<p>Major profile in the New York Times of Swarthmore grad (Class of 2005) Joseph Altuzarra who is making a splash on the fashion designer scene:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/10/fashion/10Altuzarra.html?_r=1&emc=eta1&pagewanted=all%5B/url%5D">http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/10/fashion/10Altuzarra.html?_r=1&emc=eta1&pagewanted=all</a></p>
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At the close of Joseph Altuzarras fashion show in Chelsea last September, spectators sprang to their feet, jostling toward the far end of the runway to congratulate the designer, or maybe just to bask in his glow. Within moments, industry power brokers like Linda Fargo, the sleekly imposing fashion director of Bergdorf Goodman; Simon Doonan of Barneys New York, and a visibly captivated Hamish Bowles of Vogue were rushing backstage to throw their arms around Mr. Altuzarra and to pose for the scrum of paparazzi bellowing their names.
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<p>They describe his college education as "tony":</p>
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His tony education (he is a graduate of Swarthmore College) has sharpened his analytical skills, to the point, his mother fairly boasted, that he can read a balance sheet as readily as an abstruse text. When I tell him were doing cash-flow projections, she said, he knows what Im talking about.
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<p>As someone who hopes to go into a fashion-related field (costume and textile history and museum curation), I’ve been earnestly following Altuzarra’s career for the past few years. Swarthmore often feel fashion-adverse, so it is amazing to me that Altuzarra came here and graduated only to quickly become the person I’d argue to be the biggest young name in the fashion industry today. </p>
<p>It really is true that Swarthmore will provide extremely useful skills to anyone regardless of their intended career. For potential future Swatties who desire the school’s rigorous education but worry that you’ll feel out of place with the often aesthetically disinclined faculty and student body, google Richard Martin (former curator-in-chief of the Costume Institute of the Met,who is sort of my hero), Amy Fine Collins (the super-fab fashion world elite hob-nobber and Special Correspondent for Vanity Fair), and also Cynthia Leive (current editor-in-chief of Glamour magazine, who recently came to speak at Swat about social media), Peter Biskind (who writes about Hollywood and film and was once executive editor of Premiere magazine and now is a contributing editor for Vanity Fair), and Lisa Alber (Emmy Award-winning writer for Mad Men).</p>