FIT in 2025: The Year in Photos

As 2025 comes to a close, we look back and marvel at the images that defined a year of discovery, excitement, and change. Dr. Joyce F. Brown presided over her 27th and final commencement as president of FIT, the Joyce F. Brown Academic Building reinvented the campus, and students immersed themselves in design, business, research, and creative play.

This collection of photographs tells the story of a transformative year.

A fashion designer offers advice to a student over a table of sketches — Alum critic B Michael advises a Fashion Design student designing their final collection. Photo by Smiljana Peros.

Each spring, FIT invites renowned designers to visit Fashion Design classrooms and help students design and refine their collections for the annual Future of Fashion runway show.

A professor in a science lab shows a student how to blend an orange liquid in a beaker — Arya shows Estevez how to blend the leather alternative. Estevez’s completed jacket is on the dress form behind them. Photo by Smiljana Peros.

Faculty work one-on-one with students on innovative projects of their choosing. This spring, for her capstone project Isabella Estevez, Technical Design ’25, Textile Development and Marketing ’23, worked with TDM Associate Professor Preeti Arya to create a compostable leather alternative made of vegan ingredients such as orange and avocado peels.

Four students painting on snowboards in a dark room — FIT’s second annual Live Art Duel featured a challenge using Burton snowboards as a canvas. Photo by Smiljana Peros.

For the second year in a row, FIT hosted the Live Art Duel, an exciting art-making competition with proceeds from the art auction benefiting the FIT Foundation.

Model in an elaborate white dress walking toward an audience in a glass-walled room — Act V, the Fashion Design MFA graduate runway show. Photo by Joe Carrotta ’17.

Students graduating from the Fashion Design MFA program revealed their stunning, avant-garde eight-piece collections to VIPs in the Art and Design Gallery in September.

Two smiling students selling knitted dolls at a table indoors — The fair at Sustainability Awareness Week in October. Photo by Smiljana Peros.

Sustainability Awareness Week, an annual tradition going back more than a decade, gives students hands-on opportunities to learn how to live and create sustainably. This year, the sustainability fair included makers and designers committed to earth-friendly creations.

A student in a black commencement gown receives a hood atop her head — The School of Graduate Studies hooding ceremony in May. Photo by Joe Carrotta ’17.

A highlight of the School of Graduate Studies commencement exercises is a hooding ceremony that elevates their regalia and acknowledges their advanced work in the field.

Student in blue commencement gown celebrates after receiving his diploma on an outdoor stage. Photo by Joe Carrotta '17. — Celebrating Commencement 2025 in Central Park. Photo by Joe Carrotta ’17.

Commencement at FIT is an annual rite of passage for all graduates, yet each individual gets to celebrate the joy of this profound accomplishment in their own way.

A student paints strips of wood; a curved scale model is in the foreground — Students in the Exhibition and Experience Design master’s program make scale models of their exhibit designs. Photo by Smiljana Peros.

This year, it was announced that the MA in Exhibition and Experience Design will become an MFA program in fall 2026, deepening the work students do and bringing new opportunities to graduates. Also, Cosmetics and Fragrance Marketing will add an AAS to the existing BFA program, giving students much-needed additional time learning the complexities of this unique industry.

A singer in a denim jacket against a purple background — At FIT’s celebration of National Native American Heritage Month in November, singer-producer Lucaa performed gorgeous synth-pop tunes. Photo by Smiljana Peros.

On Nov. 10, FIT celebrated National Native American Heritage Month with a panel of Indigenous creators, music, artwork, and more.

FIT President in magenta dress smiling at a student holding a cone of light pink yarn — President Brown with a student in the knitting lab in the Joyce F. Brown Academic Building. Photo by Joe Carrotta ’17.

The long-awaited Joyce F. Brown Academic Building opened this fall, expanding FIT’s campus to 28th Street and adding to the college’s state-of-the-art labs and classrooms.