Fashion of Tomorrow
Every year, thousands of fashion design students graduate across the globe. They choose our awesome industry early on, perfecting the multi-faceted size charts, immense attention to detail and begin learning what it's like to work on-set shooting their look books and finding their place in the market. Many will go on to design for house hold names like Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger and Oscar De La Renta - others may start their own brand but for now, they are the Fashion Designers of Tomorrow: Kaitlyn Fitzgerald, Meredith Braum & Soo Yeon Lim all graduated from Parsons School of Fashion and concentrated on childrenswear. Get to know a bit more about them and their impeccable, innovative and unique work upon graduating.
"This collection was made to fill the void in the market for the pre-teen age group. Dressing at this age can be tricky; girls are forming their own identity and want to dress to show their personality, but they are limited to buying clothes that are either designed for a much younger demographic, or for those starting to become young adults. There is no inbetween for this age and my collection explores how to bridge the gap between these two markets by creating clothes that embrace the follies of youth while at the same time taking a step into maturity. All of my silhouettes are flat and simple, but I’m adding the playfulness of a child’s touch by way of graphics and prints that represent the wonder of being young. My clothes are for kids, but they wouldn’t look out of place on an adult or even in the closet of a costume designer. The collection features my own original prints and explores different ways of creating print including silk screening, digital printing, hand painting, and embroidery." - Kaitlyn Fitzgerald
"For me, designing childrenswear just fit. I stumbled upon it in my design studio class at the end of my sophomore year during a project in which we were required to design for a group outside of our comfort zone and I chose kids. In that moment, it was as if I had finally found what I had been searching for this whole time and discovered my purpose. The world is a much different place now than it was when I was a kid, there’s more of an importance placed on sustainability and creating clothing with a purpose. Throughout my time at Parsons, teachers tried to push my classmates and I beyond our creative bubble and find solutions to problems we didn’t know existed yet. And that is exactly how I landed on my thesis collection, my entire year focused on creating a solution to a problem most people didn’t see. Well, they see it, they just chose to accept it as truth and move on from it. I noticed how quickly children go through their clothing and how much money their parents were spending to keep up with their ever-growing bodies. My mission became this: Kids need clothes that grow with them, not out of them. With that in mind, I created a line of modular children's clothing that allows for changeability and serve multiple purposes for the user. Pants grow longer and wider, sweaters are reversible and change colors in the sun, and jackets can be worn more than one or two ways. Every garment was made with the user in mind, I wanted to give kid’s clothing that was tactile in some way that could help them explore things like zippers and buttons but also be wearable for longer than 2-3 months. By creating clothing that can be worn longer months’ parents are afforded the opportunity to save money, the earth is one small step closer to sustainability, and most importantly children are given the opportunity to connect with their clothing and have it be a part of their story for more than a blink of an eye.
I have faith that I will be able to launch my dreams into a reality with a collection available for purchase one day. If my clothing could bring a small amount of awareness to creating a sustainable life or just an understanding of how our clothing can bring positive change I will have done my job. I think right now is a very exciting time for fashion, and I think it is young people like my classmates and I that have the power to create change and bring about awareness." -Meredith Braun
"When I was young I use to love the feeling of feeling pretty like a princess. I would always want to dress like the Disney princesses but I would look funny or stand out if I would wear the Disney costumes everyday. My goal is to create a garment that can make girls feel like a princess without having to stand out, yet look sophisticated and elegant. I love using high end fabrics that are comfortable for children's soft skin and the environment. I also love finishing my garments using seam binding, unusual for childrenswear due to high cost, for strong construction so that the garments do not become worn out easily, yet have the high-end clean finishing. I love to look at the girls faces when they wear my garment because their eyes are full with confidence and feel extremely beautiful. Each individual child is so precious. I will continue to make garments for these amazing kids so that they know how special they are!" - Soo Yeon Lim