Pratt Institute’s senior class of fashion designers will present stunning, original looks for women and men at the Pratt Institute Fashion Show on Thursday, April 26, 2012 at 2 and 6 PM at Center548 at 548 West 22nd Street in Manhattan. Fern Mallis, creator of New York Fashion Week, former executive director of the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA), and former senior vice president of IMG Fashion, will be honored with the Pratt Institute Fashion Industry Lifetime Achievement Award at the 6 PM show. The award will be presented by designer Calvin Klein. Funding for the 2012 Pratt Fashion Show was awarded in part through a competitive grant presented to Pratt Institute by the Importer Support Program of the Cotton Board and managed by Cotton Incorporated.
Pratt Institute will hold a cocktail benefit in honor of Mallis at PH-D Rooftop Lounge at Dream Downtown at 355 West 16th Street in Manhattan immediately following the show. Tickets to the 6 PM fashion show and the 7:30 PM cocktail benefit honoring Mallis are available for purchase at www.pratt.edu/fashionshow. Proceeds from ticket sales will benefit student scholarships and Pratt Institute’s Department of Fashion Design. Members of the press should contact Amy Aronoff at 718-636-3554 or [email protected] to attend. Credentials will be required.
“We are so thrilled to honor Fern Mallis, who has championed the importance of fashion design in New York City and worldwide,” said Pratt Institute President Thomas F. Schutte. “We greatly appreciate all of our supporters who are helping to benefit the next generation of fashion design students at Pratt,” he added.
The 2012 Pratt Fashion Show will feature the best work by graduating seniors from Pratt’s Department of Fashion Design. The collections to be shown on the runway will be pre-selected by a panel of industry experts and press and will span several categories of fashion. One of the most prestigious colleges for art, design, and architecture in the world, Pratt Institute is home to the first fashion-design program in the United States.
“This year’s runway show will be dynamic and experimental, simultaneously showcasing individual student collections as well as the students’ work as a whole,” said Jennifer Minniti, who was named chair of the Pratt Fashion Design Department in summer 2011. “The presentation will celebrate the authenticity and strength of our students’ creative approaches to design,” she added.
Fern Mallis, the 2012 Pratt Fashion Show honoree, will be the seventh person to be honored at Pratt’s annual runway show. Hamish Bowles, Vogue’s European editor at large was honored last year following Catherine Malandrino in 2010, Ralph Rucci in 2009, Carmen Marc Valvo in 2008, Narciso Rodriguez in 2007, and Diane von Furstenberg in 2006.
Cotton Incorporated, funded by U.S. growers of upland cotton and importers of cotton and cotton textile products, is the research and marketing company representing upland cotton. The Program is designed and operated to improve the demand for and profitability of cotton.
About Pratt Institute:
Globally recognized for its distinguished academic reputation, Pratt Institute is one of the world’s most prestigious independent colleges. Founded in 1887, Pratt offers undergraduate and graduate degree programs to 4,700 students from around the world in architecture, art and design, information and library science, and liberal arts and sciences. Pratt’s programs are consistently ranked among the best in the country, and its faculty and alumni include the most renowned artists, designers, and scholars in their fields who collectively have produced some of the most innovative and iconic works of our time. Pratt’s inspirational campus in the Clinton Hill section of Brooklyn and in Manhattan on West 14th Street places it in one of the world’s cultural epicenters and provides its students with unparalleled training facilities. Pratt is currently in the midst of a 16-month celebration of its rich 125-year history of creativity. For more information on Pratt’s 125th Anniversary, visit www.pratt.edu/125.
