The Up-and-Comers Show Their Stuff

By Karin Nelson
Fashion Wire Daily

Fashion Wire Daily NY May 14, 2003 - Should their careers in design not work out, there's always show production, as the graduating class at Parsons School of Design proved Tuesday night.

For the first time in the school's history, the students ran the show, so to speak, staging their own runway presentation to showcase their senior projects to the fashion industry at large. And with Ben Cho, Jill Stuart, Nanette Lepore and David Dalrymple from The House of Field, as well as reps from Barneys, Jeffreys and Saks, Marc Jacobs, Michael Kors, Calvin Klein, Donna Karan, and Helmut Lang all seated front row at the neo-gothic Angel Orensanz Foundation (each with overstuffed goody bags at their feet), the kids pulled off a first-rate job on a bottom-line budget.

"We're trading in pomp and circumstance for a chance to exhibit a variety of student work," said senior Josh Prim, who helped organize the effort when he wasn't designing his menswear.

As for the fashion, with at least two looks from 70 designers, the audience had much to mull over. While folks like Ben Cho and David Dalrymple were in attendance to support their interns and design assistants, others were fully sourcing the talent pool for tomorrow's strongest designers. After all, Parsons did produce design darlings Proenza Schouler, whose senior project last year translated into a collection that Barneys squeezed their buying budget to include.

And though several of the designers might have benefited by a bit more schooling, the majority of the looks were cool, impeccably crafted, and entirely wearable -- the kind of clothes one could see hanging on the hippest store racks next season.