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Designer Spotlight: Zac Posen
Aug 01: To many fashion followers, 22-year-old designer Zac Posen seemed to spring fully formed into the spotlight. When his first solo collection, the aptly named Trumpet, debuted during the Spring 2002 runway season, Posen was already armed with a coterie of celebrity devotees (Natalie Portman, Claire Danes), and a design manifesto (to create `strong, feminine, and intelligent clothing`) that belied his tender years.
Aug 01: To many fashion followers, 22-year-old designer Zac Posen seemed to spring fully formed into the spotlight. When his first solo collection, the aptly named Trumpet, debuted during the Spring 2002 runway season, Posen was already armed with a coterie of celebrity devotees (Natalie Portman, Claire Danes), and a design manifesto (to create “strong, feminine, and intelligent clothing”) that belied his tender years.
Four increasingly sophisticated and sellable collections later, the designer was more than happy to discuss his devotion to the craft, and his earliest inspirations and long-term aspirations.
One of my earliest fashion memories is of being taken to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute when I was three or four,” Posen reminisces. “I remember the different rooms, and I remember in particular this monkey-fur jacket that sparked the idea in my mind of the link between costume and fashion, the way in which dress can become character.” Precocious thoughts for a tot, but Posen made good on this realization some ten or so years later when he enrolled in the pre-college program at Parson’s School of Design in New York City as a high school freshman, spent two years interning at that same Costume Institute with legendary curator Richard Martin, and was subsequently accepted to London’s prestigious Central Saint Martin’s College of Art and Design at the age of 18. Once in London, Posen supported himself for two years doing private couture work, of which he notes: “You’re basically doing market research into a woman’s needs with every piece you design.”
One of my earliest fashion memories is of being taken to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute when I was three or four,” Posen reminisces. “I remember the different rooms, and I remember in particular this monkey-fur jacket that sparked the idea in my mind of the link between costume and fashion, the way in which dress can become character.” Precocious thoughts for a tot, but Posen made good on this realization some ten or so years later when he enrolled in the pre-college program at Parson’s School of Design in New York City as a high school freshman, spent two years interning at that same Costume Institute with legendary curator Richard Martin, and was subsequently accepted to London’s prestigious Central Saint Martin’s College of Art and Design at the age of 18. Once in London, Posen supported himself for two years doing private couture work, of which he notes: “You’re basically doing market research into a woman’s needs with every piece you design.”
Bureau Report