Is the MA Fashion Studies for you?  A current first year graduate student expresses her enthusiasm for the progressive program and comments on fashion’s broader social and historical importance:

Despite only being ten weeks into my first semester at Parsons, I have found the MA Fashion Studies program to be transformative.  After searching all across the country and world for a graduate program in fashion, the MA Fashion Studies program stood out to me because of its understanding of fashion as a major cultural industry.    Everyone in the program comes from such different backgrounds, yet we all agree on fashion’s formative role in our society.  From the readings and class discussions, it has become increasingly clear to me that the study of fashion reveals many of the deepest aspirations and desires of not simply those who design clothing, but that fashion itself—the clothing worn—mirrors societal values and aesthetic standards that are at that moment either in the process of being validated or contested by society at large.

Since the age of three, I have been drawn to fashion.  From meticulously assembling outfits for my dolls to riffling through a dresser to marvel at my grandmother’s wedding gown, fashion afforded me the opportunity to gain a better understanding of myself as well as my grandmother.  Even from such a young age, I was struck by strong feelings when looking at beautiful, meaningful clothes.  My interest has only increased over the years.  Throughout my life, I have combated individuals who consider fashion frivolous, yet who can deny that clothing speaks volumes about persons, places, and times.

To me, the study of fashion promises opportunities to examine dress in its functional, psychological, moral, and aesthetic applications.  Unlike any other species, we cover our bodies with clothing for purposes not limited to protection from the cold or as a shield from the sun, but to communicate with other human beings in ways as nuanced and as rich as speech.  The opportunity designers have to comment on the human body, to make use of the materials provided by nature and applied science as the raw materials for clothing, is never ending.  As fashion evolves it engages in active discourse across many generations with other designers and designs.  This fact suggests to me that the study of fashion promises a vineyard of rich historical inquiry.

In addition to extensive research in fashion and design, I am excited to learn more about how fashion, society, and history intertwine during my time at Parsons.  I am interested in how cultural norms arise, become adopted, and are embedded into our society. For example, I want to explore the relationship between gender/identity and fashion.  Why is the dress a symbol for females?  Ancient Roman men wore togas, so when did the split occur?  Societies construct binaries in order to understand and categorize the world: male/female, white/black, rich/poor, etc.  The social order is not natural or God-given, but rather, a human construct.  Fashion can be used to further inscribe a binary’s rigidity.  However, truly great designers question and challenge ingrained societal conventions.  Fashion has the ability to be the enemy of sleepwalking—it works away at the everyday practice of passively and uncritically taking in the phenomenological world.  It awakens our imaginations and facilitates an acceptance of new, revolutionary ideas.

I applied to Parsons’ Fashion Studies program in order to expand my knowledge of fashion history and theory as well as to enter a community that embraces passionately fashion’s importance in our world.  As a person who wants to become an expert and a scholar in fashion history, I find the interdisciplinary approach to Fashion Studies to be a way to infuse new vitality into cultural studies that promise to bring new understanding to questions of individual and social identity.  Fashion has so many facets and connections to broader issues of the human condition.  With a MA in Fashion Studies, I hope to work in museums, fashion archives, galleries, or fashion houses.

-Elizabeth Black, class of 2014

For more about faculty, courses, and requirements, visit:

www.newschool.edu/parsons-mafs