Parsons School of Design at The New School presented the MFA Fashion Runway Showcase 2025, featuring the collections of Generation 14 during New York Fashion Week. Fifteen designers took the stage, presenting work that reflected individual exploration while contributing to a shared vision of fashion’s future.
The showcase was structured with direct student involvement at every stage. For casting, designers presented their ideas to Anita Bitton, founder of Establishment Casting, who worked with them to align models with each concept. The soundtrack also came directly from student input, shaped from their reference tracks into a final score anchored by Tahlia’s Lachrymose and Rita Lee’s Chega Mais.
Tuomas Laitinen, Director of Parsons MFA Fashion, Design, and Art in Paris, and Liliana Sanguino, Co-Director of MFA Fashion Design and Society in New York, guided the creative direction. Fashion journalist and lecturer Katharine K. Zarrella collaborated with students on their biographies and show notes, ensuring their voices and intentions informed the presentation.
Plains Cree designer Jontay Kahm expands the ribbon skirt into menswear with Beyond Vessels, creating a non-gender-conforming line that merges elements of regalia with colors of oxblood, horizon blue, sunlit orange, and gunmetal black. Indonesian designer Karina Nasywa Bakri reimagines kebaya lace and family traditions in sculptural silhouettes while integrating reclaimed outdoor gear and Chantilly lace, producing a palette inspired by early 2000s Indonesian imagery. Shanghai-based Mikaeru Mo develops Cut by Wind, Sewn by Hand, combining suiting and technical outerwear with Fidlock snaps, waterproof nylon, and thermal insulation to build adaptable garments for both city life and extreme climates.
Beijing-born Yingdi Xiong reconstructs patchwork traditions from Chinese wedding garments using textile waste, with sugar-water stiffening creating sculptural sleeves and collars that preserve cultural memory in contemporary knitwear. New York–based Lillian Tuttle mines clown aesthetics and press-room tailoring to construct garments that embrace vulnerability, using felting and waxing to expose inner fabrics and propose playful redefinitions of dress. Iranian-born Maryam Yazdanpanah introduces Warrior of the Bare Mountain, a series of six archetypes drawn from samurai codes, family influence, and nomadic identity, realized through deadstock textiles in saturated hues. Peruvian designer Camila Bustamante reflects on teenage life shaped by the internet in mid-2010s Lima, using neoprene and Japanese denim to layer garments that mimic digital flatness and carry nostalgic references to Tumblr and YouTube.
Italian designer Francesca Salis reframes Sardinian dress through her family roots, using silk, leather, chiffon, and reclaimed textiles to construct silhouettes that question gender codes, with Artemisia Gentileschi as an influence for emotional charge. Sustilé Blank, known as SKNDLSS, channels Detroit nightlife and queer performance into Softening the Edges, pairing stainless steel with lace, silk, tulle, and horsehair in looks influenced by 2000s fantasy television. Armenian-born Abel Martirosyan presents Valley of the Mythic, drawing from Armenian costume traditions like nuns’ robes and shepherds’ cloaks to create silhouettes of chiffon, felt, and lace that explore protection and identity. Ecuadorian designer Kimberly Ortega develops The Art of the Unwanted, reworking deadstock and second-hand materials into garments that reference Ecuador’s authorship of the Panama hat while integrating iraca palm craft with leather.
Iranian designer Dina Mahrouz transforms memories of constriction into sculptural freedom with From Framework to Freedom, using second-hand garments and Iranian geometric motifs within a monochrome palette to move from restriction to release. Taiwanese designer Chi-An Yu presents About Time, bonding tracing paper to fabric to reshape suits into garments that act as letters, carrying memory, regret, and reflections on authority and love. Chinese-born Effe Qi He, recipient of a CFDA Scholarship, constructs 31: Offside Identity as a manifesto that combines vintage sportswear, lace, neon, and armor-like bras to reframe femininity and uniform codes. Colombian designer Alejandra Parra Parodi closes with Skins for Undomesticated Thoughts, a collection inspired by Latin American women writers, pairing Colombian leather with iraca palm artistry by Marelys Escalante to create silhouettes that balance vulnerability and power.
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