Apparel Fabrics 2006: DKNY & Lineapiu

RHODE ISLAND SCHOOL OF DESIGN STUDENTS, DKNY, AND LINEAPIU COLLABORATE TO RE-INTERPRET THE DKNY “COZY”

Student Cozy exhibition and limited edition sale at the DKNY Flagship on Madison Avenue on December 5th, hosted by Matilda McQuaid, exhibitions curator and head of the Textiles Department at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum and Liz Collins, knit designer and RISD Textiles faculty.

This Fall, 21 students in one of RISD’s Textile Department studio courses have a real-world challenge on their hands: to redesign one of DKNY’s most successful pieces of apparel, the “Cozy”—a hybrid sweater (or shawl with sleeves). This project is in its second round, due to the success of the first project that ran in Fall of 2005.

Using a palette of natural raw wool in a range of designer yarns donated by Lineapiu, the RISD students will creatively interpret the silhouette of the Cozy, based on the theme of “Wrapped”. Two of DKNY’s designers, who have reinvented the Cozy dozens of times themselves, visited the RISD studio and encouraged students to think about new but simple and easy ways to wrap the body using the cozy as an example of a versatile item which can be both worn very simply or wrapped and twisted into multiple styles. The designers will continue to check in on progress throughout the five-week design process.

“This project challenges our students to work with a set of parameters and creates an enormous amount of focus and determination. Through this experience they gain access to quality yarns that are otherwise only available to the trade, and are exposed to many of the considerations essential to a designer's thinking process",  says Liz Collins, assistant professor in the Textile Department, designer, and RISD alumna.

Donna Karan agrees. “For me, design begins and ends with draping the body. There's nothing more creative or more filled with possibilities. This project gives students a chance to balance the creative with the commercial. They also get to work with the silhouette in new and exciting ways, which is the most educational thing of all."

The RISD students are excited by the chance to generate new ideas and innovations for the DKNY brand. Their prototypes will be on exhibit for a week following the kick off event on December 5th and available for sale until sold-out.  Twenty percent of DKNY sales from the evening and 100% of sales from the Cozys will be donated to RISD to help support the Textile Department.  In addition, DKNY will pay students a design fee and one will be chosen to intern for the company. A RISD student, who won an internship at DKNY as a result of the Fall 2005 project, now works as a design consultant for DKNY.

About DKNY
Donna Karan International is one of the world’s leading fashion design houses. It designs, markets, and distributes collections of women’s and men’s apparel, sportswear, accessories, and shoes under the Donna Karan New York and DKNY brand names. The Company has selectively granted licenses for the manufacture and distribution of beauty and beauty-related products, jeanswear, activewear, men’s furnishings, hosiery, intimate apparel, watches, coats, children’s apparel, and home. Since November 2001, Donna Karan International has been part of LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton, the world’s leading luxury goods group.

About RISD
Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) has earned a worldwide reputation as the preeminent art and design college in the country. Today, with more than 17,000 alumni, the college enrolls roughly 1,900 undergraduates and 375 graduate students from the United States and almost 50 countries, offering degree programs in the fine arts, architecture, and design disciplines, and art education. Academic programs include research and design initiatives, the exploration of art criticism and contemporary cultural concerns, as well as international exchange programs. Each year, RISD hosts prominent and accomplished artists, critics, and authors to its campus. Included within the college is The RISD Museum of Art, which houses a world-class collection of art—objects from Ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome and art of all periods from Asia, Europe, and the Americas, as well as the latest in contemporary art. For more information, go to www.risd.edu.

About Lineapiu
Market leader, Gruppo Lineapiù has united experience in both wool and cotton technologies with a mix of the traditions of Prato, Biella, and Brescia textile districts to secure its current place at the top of the world in production of knitwear yarns. Gruppo Lineapiù brings together several production companies creating 100% Italian made yarns, with a commercial network spread out all over the world: from Hong Kong and Shanghai to Tokyo, from New York to Moscow, Paris and Munchen.  Lineapiù is a stylistic point of reference: the Group's laboratories develop yarns that are trendsetters in terms of colors, raw materials, and blends, independently of seasonal production. The passion for experimentation that is such a central element in company philosophy has amply demonstrated the enormous profitability - in all senses- of uniting proven working technique with intuition and imaginative vision.