Pratt Institute

FASHION's inaugural FACULTY FOCUS is a big thank you to RISD's illustrious Associate Professor, Liz Collins, who has been with us this semester as Visiting Associate Professor for Knitwear:

"Liz Collins is an artist and designer, recognized internationally for her use of machine knitting to create ground breaking clothing, textiles, and installations. She also is an Associate Professor at Rhode Island School of Design, where she received the RISD Alumni Art and Education Award in 2009. Collins is a 2010 RI Council for the Humanities McColl Johnson Fellow, a 2006 United States Artists Target Fellow in Crafts and Traditional Arts, and she has been a member of the Council of Fashion Designers of America since 2001. Her work was included in the celebrated exhibition “Radical Lace and Subversive Knitting” at the Museum of Arts and Design in 2007, “Evolution/Revolution” at the RISD Museum of Art in 2008, and can be seen the books Fashioning Fabrics, by Sandy Black and Elyssa da Cruz, Knitknit: Presenting 27 Innovative Knitters and Their Projects, by Sabrina Gschwandtner, and Designing a Knitwear Collection:From Inspiration to Finished Garment, by Lisa Donofrio and Marylin Heffernen, just to name a few.  In 2005, Collins created the multi-media, site-specific installation and performance project KNITTING NATION, as a response to working in the textiles and fashion industries, and has staged several exciting, large-scale events involving a small army of uniformed knitters and manually operated knitting machines. In fall 2011 she staged two KNITTING NATION events at the Institute of Contemporary Art/ Boston, as part of Helen Molesworth’s Dance/Draw exhibition."

Most recently, Collins was included in the book and FIT exhibition celebrating the IMPACT CFDA designers have had on fashion for the past 50 years. The book features several CFDA designers including looks from the collaboration Collins did with designer Gary Graham. Also, please click through for information about an upcoming KNITTING NATION event at MOMA featuring Liz Collins.

We were thrilled to have you and grateful to RISD for making you available to us and our students!