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 06/04/2008
New SCAD major enlarges college's fashion footprint
SAVANNAH, Ga. -- Beginning Fall 2008, the Savannah College of Art and Design will offer Bachelor of Fine Arts, Master of Arts and Master of Fine Arts degrees in accessory design.
From the time of the ancient Sumerians with their hammered bronze jewelry to the present-day characters such as Carrie Bradshaw and company with their designer footwear, women and men alike have donned accessories to complement their garments. Many established fashion houses have added accessories to their runway, ready-to-wear, haute couture and cruise lines. To complement this growing industry, SCAD introduces a major in accessory design to enhance its burgeoning fashion department.
SCAD offers a rich program, providing students with the career skills necessary to meet and exceed industry standards in the accessory design field, understand a variety of products within the market that currently exist, and create designs yet to be conceptualized. Furthermore, on the graduate level, the program offers students not only construction and production knowledge and the design skills geared specifically toward accessory design, but also the skills to execute, present and market finished prototypes of complete product lines.
"We are thrilled to take our largest stand-alone minor and have it grow to such great program recognition heights as the only M.F.A. degree of its kind in the world," said Anthony Miller, fashion and accessory design department chair. "As the SCAD fashion department has developed, it has garnered a lot of industry attention and is considered by some of the industry's leaders as one of the top design programs. The growth of the accessory design program has created an exciting industry buzz and our proponents are eager to meet with students in this ever-growing area in the fashion world."
In addition to the classes students will take to support their fashion education they will have the opportunity to enroll in courses such as Handbag Design, Footwear Design, Sketching and Rendering, and Computer-aided Design for Accessories.
Each year more than 100 undergraduate and graduate students vie for prestigious slots in the SCAD Fashion Show, which has become one of the top student fashion shows in the country. Selected by a jury process, the students' work is critiqued every step of the way, from sketches to garments, by some of the top professionals in the fashion industry, including designers Lela Rose, Eric Gaskins and David Rodriguez; Michael Fink, vice president of women's fashion at Saks Fifth Avenue; and Ruffian designers Brian Wolk and Claude Morais.
In May 2000, the college honored André Leon Talley with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the annual student fashion show. The award was renamed to include Talley's name and has been presented successively to fashion legends Oscar de la Renta, Karl Lagerfeld, Miuccia Prada, Tom Ford, Vera Wang, Marc Jacobs and John Galliano. In 2004, Zac Posen was honored with the André Leon Talley New Look Award. Talley is a member of the SCAD Board of Trustees and was most recently awarded an honorary Doctor of Humanities degree from SCAD following his commencement speech at the 2008 SCAD graduation ceremonies in Savannah and Atlanta.
The SCAD Fashion Show is the culmination of SCAD Style, the college's month-long style and design series of events highlighting several of the college's programs of study, including fashion, interior design and architecture. This year, the series kicked off with the annual SCAD Style Étoile Awards, which honored interior designer and potter Jonathan Adler, Elle Décor Editor-in-chief Margaret Russell and fashion designer Pierre Cardin.
The SCAD fashion department partners with innovative designers and critics, and brings visiting industry professionals to network with students. The fashion department is a "style lab" in design education and innovation, balancing the development of a student's creative and intellectual skills with necessary practical and professional training specific to the needs of the global apparel industries. Alumni have started successful labels, won prestigious awards and landed jobs working for some of the biggest names in fashion today. For more information, visit www.scad.edu/fashion.
Named one of Kaplan's "25 cutting-edge schools with an eye toward the future," the Savannah College of Art and Design is a private, nonprofit, accredited institution with locations in Atlanta and Savannah, Ga., and in Lacoste, France. Undergraduate and graduate degree programs also are offered online through SCAD-eLearning. The college offers Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Fine Arts, Master of Architecture, Master of Arts, Master of Arts in Teaching, Master of Fine Arts, and Master of Urban Design degrees.
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