The Museum at FIT Fashion Culture Podcast

Transforming Fashion Education | New Directions in Fashion Research Symposium

How can fashion schools institutionally cultivate support and accelerate the many changes already happening in the classroom around inclusion and equity? Ben Barry, Dean of Fashion at Parsons School of Design, explores the decolonization work at Parsons and the successes, challenges, and discussions that arose from that process.

Ben Barry was named to the Vogue Business inaugural “100 Innovators” list in 2022. Barry is leading the Parsons fashion community to embed equity, inclusion, and justice in its curriculum and culture. His current research, funded by the Ford Foundation, explores how to redesign fashion education and the fashion industry to enable disabled designers to thrive.

This talk, "Transforming Fashion Education: Possibilities and Limits of Equity, Inclusion, and Decolonization," was originally given in 2024 at MFIT’s New Direction in Fashion Research Symposium. 

The Museum at FIT’s 31st symposium, New Directions in Fashion Research, focused on new avenues of study in the interdisciplinary field of fashion. Scholars, curators, and collectors explored topics such as practice-based research, collecting practices, theories and methodologies, and the role of diversity, equity, and inclusion in fashion education.

Read Transcript (pdf)

The Museum at FIT (MFIT) is the only museum dedicated exclusively to the art of fashion in New York City. https://www.fitnyc.edu/museum

Christian Siriano and Becca McCharen-Tran on Designing with Inclusivity in Mind | Fashion Culture

Christian Siriano and Becca McCharen-Tran in conversation with Kim Jenkins at The Museum at FIT's 19th fashion symposium, Fashion and Physique, held on Friday, February 23, 2018. The one-day symposium featured lectures and panels on topics such as the emergence of the plus-size fashion industry in the early twentieth century, the impact of popular culture on how we assess the female body, and fashion accessibility for the disabled in the technological age.

Watch the full video with captions on YouTube.

The Museum at FIT (MFIT) is the only museum dedicated exclusively to the art of fashion in New York City. https://www.fitnyc.edu/museum

Fashioning Today’s Woman with Tim Gunn | Fashion Culture

Tim Gunn in conversation with Dr. Valerie Steele at The Museum at FIT's 19th fashion symposium, Fashion and Physique, held on Friday, February 23, 2018. The one-day symposium featured lectures and panels on topics such as the emergence of the plus-size fashion industry in the early twentieth century, the impact of popular culture on how we assess the female body, and fashion accessibility for the disabled in the technological age.

Watch the full video with captions on YouTube.

The Museum at FIT (MFIT) is the only museum dedicated exclusively to the art of fashion in New York City. https://www.fitnyc.edu/museum