LIZ CLAIBORNE AWARD: CONCEPT TO PRODUCT

Kelsy Parkhouse was the inaugaral Pratt recipient of the Liz Claiborne Concept to Product Award for her 2012 senior thesis collection. Her 2012 collection was inspired by americana and the geological forms and color story of the West. Her founding collection drew inspiration from the handmade American quilt, a textile that continues to inform her aesthetic both visually and metaphorically. She utilized traditional quilting and patchwork techniques to create her looks and sourced vintage textiles to add a range of colors, patterns, and as a sense of nostalgia to the collection. She used the award money to expand her original five-look collection and found her own line, Carleen. The line has enjoyed multiple mentions on Vogue.com and a pair of denim trousers from the Fall '14 collection were modeled by Kendall Jenner in the January issue of the magazine. 

In 2013, Madeline Gruen received the Liz Claiborne Concept to product award for her senior thesis collection of formalwear looks for both men and women. Her looks combined precise tailoring, patterned textiles, and detailed embellishment in a color story of indigo and white. Some notable pieces included an Elizabethan-style gown with voluminous accordion-pleated organza, a hand-beaded all white three-piece suit, and a floor-length navy tulle gown with a beaded white mock-neck that faded down the shoulders. In addition to the Liz Claiborne Award, Madeline Gruen was also the the recipient of the Pratt Fashion Entrepreneurship Award to help support the start of her career. The Entrepreneurship Award gave the young designer one year of free access to the Brooklyn Fashion and Design Accelerator. 

Julia Wollner is an artist and fashion designer based in Brooklyn, New York. In 2014 she graduated from Pratt Institute and was that year's recipient of the Liz Claiborne Award. Her collection drew inspiration from personal experience and a struggle with Bell's Palsey. She showcased garments that re-created the feelings of sterility and constraint through the use of clean lines, innovative silhouettes, and inventive fabrication. Wollner created her own textiles to help shape the distinctive looks she was trying to achieve by printing onto organza that she stiffened with iron-on vinyl. 

The 2015 recipient of the Liz Claiborne Award was Claire McKinney. Her 2015 thesis collection was inspired by her family's farming history and by the aesthetics of rural and urban workwear. To create her looks, she deconstructed and re-imagined utilitarian garments and non-conventional construction materials like used denim jeans, a blanket from the Salvation Army, or Tyvek-like fabric that she had seen used to cover plants on a farm in Sweden. Through material research and experimentation, she turned these into oversized smock dresses, dismantled jeans, voluminous white shirts, layered aprons, and jumpsuits for her ten-look collection. After graduating from Pratt in 2015, McKinney showed in the Ralph Pucci Showroom during New York's Fall Fashion Week and joined the design team at Creatures of Comfort.

Jihyun Kim was the 2016 recipient of the Liz Claiborne Concept to Product Award for her senior thesis collection. Through her collection, Kim explored depictions of femininity, power and beauty. Kim was inspired by portraits of women painted by master artists like Matisse and Picasso but looked at them with a critical eye, noting that many male artists garnered fame and recognition through their depictions of female beauty. She wanted to create a collection with the feel of fine art created from her unique perspective as a female designer that would be empowering to women. The looks presented pouf-sleeved pink dresses, exaggerated silhouettes that reshaped the figure, and painterly brush strokes applied directly on the textiles. The models were accessorized with plastic bags hanging from their wrists and necks. Inside each was a vintage glass doll, another historical representation of women and femininity.