Parsons Benefit Runway Show 2016

The annual Parsons Benefit at The New School is a collaboration between Parsons School of Design and the College of Performing Arts.  It is an opportunity to honor members of the greater design and performance community who exemplify our university's mission while raising scholarship funds to support students throughout The New School. Combining student performance and presentation of student fashion collections, the runway show from the 2016 Parsons Benefit showcases the next generation of creative talent.

The collection, White Memory, represents Sijun’s vision of people before her parents divorced when she was a child. The story behind the collection is one that Sijun does not usually discuss with people because it makes her sad. Sijun found a way to share her story without telling it verbally

Yun’s passion for finding humor naturally guided her towards a direction of play. Yun always begins with a humorous inspiration and an unconventional approach to develop her concept; this is constant throughout her projects.

"This collection has been an opportunity to take lessons I have learned working in both costume designa and fashion design over the past few years, and apply them to create something that is both here and there. I believe that ultimately the difference between the two worlds is simply context, that no garment is inherently one or the other. This collection is a a means of transportation and transformation to a place of fantasy, joy and exploration."

Song's collection was inspired by the garment-making process and the people behind it in New York City. It developed from her transformation through continuous realizations about the process of making clothes, starting from learning how to cut, make, and trim in college, and evolving through factory visits and the experience of working with them.

Jen's thesis is about a search for identity through the discovery of my mom’s stamp collection. Her collection is not only an accumulation of stamps, but also the mapping and preservation of moments in my history and society at large.

Jaya seeks to push the boundaries set by the limitations within menswear while still taking in account the importance of wearability.

Tiffany Huang's collection is about the experience of looking at the city from an aerial perspective versus the physical experience of walking through it

Ace Kim's works are inspired by stories that are environmental, sociopolitical, ethical, and convey serious messages through a sense of humor.

Ya Jun Lin was inspired by signal waves and white noise as her computer crashed while she was researching images.

For this collection Conrad Sun wanted to create an imaginary world, one in which it’s considered a sin or crime to have identity or conscience

Wei's thesis collection is a result of attempting to solve a problem: waste. No matter how much the fashion industry tries to be environmentally aware, it’s profit oriented, which means one is still trying to sell more in order to earn higher revenue.

Aven's skating and artistic mindsets are utilized and transferred into his design process through technical and conceptual approaches.

Zuoyu's collection is a presentation of 6 different kinds of food waste: lettuce, sweetcorn, tomato, carrot, cauliflower and onion. Using household waste statistics of categories of food waste, number sets are put into data visualization codes to generate image output.

This collection is about the designer's experience with social anxiety and the choice to embrace and challenge these emotions.

"Exsolutio" is an organic, biodegradable 3-D-printed second skin that can be customized according to the needs of the person wearing it. The second skin isn’t just an adjustable shield but also a supporting structure for a variety of interchangeable garments.

“Disconnect” is a sustainable collection that focuses on the codes of washable luxury and employs zero-waste pattern-cutting.

This collection was inspired by Song's living space—her Scandinavian furniture, her large globe floor lamp, her wool cashmere blanket, all of which created an atmosphere of security, comfort, and warmth reminiscent of her Korean home. Song wanted to bring people into her personal sanctuary, as a designer who believes that there’s no boundary separating design.

Moon Choi has used her craft to break down the barriers between male and female, representing how individual can adopt any identity they choose, giving them power over their own lifestyle.

"Last summer I found myself atop a glacier in Svalbard, in the Norwegian archipelago, hoping it wouldn’t calve beneath my feet. I ended up in that spot because I wanted my thesis to revolve around exploration and inhabiting the uninhabitable, so I thought trekking glacial landscapes would come in handy".

For my thesis collection, titled “The Daydreamer,” I drew inspiration from Frances Burnett’s The Secret Garden. The collection sets out in an escapist dream of the nostalgic old English countryside, where a little girl finds herself in the middle of a magical garden.

Inspired by a group of concealed Chinese hermits avoiding the noise and perils of life, Xianyuan's current collection combines her visual preference of seeing 2-dimensionally with her understanding of the Chinese spirit of “concealing”.

Angela Luna designed her thesis to help Syrian Refugees.

Ezra's collection for her thesis involved simple silhouettes, but highly graphic printed fabrics. The fabrics also had a trompe 'loeil effect. Individual motifs within her prints popped out in a 3D quilted effect.