In the Beginning

Seventy-five years after FIT’s founding, as fashion degree programs have become commonplace worldwide, it’s hard to grasp just how radical an experiment it was to create the first college devoted to the apparel industry. But in the early 1940s, when the New York State Board of Regents established educational programs and colleges to educate World War II veterans and retrain war workers for private industry, apparel—the state’s largest industry—was ignored. Max Meyer and Dr. Mortimer C. Ritter advocated for this essential education. After unsuccessfully pitching fashion programs to several existing colleges, they decided to start their own.

With financial pledges from industry leaders, they formed the Educational Foundation of the Apparel Industry, to establish and fund the college. (It later became the Educational Foundation for the Fashion Industries and is now the FIT Foundation.) The foundation was granted a charter from the New York Board of Regents in 1944 to establish the Fashion Institute of Technology and Design. (“Design” was cut early on.) The New York City Board of Education provided 10 teachers, machinery, and space on the top two floors of the Central High School of Needle Trades (now the High School of Fashion Industries). The foundation provided scholarships, additional teachers, and experts from the fashion industry to participate.

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