Designer, alum looks at fashion at Swarthmore

In print | Published March 18, 2010

Fashion, style and clothing design have played a large role in many social and political movements. The history of fashion is extensive, and the constantly changing styles tend to correlate with the evolving ideas of the world. Today, the fashion industry heavily influences how people dress.

Joseph Altuzarra, a 2005 graduate, is an up and coming fashion designer with an eponymous line, Altuzarra. He recently showed his third collection at New York Fashion Week. He is pictured here with his muse Vanessa Traina, who is wearing one of his designs.

Altuzarra grew up in Paris and moved to New York during his junior year at Swarthmore. As an art and art history major, he had a knack for drawing and an interest in fashion and styling, but never saw it as a career path.

“I think I’ve always [been] interested in [fashion] and I always drew. I have this kind of fascination with this kind of world and the craft,” Altuzarra said. “But I kind of always thought it was a little bit silly … [and that] it wouldn’t really constitute a career.”

His jump into the fashion world happened, as he puts it, “organically.” Altuzarra had taken an internship during the summer before his senior year at a PR agency in New York.

“I think that when you start meeting people who actually make money doing this and enjoy it and have a life, you kind of start to realize that it’s a possibility,” he said. Altuzarra then sent out his résumé to Marc Jacobs for an internship. He started working for Jacobs before graduation.

Altuzarra saw fashion in a different light at Swarthmore. “When talking with other art … or art history students, I think that you can learn to put fashion within the context of … [a] time period or a historical movement, even kind of like a social movement,” he said. “It becomes much bigger than just clothes.”

The majority of his fellow Swarthmore students seemed not to consider Altuzarra’s interest in fashion worthwhile. During his junior and senior years, he put on the first fashion shows on campus. In total, he put on three fashion shows while at Swarthmore, with the last one being his art senior thesis project.

“I think part of Swarthmore thought it was really silly, like it was really stupid [and] it was something that was a privilege,” he said, adding that the intellectual and academic Swarthmore bubble can make it difficult for many students to understand the importance of fashion.

“We work with factories in Italy and in France and … we rely on them to produce our goods and to develop new ways of working and new techniques,” he said, “but they rely on us to survive and to train new sewers and new patternmakers.” The fashion industry supports millions of people around the world, from countries in Europe to those in South America, where most of the small businesses are family-owned.

“If you want to put it in Swarthmore terms, it can be quite an ethical endeavor because you’re supporting small businesses … who do mainly hand-sewing or very traditional craft and the only way they can keep on doing it and keep on living is if designers keep on making luxury goods.” To Altuzarra, fashion is more than the perceived idea of “models and silly clothes.” It’s an industry that, according to him, perpetrates an art form.

While he did feel a sense of disapproval about his interests in fashion, Altuzarra found student support at Swarthmore as well. “As much as some people disapproved, I think a lot of people were very encouraging and thought it was a really exciting thing,” he said.

“It wasn’t like I was particularly inspired by the way people dressed … I think it was just more that there was so much encouragement and support within the community.”

One person who Altuzarra found to be supportive was Susan Smythe, the previous managing director of LPAC and resident costume designer when Altuzarra was at Swarthmore. Smythe praised Altuzarra’s quick learning and passion for designing.

“Joseph used the shop space extensively,” Smythe said in an e-mail. “We were all quite excited by his passion for design, and his energy in mounting large, elaborate fashion shows.” She helped him understand the fit and construction of clothing and develop his skills, which were mainly self-taught.

Though he wasn’t particularly inspired by how people dressed at Swarthmore, he found opportunities to explore what did inspire him. “If you want to do something at Swarthmore, no matter what it is, Swarthmore will somehow help you do it,” Altuzarra said.

While the fast-paced world of fashion is quite different from life here at Swarthmore, Altuzarra’s rise from college student to gifted newcomer in the fashion industry appears seamless. Though fashion may not be of importance to students here, Altuzarra found the nurturing community helped him discover, among other factors, that this was something he wanted to do.