LVMH, Marc Jacobs chosen as honorees for Parsons fashion benefit

Luxury conglomerate Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton and designer Marc Jacobs will be honored for their contributions to fashion design at the 67th annual Parsons Fashion Benefit May 19.

Put on by The New School’s Parsons School of Design, the event will include a keynote by New York Times fashion director Vanessa Friedman, and Vogue editor-in-chief and Condé Nast creative director Anna Wintour and Saks Fifth Avenue president Marc Metrick will present the awards. Cultivating relationships with schools can help fashion companies when they are looking for new talent.

Giving back
The benefit, which raises money for scholarships to Parsons and The New School, will be held at the River Pavilion at the Jacob K. Javits Center. It features a runway show for select graduating students, as well as the announcement of the school’s Designers of the Year, which Mr. Jacobs received in 1984 when he was a student at Parsons.

Parsons alumnus Ximon Lee, who won Menswear Designer of the Year in 2014, is currently a finalist for the LVMH Young Fashion Designer Prize. Alumni Chris Gelinas and Erin Beatty were also up for the LVMH prize in 2014.

Parsons fashion show during benefit

LVMH has worked with Parsons on educational projects.

The conglomerate renewed its training program for Chinese-Americans after seeing results in the inaugural class.

LVMH Fundamentals in Retail is a partnership with the Chinese-American Planning Council and Parsons The New School for Design, in which those enrolled undergo training to help them achieve job placement in luxury retail, with the goal of increasing their earning potential. During the first round, more than 90 percent completed the course and about 70 percent immediately found employment, with an average increase in wages of three times (see story).