Delphine Durieux Discussed The Opportunities Offered to IFA School through The Rose Gordon Scholarship Program

Young fashion designers in school often work in a theoretical world of construction, fabric and artistic vision.

As their education progresses, the designers often find getting comfortable in an ivory tower of an institution of higher learning, undisturbed by the economic realities of fashion.

They do not consider whether a garment will come to life in front of a camera for a fashion editorial in a glossy magazine.And they do not consider whether the garment will come to life on a rack at a boutique, where it will be snagged up by a consumer.

Thanks to a new scholarship set up by NYSFE Magazine, the Rose Gordon Endowed Fashion Scholarship, fashion students at IFA Paris (a fashion school with campuses in Paris, Shanghai and Istanbul) will have the opportunity to learn to adapt their fashion visions for the realities of print and retail.

The award is for undergraduate students who are currently attending an accredited college full-time. Applicants must have a 2.5 GPA or greater and must be planning to or currently pursuing a degree leading to a career in fashion (design or marketing).

In partnership with IFA’s leadership, NYSFE magazine will help identify noteworthy students to be featured in the magazine. Additionally, Pink Maison Brand will house garments from selected IFA Paris graduate students.

Delphine Durieux, IFA Paris’s bachelor fashion design program coordinator and fashion design lecturer, said the opportunity of seeing their work in a fashion editorial in NYSFE will give students a chance to expand their visions from beyond the lines drawn in design software displayed across a computer screen.

“As I often tell my students, the digital and paper world don’t have the same vision, and we don’t have the same emotionslooking at garment on paper and on a screen,” said Durieux.

“In my view, I feel there is a deeper emotional pull when you see a garment (on a page) instead of a screen. Visually, the impact is not the same (for both mediums),” said Durieux.

Durieux said the opportunity to see a garment in print also is a valuable tool to bring the designers some feedback from the public that reads the magazine.

“Usually fashion design students, are young and don’t have a (broader) vision of what they are doing,” said Durieux. “To have feedback on what they are doing can help them to reshape their brand and future collection to be more successful.”

Getting their work in a boutique, especially in another country, also is beneficial to a young designer’s growth, explained Durieux.

“Sometimes (young designers) forget about the marketing or commercial aspect of what they do,” said Durieux. “They have to be creative, of course, but they also answer a need that can be sold.”

“Fashion is an art. But not only that, it is also a business,” said Durieux.