything seems to have been done already."


Yet fashion seems to be where it's at for young people. Mr. Goldberger suggested that was partly because celebrity culture connects more easily to fashion than to other fields, and "Project Runway" fed into that. "What became an effect of the rising tide also becomes a cause of the rising tide," he said.


This week 119 seniors are preparing their final projects: small collections they will present to a panel of judges to determine whose will be part of a graduate show on May 8. That event is the equivalent of a designers' debutante ball, having established instant careers for designers like the Proenza Schouler team and Ashleigh Verrier, who were famous almost before graduation.


Sherri Folk, 33, has made so many samples that her professors have encouraged her to edit her presentation or risk overwhelming the judges. Ms. Folk said she has added a group of gray tweed pants to balance the shock of gold and brown batik dresses and sashes "to feed it to them," she said.


Brendon Sun, 24, and Bijan Kazem, 23, jointly designed a collection that includes a trench coat made of strips of python. Karen Chao and Prudence Wong based black and white designs on the shapes and aesthetics of Japanese comic books.


Mr. Gunn described the class as one of the most sophisticated he has encountered. "At Parsons we maintain that an education is not just about designing a dress," he said. "If these designers are really a barometric measure of their culture, the dress should not be the same as if it had been designed a couple of years later."

 

[sj08]

ohhh great article!

Thanks

 

[happyguy]

this sounds weird...but the minute i read all the previous posts...i think of medical students.

 

[DosViolines]

Parsons School of Fashion, 100 Years Later (NYT)

source: nytimes.com

May 11, 2006
Front Row
Parsons School of Fashion, 100 Years Later

By ERIC WILSON
THE fashion department of Parsons the New School for Design turned 100 this year. In recognition of that milestone, the brightest members of the graduating class of 2006 presented their senior collections at a benefit on Monday night. The show, in an inevitable and somewhat depressing denouement, succinctly summarized where designer ambitions stand a century later: They want to either work for Ellen Tracy or dress Sienna Miller.


Of the 24 collections shown, two, those by Andrea Marshall and a team called Mutrok and Garth, included short, flashy gold dresses worn over black tights, which looked eerily like the Burberry dress Ms. Miller, who will portray Edie Sedgwick in "Factory Girl," wore to the Costume Institute party last week.


Others simply picked up on the Mod trends of striped scoop-neck tanks and gold boleros or offered prim ladylike looks that seemed destined for a department store bridge department, like a black wool wrap dress with a detachable white Pilgrim's collar from an Iranian-born student, Nima Taherzadeh.


One highlight was an evening-wear collection, above, by Michelle Burrus, who has interned with Oscar de la Renta. Updating a hallmark of her mentor's, Ms. Burrus deftly draped the bodice of a silk minidress with the outline of a bow.


The real flash in the show, the kind of creative abandon one would expect from unsullied youth, came at the end in a series of otherworldly dresses and an all-white motorcycle-cop uniform pegged as the Parsons "centennial collection," each look inspired by other disciplines across the school curriculum.


Former President Bill Clinton was at the event to present an award to Mr. de la Renta. It might have been enlightening for the students to hear him describe how the designer once told him he had considered becoming an artist. "But I'm sure many of you are glad he did not," said Mr. Clinton.

 

[mkfan]

Thanks for posting. What exactly does a "department store bridge department" refer to?

 

[DosViolines]

^ Thanks and I was wondering the same thing

 

[ilaughead]

I'm pretty sure that that means the clothing that costsmore than the normal department store clothes, but isn't quite expensive or well-known enough to be considered "designer".

 

[Qtinez7]

i still dont really get it. ha. more description please. and he said 24 of the students? why just 24

 

[Qtinez7]

so, does anyone know if parsons reputation is still on the top. cuz everywhere i've been hearing how its been in real competition with others schools who seem to be surpassing it. that true? yes no?

 

[smartarse]

I'm sorry, this thread made me laugh. anyhoo, there is no doubt there are rich kids that go to Parsons but then, so does every universities in Manhattan. There's always, grants, scholarships and student loans you can use. And IF you want to save, my suggestion is get room and board outside of manhattan-- like New Jersey across the Hudson. other than that , you will have to come from money that comes out of your A**. B)

Curious how most of the students can afford to attend. financial aid is available but the thought of $40,000+ debt right out of school is not one I like...

 

[sanita13]

I'm sorry, this thread made me laugh. anyhoo, there is no doubt there are rich kids that go to Parsons but then, so does every universities in Manhattan. There's always, grants, scholarships and student loans you can use. And IF you want to save, my suggestion is get room and board outside of manhattan-- like New Jersey across the Hudson. other than that , you will have to come from money that comes out of your A**. B)

Okay this may be news to you but students loans unlike grants and scholarships need to get paid back.

 

[LostInNJ]

Okay this may be news to you but students loans unlike grants and scholarships need to get paid back.

That's pretty much par for the course...I'd like to say that 9 out of 10 people in college are paying for it with the majority of the money coming from loans. With the exception of a few people I know, most are taking out hefty loans to pay for school, like myself.

 

[ilaughead]

I was researching colleges for a project in English, and I wanted either Parsons or Iowa State. (I know, big difference in schools, but Iowa State has a big architecture program.) Anyway, it's pretty silly when a public university is like, $8,000 a year, and Parsons is $40,000!

Now I know how the "starving artist" cliche got it's name.

 

[pamelaz]

That's pretty much par for the course...I'd like to say that 9 out of 10 people in college are paying for it with the majority of the money coming from loans. With the exception of a few people I know, most are taking out hefty loans to pay for school, like myself.

True and I hear you. I go to SVA and I'll be paying off my student loans probably for the rest of my life (or what will seem like it). But it's part of it, you need to do what you need to do.

 

[smartarse]

Majority of the students are on student loans. this is american, education for most is not free, unless, you have a 4 year college scholarship paid in full. If you're resourceful and smart enough, paying off the loans can be beneficial at tax time.

Okay this may be news to you but students loans unlike grants and scholarships need to get paid back.

 

[smartarse]

that's the advantage of going to State universitities. Parsons is private. Unfortunately, Fortune 500 corporations' attention focus more on resumes with private university background. State university graduates are secondary, in most cases, per se.

Anyway, it's pretty silly when a public university is like, $8,000 a year, and Parsons is $40,000!

Now I know how the "starving artist" cliche got it's name.

 

[mme]

From Canada as well (Toronto) and believe me... I know how you feel. After changing the tuition fees that I KNOW of into Canadian currency I saw my life flash before my eyes.

From Toronto too, and want to go to Parsons as well. What's the tuition fee in Canadian dollars (the site was so confusing)? I'm kinda scared... but I think I need to know

Well, at least I have three more years to decide... but I don't know where else I want to go if not Parsons. FIT? Or somewhere in Toronto? And I'm not sure about Ryerson.

 

[erinina]

i am right there with you! i went to pratt and am now in debt $38,000. first of all, the tuition is the highest in the state next to nyu - where is all of that money going????!!!!! the campus is pretty, but needs a lot of work. the professors do not get paid very much.

secondly, i had scholarships and grants, but not full. i still needed to take out money so i could pay the rest of my tuition and - oh yeah! - survive. eat, buy supplies, etc.

third, on the paying back, i pay almost $600 a month back. and i even consolidated. i will be paying money back until i die, i swear! all of the money goes to interest so the balance goes up and up and up.

i recently called my loan "counselor" to ask if there were any other solutions, and she sounded like she was about 12. i asked her if she was in a similar situation with her loans, and she said "oh, no, my dad took care of it". not all of us have parents that can pay back for us!!!!

it is frustrating. and as artists even more so because a lot of us (like me) freelance for a living and it is not always steady. i had to take a crappy 9-5 just to get a regular paycheck and benefits.

 

[BerlinRocks]

OMG poor american students! (i mean i know it was expensive but not THAT EXPENSIVE!)...i guess that's why "poor" people stay in sh*t while "rich" kids go to get a even better job than dad'. in France a 15,000$ a year school is - I think - the most expensive. and it's really expensive!!! it's absolutely insane to pay SOOO much for education!!!!!
have you ever thought of coming to Europe? the travel will cost a lot, the acclimatation might be hard (even if there're a lot of foreigners) but honestly this is less expensive.

what i do not understand is that, you guys, ask money to your bank??!! sounds really crazy!