California Apparel News

New York–based cotton industry group Cotton Inc. has signed on as a sponsor of the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising’s seventh-annual Chairing Styles furniture and fashion competition.

In the competition, fashion students team up with interior design students to create a coordinating chair and apparel ensemble. In the past, the students have worked with Marimekko-print fabrics from Crate & Barrel.

This year, the school has added a textile design challenge to the competition. Now, the students will work in teams of three, with one fashion student, one interior design student and one textile design student. Ten teams’ designs will be chosen for production. Cotton Inc. will provide the fabric and Nagano, Japan– based printer Mimaki Inc. will print the original designs on the fabric.

The students will be judged based on creativity, salability and marketability.

The winning creations will be on display in February at FIDM’s annual Debut graduation fashion show, as well as at the Pacific Design Center and then return to FIDM. The chairs and fashions will also be showcased at the Avenues of Art and Design, an annual interior design event held in Los Angeles.

Perfume Collection Finds a Home at FIDM

The Museum and Galleries at the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising will become the permanent home of the largest fragrance collection in the United States thanks to a donation to the design school’s museum by longstanding fragrance authority Annette Green.

Green is the creator, founder and president emeritus of The Fragrance Foundation, a 40-yearold organization that serves as a fragrance industry and consumer resource, providing access to educational and historical information about the industry. The Fragrance Foundation is also the creator of the FiFi Awards, which recognize achievement in the fragrance business. The 34-year-old annual awards program has a European counterpart, the European FiFi Awards, founded in 1992.

In 1999, Green opened the Annette Green Museum at the Fragrance Foundation in New York. Two years ago, Green announced plans to donate the entire collection to FIDM.

To celebrate the new collection, FIDM is hosting the “Annette Green Perfume Museum Premiere: Fashion Makes Scents” exhibition, opening Oct. 17.

Visitors to the exhibition will get a glimpse of Green’s collection, which includes vintage and contemporary perfumes from fashion designers around the world. The collection encompasses 165 international fragrances as well as more than 1,000 perfume bottles from designers such as Chanel, Dolce & Gabbana, Hermeacute;s, Bulgari and many others.

The exhibition was designed to showcase the history of perfumes from past to present day. Among the fragrance-related items on display will be 18th-century cabinets from Elizabeth Arden, posters by Firmenich and Dragoco, as well as a sculpture by Erte called “perfume,” which depicts a woman intoxicated by the scent of a flower.

Green said she hopes the collection will help students learn the historical and cultural influence perfume has had over the generations. FIDM offers a two-year associate of arts degree in beauty merchandising and marketing.

The exhibit will run though Dec. 2. Admission is free.

For more information about the Annette Green exhibition or the Chairing Style competition, visit www.fidm.edu.

—Frankie Shay