women of the garment district: past to present

EVENT DETAILS

Monday, March 18 at 6–8:30 PM

Lagary Boardroom

Ninth Floor, Feldman Center 

Seventh Avenue and West 27th Street

Livestream here

In celebration of Women’s History Month, we will host an event highlighting FIT’s special history with the Garment District, and women’s roles in it. Karen Trivette, Head of Special Collections and Archives at the FIT Library, will moderate a panel that will discuss the past, present, and potential future of the district.

Archival images, contemporary photographs, and documentary footage will illustrate the history of women's roles in shaping the fashion and apparel industry. Following the program, we will host a reception to continue the conversation amongst students, alumni, faculty, and friends of the FIT community.

PANELISTS

Moderated by Karen Trivette, Professor, Head of Special Collections and Archives, FIT Library

Jodie Chan, Global Head of Communications at Carolina Herrera; Executive Producer of Invisible Seams

Michelle Feinberg, Owner and Designer at New York Embroidery Studio, FIT Alum

Dr. Kyunghee Pyun, Associate Professor, History of Art, FIT School of Liberal Arts

Dr. Dan Levinson Wilk, Professor, Social Science, FIT School of Liberal Arts

Joy Mao, Textile Artist and Fashion Designer

Please note this event is 18+.

Jodie Chan is a fashion marketing and communications executive based in New York City, who grew up in Hong Kong and Sydney, Australia. Jodie is passionate about advancing racial equity within the fashion industry and is the executive producer of the Jia Li-directed documentary short Invisible Seams.  

Michelle Feinberg, owner and designer at New York Embroidery Studio, has over 22 years of experience crafting fashion garments and accessories in the Garment District. Dedicated to the art of embroidery and sewing, Michelle leads a talented team of embroiderers, printers, sewers, and artisans, focused on delivering bespoke embroidery and embellishment solutions to transform client visions into reality.

Joy Mao is a Chinese American textile artist, fashion designer, and small business owner based in New York City. She creates small batches of thoughtfully-made items for the Joy Mao brand—centering people, process, and everyday pleasure in pursuit of a more sustainable and joyful way of being. She is currently a Creatives Rebuild New York Teaching Artist at The W.O.W. Project, engaging Chinatown's intergenerational community in programmiung related to garment-making history, labor, and craft.

Dr. Kyunghee Pyun is an Associate Professor of Art History and a scholar of Asian American studies, Asian art, and European medieval art. In collaboration with Daniel Levinson, she won a National Endowment of the Humanities (NEH) Grant to produce a digital humanities site dedicated to teaching business and labor history to art and design students. She received additional NEH funding to develop Shop Girls to Show Girls, an interdisciplinary resource of working-class history, focused on fashion and the creative economy.

Karen Trivette, MLS, ABD is Professor and Head of FIT Library Special Collections and College Archive. At FIT, she oversees the care and provision of over 6000 linear feet of special collections and archives materials. She is a graduate of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (BA Art History) and the University at Albany-State University of New York (MLS Library Science/Archives Management). She currently is pursuing her PhD in Archival Science from Alma Mater Europaea (expected 2024). She has presented at local, national, and international archives conferences, is an active member of and leader in archives organizations, and has written and/or edited publications on topics ranging from fashion forecasting history to archives facility renovation.

Dr. Daniel Levinson Wilk is an Associate Professor of Social Sciences. His work examines the history of American labor, economy, and the intersections between design and labor in the service industry. Dr. Levinson Wilk is a member of the board of Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition, an organization that recently held a design competition to create public art on the building where 1911 industrial disaster took place. The project won $1.5 million in grant funding from New York State to build.