Sass Brown, Founding Dean of Dubai Institute of Design and Innovation, explains how her love of materials and craftsmanship has defined her success.
An inspiration for designers and entrepreneurs in the region and around the world, Sass Brown – Founding Dean of Dubai Institute of Design and Innovation (DIDI) – is unstoppable. Her curiosity, intellect, sincere humility and passion have earned her recognition from her peers, and admirers from every industry.
Prior to joining DIDI, Brown was Interim Dean for the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) School of Art and Design in New York, as well as Acting Associate Dean, and the Resident Director of FIT’s campus in Florence, Italy. She has been an advisor for Sustainia100, the annual Danish sustainable solutions guide, as well as an Associate Design Researcher on The Textile Toolbox, the web platform for the Mistra Future Fashion consortium. In addition, she has served as a sustainable design advisor to women’s cooperatives, educational institutions, governmental agencies, NGOs and small and medium sized enterprises around the world.
What drew you to fashion design?
I’ve always had an interest in and a passion for fashion design, and for as long as I’ve known what a fashion designer was, that’s all I’ve wanted to do. In the early stages I was influenced heavily by Zandra Rhodes, Bill Gibbs and Jean Muir – early iconic and intrinsically British designers. Later on, I was heavily influenced by Vivienne Westwood and Alexander McQueen. My love of fashion, in part, is also an outgrowth of my love of textiles.
That journey has been punctuated by a number of synchronistic opportunities, one of the most significant of which was moving from designing to teaching.
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Denne historien er fra June 2018-utgaven av Identity.
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