FIT History
Earlier company descriptions, brand line-ups, store counts and photographs from the history of FIT, kept for historical reference.
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The Company Description of Its Time
The Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) is filed as a State University of New York college of art and design located in New York City, founded in 1944. In 1951, it became one of the first SUNY community colleges empowered to grant the Associate of Applied Science degree; today, the filing says, FIT also grants Bachelor's and Master's degrees in fashion and related fields. Two superlatives in the historical record mark its distinctiveness: FIT houses the United States' only degree-granting program in Accessories Design, and the only baccalaureate program in Cosmetics and Fragrance Marketing in the world. Industry visits by students and lectures by leaders in the field provide, in the filing's phrase, a cooperative and creative bridge between the classroom and the world of work - and although the college is now associated with many industries and professions, FIT's commitment to career education is still its hallmark.
Degrees in Full: Art, Design, Business and Graduate Study
The historical record's degree lists are long because the college is broad, and they are kept here in summary because researchers use this page to navigate them. Associate-level art and design majors include Accessories Design, Communication Design, Fashion Design, Fine Arts, Illustration, Interior Design, Jewelry Design, Menswear, Photography, Textile/Surface Design and Visual Presentation and Exhibition Design; business A.A.S. majors include Advertising and Marketing Communications, Fashion Merchandising Management, Patternmaking Technology, Production Management and Textile Development and Marketing. Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees run from Accessories Design and Fabrication through Computer Animation, Fabric Styling, Packaging Design and Toy Design, while Bachelor of Science degrees include Cosmetics and Fragrance Marketing, Direct Marketing, Home Products Development and International Trade and Marketing for the Fashion Industries.
Graduate study is where the filing gets most distinctive. Master of Arts programs include Art Market: Principles and Practices; Exhibition Design; Fashion and Textile Studies: History, Theory, Museum Practice - with curatorial or conservation emphasis and work with The Museum at FIT; and Illustration for working professionals. Master of Professional Studies programs include Cosmetics and Fragrance Marketing and Management. The campus itself sits in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan on 27th Street from Seventh Avenue to Eighth Avenue, where, the filing says, the worlds of fashion, art, design, communications, and marketing converge - a location that creates an exceptional level of integration between the college and the industries it serves. FIT's accreditations as recorded include the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools and the National Association of Schools of Art and Design.
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References & Further Reading
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