The 76th Parsons Benefit paired an industry award for Willy Chavarria with a runway that let students outline their vision for fashion’s future.
The New School’s 76th Parsons Benefit gathered the city’s fashion set for an evening that put students and seasoned leaders on the same stage. Inside the university hall, Parsons School of Design undergraduates sent their collections down a black-lit runway, while musicians from the College of Performing Arts added live interludes. Nearby, an exhibition drawn from the Textiles, Fine Arts, and Constructed Textiles programs traced the craft behind the looks.
President Joel Towers and Zanna Roberts Rassi kept the programme brisk, pausing between segments to greet a guest list that spanned Donna Karan, Mara Hoffman, Edvin Thompson, Jacques Agbobly, and Calvin Klein. Their applause rose for AJ Hikes, deputy director of the ACLU, who presented Willy Chavarria with the Parsons Table Award—a distinction that also went to Artemis Patrick, president and chief executive of Sephora North America, and Madelyn Wils, chief executive of the Fifth Avenue Association. The honour marked each recipient’s influence across fashion, beauty, and retail.
Taking the podium, Chavarria looked first to the catwalk. “Brilliant,” he said of the student show, before turning to the bigger picture. “We know that when we all have a seat at the table we are better, we are more effective [and] we create better work,” he noted, crediting Hikes as “an incredible leader.”
The designer then widened the lens. “We’ve decided to use fashion, art, and beauty as a way to deliver a message of human beauty. Whether it’s delivered as a whisper, a kiss, or [a] house soundtrack, the message is that we are all found. It’s a human message,” he told the crowd, adding that space for every perspective lets the industry “embrace it as a family.”
His closing words landed as a charge: “Each of us in this room has the power to have impact on what this world is going to look like in the future.” Minutes later, as the last model left the runway and the lights came up, that sentiment echoed through a room that had just watched tomorrow’s names make their first stride.
