VisionSOF: Reimagining Parsons' School of Fashion

When people think of fashion education, they think of Parsons!

Our school has a renowned international reputation for creative and rigorous pedagogy that prepares students to assume leading roles in the design and business of fashion. This reputation attests to the brilliance of our faculty and staff, and the originality of our students and alumni.

Since we started teaching the next generation of fashion leaders over a century ago, the fashion industry and world has changed. There has been a deep questioning of how our field reinforces the continuing legacies of settler colonialism and trans-atlantic slave trade, and there is a deep desire to create an industry that redresses this harm and grounds transformative justice.

Within this context, the time has come for us to answer some very important questions. "What do we want our purpose to be as a school? In the fashion industry? In the world?"

Over the 2021-2022 academic year, the School of Fashion will be asking our community these very questions in order to develop a revised mission statement and guiding principles, as well as identify concrete actions to move our new vision into practice. This initiative, VisionSOF: Reimagining Our Purpose, will be led by a working group of SOF students, staff and faculty who will engage their peers, colleagues and alumni to understand what we as a community want our purpose to be.