Academy of Art University is the only educational institute participating in “Hearts for Haiti”! Support the Council of Fashion Designers of America’s (CFDA) campaign “Fashion for Haiti”, a nation-wide effort to raise funds for victims of the earthquake. The Academy of Art University’s 79 Retail Store joins top retailers and fashion designers to offer the special $25 “Fashion for Haiti” t-shirts. Proceeds raised from the t-shirt sales will benefit the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, “…which is raising funds for immediate, high-impact relief and long-term recovery efforts to help those who are most in need of assistance”.

The shirts go on sale Tuesday, February 16th at our retail store on 79 New Montgomery. For more info on Fashion for Haiti please visit www.cfda.com/fashion-for-haiti.

A Council of Fashion Designers of America award, featured on the Sartorialist and an injury at Paris Fashion Week (more on that later) - it has been quite a year for Ghazaleh Khalifeh.

It all started when Ghazaleh was awarded with the $25,000 Geoffrey Beene Design Scholarship Award from the CFDA (that’s a lot of money). She was presented with the award in June 2008 at the CFDA Awards Gala where she rubbed elbows with Carolina Herrera, Peter Som and CFDA Queen Bee (i.e. President) Diane von Furstenberg

As an added bonus, she received the French Exchange Scholarship to attend L’Ecole de la Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne - and she is did pretty well in the City of Light.

“At L’Ecole de la Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne we had to create a grand thesis/senior collection to the president of the school, professors and professionals in the industry,” she says. “Out of over sixty students, I received the highest score!” Read more…