Photo: Parsons

If a gang of 200 heel-clad fashion interns sounds like a well-dressed horror movie, you can take solace in their die-hard ambition. It was celebrated this weekend at Fashion Campus NYC, an event spearheaded by Parsons The New School for Design and NYC’s Economic Development Corporation that’s part of Mayor Bloomberg’s Fashion NYC 2020 plan to grow and sustain the city’s fashion industry by attracting the best of its future to America’s style epicenter. The weekend provided interns with a chance to network and receive invaluable career tips, all of which culminated with a poignant lecture by Derek Lam, moderated by Parsons’ Simon Collins, Dean of the school’s fashion department. Lam offfered these great tips among anecdotes of the trials and tribulations of building a modern fashion empire.

• “Fashion is really a reflection of the history of photography. Right now I think it’s the story of the Internet and the computer.”

• Success in fashion “is about finding your limit and exceeding its boundaries”

• “Every industry wants to cross-fertilize with fashion because we speak a language that crosses all cultures.”

• “You have to be willing and ready to respond to what’s going on around you, whether it be design related or not. I’ll do anything like change the toilet paper roll or clean the sink!”

• “Designing is looking at what people are doing, reflecting it with a mirror, and making a business out of it.”

Parsons and NYCEDC will host Fashion Draft NYC this fall. Click here for regular updates!