Kering and Parsons announce Empowering Imagination competition winners

By

Obi Anyanwu

Published
May 25, 2016

Kering and Parsons School of Design have selected Ya Jun Lin and Tiffany Huang as the winners of the fifth annual Empowering Imagination design competition. Laurent Claquin, the head of Kering Americas, announced the winners at the 68th annual Parsons Benefit.

 
Lin and Huang were among twelve 2016 graduates of the Parsons BFA Fashion Design Program who were selected to participate in the Empowering Imagination competition. The finalists were invited to present their thesis 3D collection and portfolio for womenswear, menswear and accessories to a panel of judges that included Claquin, Joseph Altuzarra, Steven Kolb, Saks Fifth Avenue SVP Fashion Director Roopal Patel and Parsons Dean of Fashion Burak Cakmak among others.
 
Cakmak said, “I am proud of the work that the finalists presented, and thrilled that Ya Jun Lin and Tiffany Huang will be able to experience this wonderful opportunity. Kering is a leader in the fashion industry, and they continue to push past barriers into the future. At Parsons, we teach our students to think for real world problems, and I know the winners will learn and grow from their trip to the excellent Kering facilities in Europe.” 

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Lin’s collection entitled “White Noise” was inspired by signal waves and white noise as her computer crashed while she was researching images. Huang’s “Looking Down/Walking Through” collection is about the experience of looking at a city from an aerial view versus the experience of walking through one.
 
The winning designers will have their thesis collections featured exclusively in Saks Fifth Avenue New York’s windows from Friday, May 27 through Friday, June 10. In addition, the winners will experience a 2-week trip in June to Kering facilities, including the company’s Materials Innovation Lab, which houses over 2,000 sustainable fabric options available for use for all Kering brands and other brand locations in Milan, Vicenza and Florence.
 
All twelve finalists will be featured on Vogue.com and they will be hosted for a mentoring session with Vogue.com editors.