The Eleventh Fashion Forward Symposium
SPECIAL EDITION:
The Back To School Series
Fashion Forward presents the next installment of its symposium series, featuring some of the world’s leading fashion institutes expanding the boundaries of curricula.
Time:
October 3rd, 10th, 17th, 24th & 31st, 2021
11:00 AM to 12:00 PM EST
Platform:
Zoom (RSVP by email)
info@fashionforward.io
Suggested Donation:
$15
Fashion Forward presents next installment of its symposium series, featuring some of the world’s leading fashion institutes expanding the boundaries of curricula.
Our Speakers
INTERNATIONAL FASHION ACADEMY PARIS
Jean-Baptiste Andreani is an innovative, driven individual with a 15-year experience in Fashion and Business academia across Asia-Pacific, Middle East, Europe and the USA. He was the catalyst for the development of forward-thinking higher education programs including, but not limited to France’s First Academic Program aimed at the integration of refugee population within the fashion industry; multiculturalism in the Beauty Industry Program as featured in The Huffington Post He established France's First Fashion Tech and Innovation Postgraduate Diploma combined with a dedicated Lab branded as “Foundry”, a dedicated Undergraduate program in Fashion Sustainability, and a series of Cultural Sensitivity and Awareness Workshops in collaboration with Dr Derrick Gay. Acknowledged for creating cohesiveness amongst staff and a community of students and alumni from over 50 different nationalities, he has been leading teams through successful completion of complex industry projects, partnerships, academic researches and certifications. He is currently the CEO of IFA Paris Group.
Albane Forestier received her PhD in Economic History from the London School of Economics and Political science in 2009. Specialising in eighteenth-century economic and social history, she completed a postdoctoral fellowship at McGill’s University (Montreal, Canada) before moving to Paris on a joint CNRS/University Paris IV-Sorbonne scholarship. She has published papers from her thesis in French History (2011) and Business History (2012). Her current research interests include fashion and material culture in the early modern Atlantic. Since 2016, she is the academic director of IFA Paris, a Paris-based fashion school, where she also teaches Fashion History and Culture. Wanting to make a difference and committed to the values of CSR held by IFA Paris management team, she has, since September 2018, conducted the school’ transition to becoming a flagship establishment for the promotion of sustainable and ethical fashion.
DREXEL UNIVERSITY
Joseph “Joe” Henry Hancock II, PhD, came to Drexel’s Department of Design having a 20-year retail operations, branding, merchandising, consumer behavior and strategy background. He has worked for such companies as The Gap Inc., The Limited Corporation and Target Corporation. For over six years, Hancock has run a conference planning and management business where he serves an the executive director. He has published internationally and is a well-known authority in the area of fashion branding, retailing and merchandising as a form of storytelling. He has lectured and taught courses at University of Technology in Sydney, Australia, London College of Fashion and at Stockholm University. Has been an invited speaker at Cornell University, The Ohio State University, Albright College and the University of Delaware. He has an BS and MS from Indiana University, Bloomington, in Apparel Merchandising and received his PhD in 2007 from The Ohio State University in Consumer Sciences.
Chris Baeza has had an extensive 20 plus year career as an accomplished design and merchandising executive with proven results working with iconic global brands. Chris has a strong background in the business of fashion and has multi-tier capabilities in men's, women's, accessories and children with particular emphasis on brand-building for different channels of distribution. Her positions in the industry allowed her to travel all over the world, working with top companies such as Tommy Hilfiger, Hugo Boss, Adidas, Nordstrom, Dockers and Nautica.
Maureen DeSimone has had an extensive 20 plus year career as an accomplished fashion executive holding various senior executive leadership roles working side by side with CEOs and designers in sales, merchandising, and marketing. Her positions in the industry have allowed her to create and sell products for global brands, such as Kenneth Cole, Ralph Lauren, and Liz Claiborne. Maureen holds a bachelor’s degree in Visual & Apparel Merchandising from Albright College and an MBA from Colorado State University. Today, Maureen is an Assistant Teaching Professor in the Design & Merchandising Program at Drexel University. In this role, Maureen is responsible for teaching fashion industry skills including merchandising, retail analytics, and buying.
CENTRAL SAINT MARTINS
Elizabeth Kutesko is a fashion historian and alumna of the Courtauld Institute of Art, where she obtained her PhD in 2016. Her research explores fashion as a transnational form of modernity, which ties together geography – telling stories of the land; nationality – telling stories of the nation; and identity – telling stories of the self. She leads the MA in Fashion Communication: Fashion Critical Studies and the BA in Fashion Communication: Fashion History & Theory at Central Saint Martins. She is the author of Fashioning Brazil: Globalization and the Representation of Brazilian Dress in National Geographic (Bloomsbury, 2018) and is currently working on a new book Fashion and the Devil's Railroad: Dress, Temporality, and Modernities in the Brazilian Amazon (Bloomsbury, forthcoming). Further information on her research projects can be viewed at elizabethkutesko.com
Dr. Jenna Rossi-Camus is a fashion exhibition-maker, historian and lecturer. She has curated fashion exhibitions including T-Shirt: Cult, Culture Subversion (Fashion & Textile Museum), Fashion & Freedom (Manchester Art Gallery) and Women, Fashion, Power (Design Museum, London). Jenna holds a PhD and an MA in fashion curation from the Centre for Fashion Curation at UAL London College of Fashion. Her practice-based doctoral research examined fashion graphic satire and developed a proposal for a site-responsive fashion exhibition at Horace Walpole’s Strawberry Hill. Jenna is currently researching Egyptian revivalism in fashion and working on a dress ethnography project exploring fashion and identity on Staten Island, New York.
Eleonora Dal Bosco is a fashion writer and researcher from Venice, Italy. After graduating at Università Ca' Foscari di Venezia in English and German Literature, she earned her master's degree in Fashion Critical Studies from Central Saint Martins. Eleonora has been a contributor to various publications, including Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera and The Collector Magazine. She is currently working as a fashion assistant for Dazed Magazine and as a research fellow for the think tank "Fashion Forward". Her rigorous research blends a deep knowledge of fashion with a penchant for art, literature and cinema. Eleonora's work understands fashion as a complex cultural phenomenon, whose codes can be used to interpret contemporary society.
Maria Rufat is a fashion writer and researcher based in Barcelona, Spain. She graduated from Central Saint Martins in 2020 -MA in Fashion Communication, Fashion Critical Studies pathway- after completing her BA in Humanities in Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona. Maria's final MA dissertation studied Fashion Books as objects of desire, commodities and means of fashion communication. He has recently completed a MA in Journalism from Universidad Complutense de Madrid and her final thesis discussed the rosary as both a religious and fashion object from a semiotic perspective. She is currently an active member of the Spanish-based fashion research group CIMFM (Universidad Villanueva, Madrid) and a freelance fashion writer.
SHENKAR COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AND DESIGN
Ilan Beja is the head of the Fashion Design Department, Shenkar. Fashion designer with extensive experience in design, management, merchandising and marketing. Some of his senior positions include CEO for a chain store specializing in fashion trends for young women, vice president and creative director for one of the biggest fashion groups in Israel, facilitator of a fashion workshop at the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs as well as over 25 years of experience as a senior lecturer in the Fashion Design Department at Shenkar.
Maya Arazi is a recognized fashion designer and educator with over 20 years’ experience working in the fashion industry and academia. She is also a graduate of the Royal College of Art, Womenswear 1999 MA Program. Her professional experience besides teaching includes working as a fashion designer for international fashion brands. Maya established LEV, a sustainable label that recycles fashion industries remnants and upcycles it into "one of a kind" pieces. Her work is also presented at design the Biennale in London and Tel-Aviv.
Anna Solo is the technology coordinator and a senior lecturer in the Fashion Design department at the Shenkar college of Design, Engineering and Art.
An author of "Fashion in details. Ruffles" book and coordinator of two fashion exhibitions, researcher in EU "Fish skin project" and one of "Historical fashion reconstruction project" founders and lecturers.
Gilly Bahat Eshkol is a professional expert dedicated to manage and fulfill projects specializing in Fashion and Design. Consulting designers and Fashion brands to merge their creative vision with pragmatism to evolve, grow and make a breakthrough. Expert in create strategies, branding, budgets, produce practical action plans, recruit global contacts as well as experience working academia for BA and MA program.
Idit Barak is fashion designer, creative technologist, entrepreneur and senior lecturer at the Fashion Design Department, Shenkar. Barak's work is at the crossroads of fashion, physical computing and interactive digital media. A strong believer in cross disciplinary work environments, she encourages her students to push the boundaries of fashion, to find new horizons for this ever-evolving industry.
Roei Derhi is the founder at Placebo Digital fashion house. A digital fashion designer, lives in Stockholm, Sweden. After graduating with honors Roei recruited to work as a designer at H&M. Today, in parallel with his work, he is a digital fashion designer used for social networks and computer games. Roei believes that digital clothing can and should transcend the familiar fashion reality and create a moment of magic for the viewer and "wears" invitations to experience fashion that would otherwise probably not have been accessible to him / her.