Collection 2025: Rhode Island School of Design’s Apparel Design Seniors to Debut Their Work in Annual Runway Show

Students will premiere their looks at Providence’s WaterFire Arts Center on May 28

PROVIDENCE, RI  – April 4, 2025 –  Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) Apparel Design seniors will debut their one-of-a-kind creations on the runway at Collection 2025. The Apparel Design department’s popular fashion show offers audiences an exclusive look at the latest fashion emerging from RISD studios. Shows will take place on Wednesday, May 28, at 4 pm and 7 pm at the WaterFire Arts Center, 475 Valley Street, Providence, RI.

Collection 2025 tickets are $25 for the 4 pm show and $35 for the 7 pm show. Tickets are available for purchase online at risd.edu/collection. For more information, please email apparel@risd.edu or visit the Collection page on risd.edu.

“At RISD, Apparel Design students are pushed to identify their own inspirations and references, in order to develop their individual design language and to find their creative voice within the realms of fashion, costume and textiles. The program emphasizes a rich creative process and a more experimental, material-driven approach to designing garments. At the senior level, the collections synthesize a number of indispensable elements, from knowledge of the tactile qualities of cloth to proportion and silhouette in relation to the human body. Garments were conceived through a multiplicity of concepts: they were made to embody characters, to echo the memory of a place, to imagine a dystopian story or much happier and hopeful scenarios. This year, the senior collections have exaggerated material and sculptural features that convey drama and emotion. One can see how the expressivity of students’ collections mirrors a state of uncertainty in the world,” says Gwen Van Den Eijnde, Apparel Design department head

Twelve aspiring designers— Anna Winters, Avidron, Ruolin Bai, Jersey Bond, Isabel Clulow, Nura Dhar, Olivia Rose Founier, Vivian Lin, Minwoo Matthew Oh, Bryce Satow, Jordan Wang and Tracy Zhang—were tasked with creating their own unified bodies of original work throughout their senior year at RISD. Their individual collections examine everything from disgust and desire, masculinity and femininity to post-apocalyptic worlds. 

Graduating seniors are poised to join a group of prominent RISD alumni in the apparel industry. Whether they launch their own studios, pursue careers with retail leaders or enter into related fields, graduates of the program employ sustainable practices that respect craft and labor, while centering the wearer throughout the design process. 

RISD is excited to continue working with IFF, a global leader in scent, flavor, health and bioscience, in the studio. While RISD and IFF have been working together since 2019, this year marks the launch of an official three-year partnership. At the studio level, IFF generously provides Apparel Design students with access to its artists of perfumery. Each year, graduating Apparel Design seniors consider the question “How would your collection smell if it were a perfume or scent?” As students refine their collections throughout the year, IFF perfumers lend their creativity and expertise in the art of scent creation to develop scents unique to the collections as they take shape. At the same time, RISD students provide fresh insights into the process of developing scent from the perspective of apparel design. This relationship is exemplary of partnerships we value most at RISD: creative cross-pollination that elevates the curiosity, craft, artistry, practice and ambition of all participants.

About Rhode Island School of Design
RISD (pronounced “RIZ-dee”) is a creative community founded in 1877 in Providence, Rhode Island. Today, we enroll 2,518 students hailing from 57 countries. Led by a committed faculty, they are engaged in 44 full-time bachelor’s and master’s degree programs and supported by a worldwide network of over 31,000 alumni who demonstrate the vital role artists and designers play in today’s society. 

Beyond facts and figures, what is the spirit of this community? Through a cross-disciplinary curriculum of studio-based learning and rigorous study in the liberal arts, RISD students are encouraged to develop their own personal creative processes, but they are united by one guiding principle: in order to create, one must question. In cultivating expansive and elastic thinking, RISD seeks to activate a critical exchange that empowers artists, designers and scholars to generate and challenge the ideas that shape our world. RISD’s mission, at both the college and museum, is not only to educate students and the public in the creation and appreciation of works of art and design, but to transmit that knowledge and make global contributions. Visit risd.edu to learn more. 

RISD contact:
Danielle Mancuso 
Associate Director, Public Relations / RISD
dmancuso@risd.edu
401 454-6334