Play, Failure, Neural Connections and a Year of Learning at One of the Best Fashion Schools in the World

Deconstructing a year as an adult learner at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York

“Styliste”, that is what I wanted to be when I was 8 years old growing up in France. A profession that I understood later meant that I wanted to be a fashion designer. Sketching, mood boarding, scrapbooking and later sewing were part of my creative language.

New York, August 2026, I am back on one of the benches of the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), ready to resume patternmaking and handbag design classes. Two months prior, I finalized a second semester at FIT that left me exhausted, inspired and reflective.

Fuck around and find out

When I was planning my second class project, a deconstructed bag with piping, like a lot of designers, I was very set on my vision: the long thin handles, the slanted side, the invisible tabs, the structured frame. The class professor warned me about the complexity of making the pattern, sewing the curves and uneven corners properly, the feasibility of the narrow tabs, the overall advanced structure for my second handbag. I wanted to run, when I needed to learn how to walk.

At the patternmaking stage, I couldn’t see all the complexities, I was too emboldened by my own vision. I started to crawl: the pattern was too difficult to conceptualize, the steep corners made cutting the thin leather very challenging, the slanted sides were making the piping and the uneven shape very difficult to sew. The narrow handles required a lot of precision, which I was not yet equipped to handle and the solid structure of the bag did not account for the limitations of the leather weight. I spent a lot of time simplifying the pattern, painfully sewing narrow curves on a cylindrical machine that I didn't master yet. Leather is unforgiving, any mistake stays. For a brief moment, I wished I’d listened.

On the flip side my stubborn ways opened me to more creative ideas, taught me about patience, the importance of mastering the simple things first and humility. I fucked around and I am glad I found out.

Learn to learn

Making patterns for clothes is an exact science. Each measurements and lines plays a role in shaping how clothes fall on a body. Learning patternmaking is a journey that can take multiple paths for an identical outcome. I was struggling with the inherent difficulties of the discipline. My unwillingness to move forward without having all the answers, with imperfect V1, V2, V6 drafts kept me stuck for a while. Pattermaking for me has been a game of patience and ambiguity that was only overcome by practice, mistakes and more practice. My brain had to get accustomed to solving new types of problems, the kind of challenges that Google was not equipped to help with. I had to learn to learn again, without the crutch of AI. I had to accept being incompetent for a while, as new neuropathways were building in my brain.

Learning an adult, as a beginner is a challenge and a gift. I was looking for ways to explain what I felt was happening in my mind. “The brain, through the mechanisms of neuroplasticity, can glean valuable lessons from these setbacks and adjust to novel challenges.”

Wearing the finished jacket, made from a pattern drafted in class at the Fashion Institute of Technology.

It’s not all about the fashion

“I am not here to make friends.” During my first semester at FIT one year ago, I was focused on learning and getting to my goals. Growth and what I could get out of the program were my north stars. What happened along the way changed my perspective: meaningful late night discussions over half baked patterns, collective Saturday night sprints to finish projects, intergenerational connections. As a non full time student, I have gotten an appreciation for a space that brings together 18-year-old new grads, young professionals, retirees and craft hobbyists.

It is about the fashion, but it is also about being human, actualizing a passion for some, stepping away from the screens for others, learning something new and for me “la cerise sur le gâteau”, experiencing again the pleasures that creativity brought to me as a kid: playing, creating, designing and now sharing it with the world. Like the famous quote says, “We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stopped playing”. Step into FIT on any given day, and you will only find kids.

Words and photography by Eva Nean