Every day, people flood the streets of New York City in eclectic fashion, turning the city into a living runway. Now, undergraduates have the chance to explore the world of fashion not just on the streets, but in the classroom — this school year, the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development debuted its first Fashion Studies minor.
Offered by the Department of Art and Art Professions, the minor was first conceptualized by Rachel Lifter, the program director. With a background teaching at design schools and a career focused on using fashion as a tool for cultural analysis, Lifter first came to NYU in 2020 as a clinical assistant professor and program director for the master’s program in costume studies in Steinhardt’s Department of Art and Art Professions.
Inspired by the success of the school’s Fashion in Context class, Lifter and her colleague Nancy Deihl, the chair of the Department of Art and Art Professions, began creating the minor last year. The course, which fulfills NYU’s Expressive Culture core requirement, consistently drew students from across the university’s schools. The students’ varied academic perspectives make for a vibrant, interdisciplinary learning environment that highlights the many ways fashion intersects with other fields — something that Lifter wanted to expand upon with the Fashion Studies minor.
“It was astounding to me who came into the class and how it was such an amazing meeting place for students from across the university,” Lifter said. “It was so exciting — and challenging — to think about how to create a class that speaks to students who want to do everything with fashion, and also those who are just exploring it for the first time.”
This breadth of engagement, along with the large number of existing fashion-related courses at NYU, sparked the department’s ongoing effort to build a curriculum that would both accommodate diverse interests while also positioning fashion as a legitimate, interdisciplinary area of study.
The 16-credit, four-course minor requires two core classes — Fashion in Context and How to (analyze) Fashion — that lay a foundation of fashion knowledge through the integration of history, cultural studies and sociology. Students are then able to choose from a broad range of over 30 electives offered across the university, at Steinhardt, the Gallatin School of Individualized Study, the College of Arts & Science, the Tisch School of the Arts and the Stern School of Business.
“For me, the best part is connecting with faculty across the globe and across the university,” Lifter said.
From West African Fashion: Concepts, History, and Utility at NYU Accra to The Sound of Fashion: Music’s Influence on the Iconic Fashion Brands at NYU Berlin, the Fashion Studies minor aims to serve as a universitywide, global collaboration.
The minor’s creation reflects a growing desire in academia to recognize fashion as an extension of culture, identity and history. It formalizes what many students and faculty have already been doing informally — critically thinking about the role of fashion in society.
“I think I really feel like there is a swell of enthusiasm for fashion right now,” Lifter said. “While the minor itself took a year to develop, the ideas around it have been percolating my entire career.”
Lifter said that although the Fashion Studies minor is new, she hopes that it will grow in response to student interests and needs — and perhaps, has the potential to spark more fashion initiatives on campus.
“What could other opportunities outside of the classroom look like? Maybe a fashion hub, a club or a campus network that ties into internships,” Lifter said. “Every syllabus is a living thing, and so is this minor.”
Contact Maya Santiago at [email protected].
