For years, artist, designer, and educator Bridget O’Rourke has held academic positions at Parsons Paris in which she has helped the school become the robust interdisciplinary center it is today.

Tuomas Laitinen has built a career exploring fashion in its many forms. He has designed and run Laitinen, a menswear label; founded SSAW, a biannual art and culture journal; and partnered with leading brands as a creative consultant.

Fashion and education have been part of Miki Omori’s life for as long as she can remember. An early interest in fashion inspired her to sketch clothing designs by the time she was five years old. But by the age of 10, she had decided to become a teacher. She never imagined that someday she would be able to combine her love of fashion design with her aspiration to teach.

Marco Pecorari, current director of the MA Fashion Studies program at Parsons Paris, has always explored new ways to connect critical theory to the fashion industry.

Laing is adept at interpreting fashion media, having completed a doctorate in cultural studies and previously taught theory to textile design students. It’s an especially important skill today as apparel brands employ visuals and text to engage with fraught issues like identity politics and ethical consumption. “People are surrounded by fashion media online and out on the street,” she says, “and you wonder if they’re asking critical questions about what’s being presented. What political assumptions — about identity, gender, sustainability — are embedded in the images? In the classroom, we unpick these assumptions and the politics behind them.”

BBA Strategic Design and Management program director Anna Krutiy brought to the Parsons Paris community years of experience working at the center of Paris’ luxury fashion industry.

Emmanuel Cohen’s diverse background — which ranges from acting and theater studies to performance and photography — informs his pedagogy in the classroom. No matter what the course subject, he asks students to look beyond the constraints of their fields and think critically about the act of creation itself — an exercise essential to anyone seeking to make work with social or cultural impact.

A First Year Coordinator and Art, Media, and Technology faculty member, Francesca Bonesio likes to emphasize the ability to adapt in her classroom. No matter what industry or discipline students go on to pursue, if they can’t keep up with rapidly evolving industries and technologies, they can’t thrive as creative leaders. “What’s really fantastic about this current moment is that it’s very challenging because we need to adapt all the time,” says Bonesio. “At the same time, it's very inspiring.”