In the second of this
two-part report on remote teaching in which FashionUnited spoke with three
educators, Simon Ungless, Executive Director, School of Fashion at the
Academy of Art University in San Francisco; Elisa Palomino, Senior Lecturer
of BA Fashion Print at London’s Central Saint Martins; and Shelley Fox,
Director, MFA Fashion Design & Society at Parsons in New York City, the
future of sustainability looks decidedly rosy. It seems, after about six
weeks of students working from home, one of its pillars, upcycling, has
elevated their creativity to unprecedented levels. Without access to
conventional materials, students’ creations are organically aligning with
overarching environmental and societal needs. Palomino threw down the
gauntlet when she created a brief entitled “Couture in Confinement,” which,
she says, “urged students to rethink their status being confined at home
with limited materials or technology, to reflect on overconsumption and
waste, to commit to reverse the damage done by being mindful, and to
recuperate, repair, reuse, recycle and upcycle.” One student responded by
draping and sampling with two old shower curtains her mother hadn’t thrown
out. Another used bed slats to make a mould and deckle and scavenged old
tissue, dead insects, hair and pieces of soap to craft her own version of
the Japanese tradition of washi paper making.
Palomino believes lessons learned in lockdown will be locked into their
practice for good. “Students will be using a combination of traditional
craftsmanship and low technology to produce incredible collections,” she
says. “Using old and forgotten techniques with reused and
recycled materials from home, creating a reciprocity between craftsmanship
and innovation in techniques and materials.”
Will Covid make fashion education less international?
While this localized craftsmanship is to be celebrated, the
internationalism that is integral to modern fashion education will surely
suffer. Palomino has built up quite a teaching portfolio having shared her
expertise with students at institutions such as Polimoda in Florence, The
Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Iceland Academy of the Arts, Shenkar
University, and Bunka Gakuen, to name a few. Whether experts will even be
asked to deliver lectures or be flown in for workshops anymore is one of
the myriad uncertainties arising from the pandemic. Another is how the
global pandemic might curb the flow of international students to schools
which have come to rely on their higher tuition fees.
For the past decade the most competitive US fashion schools have
presented study away opportunities in NYC, Paris, Florence, Hong Kong, as
jewels in their educational offerings. Many of those satellite campuses are
shutting for fall. Parents reluctant to send their children to fashion
capitals which also tend to be pandemic epicenters, are even less inclined
to fund a study away remote learning semester with the NYC campus during
which their child lives at home, not benefiting from industry internships
nor experiencing the cultural and networking opportunities the city is
known for. Students, faced with the possibility of an online fall semester,
are petitioning for tuition discount to compensate for the lack of
facilities and equipment. Meanwhile schools are swallowing lost revenue
from the spring semester and implementing budget cuts, lay offs, and hiring
freezes.
Even in a pre-coronavirus world, enrollment in third-level education had
been steadily dropping, tuition fees were through the roof, and voices
questioning the need for a four-year program as the only route to career
success were growing louder. Covid-19 will have a sweeping impact on the
teetering education system, but these instructors who happen to be on the
frontlines helping to mold tomorrow’s visionaries inevitably have some
thoughts of their own.
Fashion shows are a dinosaur
While pedagogical shifts can traditionally be slow to occur, Ungless
says, “Covid 19 has pushed us off the ledge of discussing change, we no
longer have the luxury of complaining about outdated systems yet not doing
anything about it.” His radar is fixed on the long-standing program
outcomes for a fashion degree, namely, the senior collection and fashion
show. “It bears no relationship to the reality of the fashion industry and
the jobs that are actually out there,” he says. “Why do we all do this?
Marketing for the school, perhaps a few tears for student portfolios, but
who really cares? Fashion shows are a dinosaur.”
Pandemic’s effect on graduate fashion shows
Graduate shows have been headline-making for the past quarter century,
but Ungless believes the time has finally come for a more student- and
industry-centric approach, and one which is less about raising the profile
of the academic establishment. We’ve become used to seeing the work of
young designers flood our social media feeds around this time of year after
a star turn in a graduate show ignites a media firestorm––last year the
spotlight chose Fredrik Tjærandsen. But when the glare fades these young
creatives still have to return to their small rentals and, usually alone,
figure out a plausible career path for themselves, despite being courted by
celebrity stylists and photographers. Ungless says, “What we are doing is
looking at what the students need skill-wise for graduation and employment
based off of their individual goals and then working backwards to create a
curriculum that serves that.” Recognizing that all students are different
is paramount, and Ungless believes that not all talent can be siphoned
through the same standard mettle test: the end-of-year runway spectacle.
“There are so many ways to present a skill set and design aesthetic and
this moment in time has given us the opportunity to explore what that truly
means.”
Fox is also pragmatic about the need for change in our industry. “Our
experience is not their experience and so without the baggage they are in a
position to see it all in a different light and respond to it with some
creative thinking,” she says. But one change she will not sign off on is a
permanent virtual classroom and she shudders to imagine starting a year
with a batch of incoming students onscreen. “In terms of remote teaching,
for this program it doesn’t work in my opinion,” she says, “I see it as a
short term solution that we have had to deal with, but also we have worked
closely with our graduating students for almost two years so we know their
personalities and how far we can push them, when to pull back etc, whatever
it is you need to do to get the best work from them.” Like Ungless she
prioritizes a fashion program which reflects the industry at large, and
that typically thrives on collaboration, something which is a feature of
her MFA program. Photographers, art directors, parfumiers, choreographers,
business consultants, filmmakers all come together on the teaching roster
to facilitate the entirety of the students’ vision.
What students are losing out on during lockdown versus what internal
goldmine they are being forced to tap into is perhaps a debate for further
down the road. But Ungless sees opportunities to cultivate. Students
exhibiting their work outside of school sanctioned systems can be valuable
and the resourcefulness that lockdown has instilled will be game changing
for the class of 2020. “Learning how to work, source and communicate in an
online environment is incredibly important as more companies and jobs go
this way,” he says.
Certainly this year’s graduates will need to harness all of these
strengths to navigate the harsh employment landscape that inevitably awaits
in a post-pandemic world. But first things first, there is still the matter
of Fox’s MFA Design & Society cohort whose collections were halted when the
building closed and for which she is working on setting up industry support
and budget to get runway-ready. The MFA collections have been shown every
September during New York Fashion Week and whether that will happen this
year or not is yet another unknown. Still, Fox who is in contact with
factories and industry in both New York and LA will prepare for all
contingencies. She is convinced her students will do likewise. “I think
there will be students who will look at this situation and look at the
bigger picture in terms of what they want this industry to look like,” she
says, “and then they will work out what their role could be in contributing
to the needed change.”
deals with faculty mobilization, the
geographical challenges and mental health issues arising during lockdown
and student performance
Fashion editor Jackie Mallon is also an educator and author of Silk
for the Feed Dogs, a novel set in the international fashion
industry.
Photos provided by Shelley Fox, Simon Ungless and Elisa Palomino. Work
shown by Amanda Colares Silva, Christie Lau, and Theerapon Ekster
Angsupanich.
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