Academy of Art at #MBFW, Feb 07, 2014.

Academy of Art represented a portal for budding design talent to showcase their wares at the Fall Mercedes Benz Fashion Week in NYC on Friday, Feb 07, 2014. They faced off against the big boys and gals of the fashion world and brought a killer collection to the world stage. I had the opportunity to meet some of them backstage and the collections ranged from tangerine embroidered vests to jackets and pants inspired by the British military. In other words…DIVERSE!

Still humble and readily available to discuss their passions and dreams and what it means to play in this arena and how much this opportunity meant to them, all while multitasking and steaming wrinkled ends, the designers continued last minute hemming and just about getting everything show ready!

Got some quality time backstage with the Asian talent representation including Frank Tsai, Mingyu Du, Earnest Huang, and Hong Ni. My personal favorites were Earnest’s shades of grays (tunics, jackets, pants) represented a very east coast fall evening, and Mingyu’s military inspired collection, impressed to see an army tent fashioned into sexy apparel!

Check them out at www.academyart.edu and @academy_of_art on twitter

Photos by Tanya Stoyanova