Fashion Institute of Technology: Notable Alumni Shaping the World of Fashion and Beyond

The Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), a renowned institution in New York City, has been a launchpad for numerous influential figures in the fashion industry and beyond. FIT is ranked 733rd in the world, 269th in North America, and 249th in the United States by aggregated alumni prominence. This article explores the diverse achievements of some of FIT's most notable alumni, highlighting their impact on fashion, entertainment, politics, and social activism.

Fashion Innovators

Michael Kors

Michael David Kors is an American fashion designer. He is the chief creative officer of his brand, Michael Kors, which sells men's and women's ready-to-wear, accessories, watches, jewelry, footwear, and fragrance. Kors was the first women's ready-to-wear designer for the French house Celine, from 1997 to 2003. On January 2, 2019, Michael Kors Holdings Limited officially changed its name to Capri Holdings Limited (NYSE: CPRI). Michael Kors, Jimmy Choo, and Versace are the three founder-led brands under Capri Holdings Limited.

Christian Siriano

Christian Vincent Siriano is an American fashion designer and member of the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA). Siriano first gained attention after winning the fourth season of American design competition show Project Runway in 2007, becoming the series' youngest winner. He launched his eponymous Christian Siriano collection in 2008, which brought in revenue of over $1.2 million by 2010 and was estimated to have reached $5 million by 2012.

Chloe Dao

Chloe Dao was the winner of the second season of the reality show Project Runway with a collection of women's evening wear. Many of the pieces in her finale collection featured billowing, voluminous sleeves, removable shrugs and strong brocade prints.

Isabel Toledo

Isabel Toledo was a Cuban-American fashion designer based in New York City. She was widely recognized in the fashion industry for her attention to craftsmanship and the "sophisticated simplicity" of her garments.

Bibhu Mohapatra

Bibhu Mohapatra is a New York-based fashion designer and costume designer.

Francisco Costa

Francisco Costa is a Brazilian designer and the Women's Creative Director of Calvin Klein Collection. Costa won the Council of Fashion Designers America (CFDA) award for Womenswear Designer of the Year in 2006 as well as in 2008. Costa also won the National Design Award in 2009 in the category of Fashion Design. More recently he launched a beauty concept called Costa Brazil inspired by his native Brazil (www.livecostabrazil.com).

Austin Scarlett

Austin Scarlett is an American fashion designer and artist known for his appearances on the first season of Project Runway, 2012's Project Runway: All Stars, and his own series, On the Road with Austin and Santino.

Shaina NC

Shaina Nana Chudasama, is an Indian fashion designer, politician, and social worker. Daughter of the former Sheriff of Mumbai, her father, Nana Chudasama, Shaina is known in the Indian fashion industry as the 'Queen of Drapes' for draping a saree (sari) in fifty-four different ways.

Celebrated Performers and Media Personalities

Laverne Cox

Laverne Cox is an American actress and LGBT advocate. She rose to prominence with her role as Sophia Burset on the Netflix series Orange Is the New Black, becoming the first transgender person to be nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award in an acting category, and the first to be nominated for an Emmy Award since composer Angela Morley in 1990. In 2015, she won a Daytime Emmy Award in Outstanding Special Class Special as executive producer for Laverne Cox Presents: The T Word, making her the first trans woman to win the award. broadcast TV as Cameron Wirth on CBS's Doubt.

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Karen Allen

Karen Jane Allen is an American film, television and stage actress. She made her film debut in the comedy film Animal House (1978), which was soon followed by a small role in Woody Allen's romantic comedy-drama Manhattan (1979) and a co-lead role in Philip Kaufman's coming-of-age film The Wanderers (1979), before co-starring opposite Al Pacino in William Friedkin's crime thriller Cruising (1980).

Stephen A. Smith

Stephen Anthony Smith, alternatively recognized as SAS, is an American sports television personality, sports radio host, and sports journalist. He makes frequent appearances as an NBA analyst for ESPN on SportsCenter, NBA Countdown, and the network's NBA broadcasts. He has also hosted The Stephen A. Smith Show on ESPN Radio and is a commentator on ESPN's First Take, where he appears with Molly Qerim. Smith is a featured columnist for ESPN and The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Oscar Nunez

Óscar Núñez, sometimes credited as Oscar Nunez, is a Cuban-American actor and comedian. He is best known for his role as the Dunder Mifflin accountant Óscar Martínez on NBC's The Office.

Sonja Morgan

Sonja Morgan is an American television personality, socialite, entrepreneur and philanthropist. She is popularly known for her starring role on the Bravo reality television series The Real Housewives of New York City.

Aquaria

Giovanni Lucca Palandrani, better known by his stage name Aquaria, is an American drag queen, television personality, and recording artist best known for winning the tenth season of RuPaul's Drag Race in 2018.

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Amber Lee Ettinger

Amber Lee Ettinger is an American actress, Internet celebrity, model, and singer. Most recently she created, produced and starred in Sín Fronteras, a festival nominated short, debuting her first filmmaking endeavor, alongside her best friend Alexis Johnson, co-founder of their film production company Stay the Course Films.

Robert Verdi

Robert Verdi is an American TV personality and style expert. He is known for hosting a variety of TV programs featuring fashion and interior design.

Nina García

Ninotchka "Nina" García is a Colombian-American fashion journalist, the editor-in-chief of Elle, author, and a judge on the Bravo/Lifetime reality television program Project Runway since its first season.

Melissa McCarthy

Melissa McCarthy began her performing career as a stand-up comedian in New York where she appeared at the famous clubs, Stand Up New York and The Improv. She worked on her acting skills at The Actors Studio and appeared in many stage productions in the city before moving to Los Angeles in the late-1990s. She made a number of TV and movie appearances before making her big breakthrough as Sookie in Gilmore Girls (2000).

Influential Figures in Other Fields

Joel Schumacher

Joel T. Schumacher was an American film director, producer and screenwriter. Raised in New York City by his mother, Schumacher graduated from Parsons School of Design and originally became a fashion designer. He first entered filmmaking as a production and costume designer before gaining writing credits on Car Wash, Sparkle, and The Wiz.

Guru

Keith Edward Elam, better known by his stage name Guru (a backronym for Gifted Unlimited Rhymes Universal), was an American rapper, record producer and actor. He was a member of the hip hop duo Gang Starr, along with DJ Premier.

Gulnara Karimova

Gulnara Islamovna Karimova is the elder daughter of Islam Karimov, the president of Uzbekistan from 1991 to his death in 2016. She wielded considerable influence in Uzbekistan owing to her business dealings and family connections. From 2013, due to a conflict with her father, she began to rapidly lose influence.

Georgia Ziadie

Georgia Arianna, Lady Colin Campbell, also known as Lady C, is a British Jamaican author, socialite, and television personality who has published seven unauthorised books about the British royal family.

Enrico Casarosa

Enrico Casarosa is an Italian director, screenwriter and storyboard artist. Best known for his work at Pixar, he has directed the short film La Luna (2011) and the feature film Luca (2021), which both were nominated for Academy Awards.

Elizabeth Crowley

Elizabeth S. Crowley is an American politician. She was previously the New York City Council member for the 30th district from 2009 to 2017, representing the neighborhoods of Glendale, Maspeth, Middle Village, Ridgewood, and parts of Woodside and Woodhaven, in the borough of Queens.

Kim Coco Iwamoto

Kim Coco Iwamoto is an American politician from Hawaii and member of the Hawaii House of Representatives. Iwamoto is the first transgender state legislator in Hawaii history.

Stefano Rosso

Stefano Rosso is an Italian businessman and the co-founder and CEO of D-CAVE, a lifestyle platform for the gaming community. He is also board member of OTB Group, the parent company of the fashion brands Diesel, Maison Margiela, Marni, Viktor & Rolf, Staff International and Brave Kid.

Mallory Hagan

Mallory Hytes Hagan Stramara is an American former news anchor and beauty queen. She had won Miss America 2013 as Miss New York 2012 and campaigned unsuccessfully for the Alabama House of Representatives in 2022.

Janelle Commissiong

Janelle "Penny" Commissiong, TC is a Trinidadian politician, model and beauty queen who was crowned Miss Universe 1977.

Artists and Designers

Nikki S. Lee

Lee Seung-hee, known professionally as Nikki S. Lee, is a South Korean visual artist with a focus on performance, photography, and film. Lee often explores themes of identity through her work - specifically as it relates to others, rather than individual identity. Her photography series Projects (1997-2001) is her first and most notable work, where she camouflages herself as a member of the social and ethnic groups she poses with.

Molly Crabapple

Molly Crabapple is an American artist and writer. She is a contributing editor for VICE and has written for a variety of other outlets, as well as publishing books, including an illustrated memoir, Drawing Blood (2015), Discordia (with Laurie Penny) on the Greek economic crisis, and the art books Devil in the Details and Week in Hell (2012).

Ivy Ross

Ivy Ross is an American business executive, designer, and Chief Design Officer.

Mich Dulce

Mich Dulce is a Filipina fashion designer, milliner, corsetiere, feminist activist, actress, artist and vocalist of bands Death By Tampon, Us-2 Evil-0 and The Male Gaze.

Greta Zimmer Friedman

Greta Friedman was an Austrian-born American who was photographed being grabbed and kissed by Navy sailor George Mendonsa (1923-2019) in the iconic V-J Day in Times Square photograph of 1945 by Life magazine photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt.

Gregory Gale

Gregory Gale is an award-winning costume designer who works in Film, Television, Broadway, Opera, International Productions, Off-Broadway, Regional Theater, Las Vegas, Ballet, and Special Events. Gregory grew up outside of Seattle, Washington and moved to NYC to attend the Fashion Institute of Technology and is known for his meticulous character-driven designs.

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