Photo: Courtesy of FIT
Watch the full conversation between Dr. Joyce Brown and Fashionista Staff Writer Janelle Sessoms on The Fashionista Network.
As the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT)’s first woman and Black president, Dr. Joyce Brown has solidified the New York City-based institution’s reputation as one of the country’s premiere higher education destinations for fashion and the arts. After 26 years serving in FIT’s top position, she’s taking a step back: Dr. Brown announced last year that she will be leaving at the end of this academic year. Reflecting on her decades-long tenure at FIT, she tells Fashionista that she “saw a lot of potential” when she was first eyeing the presidential role, thanks to the institute’s various programs spanning fashion design to toy design.
“FIT is really a great source of talent and fuels the dynamism behind many of the industries that really do make New York City have the vibrancy that it has,” Dr. Brown shared with Fashionista’s Janelle Sessoms on The Fashionista Network. (Watch it here!)
Before joining FIT, Dr. Brown spent the majority of her career in higher education and held multiple positions over 20 years at the City University of New York. When she first arrived at FIT, one of her first initiatives focused on bringing students, faculty, administrators and trustees together to partake in strategic planning conversations about how the college could grow and succeed with the tools (and talent) in its arsenal. With those conversations recurring every five years, FIT regularly addresses its goals and growth opportunities, but as Dr. Brown notes: “You’re never done.”
“What I do think we’ve achieved is a common denominator of belief that there’s many, many things we can do, and that we’re only stymied by our own imagination,” she continued. “If there are limits to our imagination and our expectation, then we’ll say we’re done, but we’re never done. We’re in a great space, I would say, in terms of the interaction that goes on between the various elements and segments of our own community.”
In the full interview, Dr. Brown discussed FIT’s efforts to remain on the cutting edge in fashion technology, including its DTech Lab, which is a design and tech lab for students and faculty to address real-world industry challenges and experiment on possible solutions. (Some of DTech Lab’s projects include the Re.Uniqlo x FIT collection using non-sellable and non-wearable Uniqlo products, as well as developing leg brace covers and bra straps to support those with Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease.)
One of the institute’s largest initiatives is its Social Justice Center (SJC), which was born after the murder of George Floyd in 2020 and offers support and resources to its BIPOC student body through scholarships and mentorships. Dr. Brown notes that talent is equally distributed yet opportunity is not, so the SJC uplifts young artists who otherwise may not have been able to explore their natural talents professionally.
“We’re helping [the] industry meet a goal they stated for themselves, saying they wanted more diversification in the industry, because essentially, diversity really helps the bottom line,” she said. “You’re dealing with a different aesthetic, you’re dealing with a different body type, you’re dealing with different textiles, but that’s what many, many consumers are looking for. And without a diversity of ideas as to how to move forward, they can’t achieve that on their own.”
Dr. Brown also discussed where she sees the future of higher education heading, her advice for prospective students interested in applying to FIT and her plans for the future (she says she is not retiring). “I hope that we’re able to have the next leader with even more forward-looking, visionary kinds of ideas to continue the trajectory for FIT,” she said. Watch the interview here.
This conversation was hosted on The Fashionista Network powered by interactive media platform Fireside, where viewers get the chance to participate and speak directly with industry figures. Learn more about The Fashionista Network here.
Source: Fashionista.com
