Footwear and Accessories Design
Fashion mavens know it’s the shoes, handbag, belt, and hat that make the outfit. But what matters as much as a great look? Super performance. How these pieces work on the body makes a huge difference to how the wearer walks, runs, moves, feels, and lives.
This program nurtures your personal design vision while teaching you the skills you need to create marketable products that consumers crave. With close ties to the industry — part of the multibillion-dollar global fashion system — we connect you with a wide range of networking and career opportunities. You’ll learn to create footwear, handbags, and small leather goods from concept to finished product, while exploring technology, advanced materials, and sustainability.
Programs
Footwear and Accessories Design AAS
As an associate-level student, you’ll design and produce a full range of accessories, from footwear to handbags to belts. This program prepares you for an entry-level position in design, sample making, or patternmaking, or to apply for a BFA in Footwear and Accessories Design.
Footwear and Accessories Design BFA
The BFA offers advanced, hands-on study of design, incorporating nontraditional and sustainable materials along with traditional ones. You’ll visit prominent showrooms, design studios, and production sites in the fashion and design capital of the world. A required internship provides industry experience. You’ll graduate with a professional-quality portfolio.
Our Work
The look, materials, and construction of our products make a statement about the designer, the maker, and the wearer. Details matter!
Gabe Santoriello’s “Armored Elegance” thesis brings fantasy stories often read in childhood to the working world.
Alfeya Valrina, Accessories Design ’17, creates colorful structured handbags inspired by the baskets carried by herbalists in her home country of Indonesia.
Sam Riley, Accessories Design ’19, won the #BeBowled shoe design contest for bowling alley operator Bowlero.
Impact
Small accessory, big difference … We push design to the limit, creating not just for fashion but also function, sustainability, and innovation.
Outside the Classroom
Students have interned at Kenneth Cole, Coach, Converse, The Row, Steve Madden, and Kate Spade. Graduates of the AAS program become designers, stylists, product-line builders, merchandisers, and production assistants. BFA graduates hold positions as lead designers, creative directors, senior merchandisers, stylists, senior sample makers, technical designers, head patternmakers, heads of multidivision companies, and vice presidents.
Explore More
some related minors
Learn From the Best
Sarah Mullins
Mullins attended the Parsons Paris School of Art and Design Summer Program, studying the history of fashion and fashion illustration. She holds a BFA degree from Burlington College and an AAS degree in Accessories Design from FIT. She is an assistant professor and assistant chair of Footwear and Accessories.
Vasilios Christofilakos
In fashion for over thirty years, Dr. Christofilakos specializes in shoe design. He received his AAS degree from FIT and his BA degree from Empire State College, State University of New York. He is an assistant professor of Footwear and Accessories.
Ellen Lynch
In addition to instructing students in footwear design, Lynch coaches Special Olympics athletes in swimming competition. She is a professor of Footwear and Accessories.
Contact Us
Footwear and Accessories Design
Lauren Zodel
Sarah Mullins
Ellen Lynch
Art and Design Gallery
The Art and Design Gallery is open from 9 am until 5 pm, seven days per week. The gallery is located at the northwest corner of Seventh Avenue and 27th Street.
Let's Make It Happen
APPLICATION REQUIREMENTS