JAY CALDERIN
The Boston Globe refers to Jay Calderin as "a budding designer's best friend." Jay Calderin is the author of The Fashion Design Reference & Specification Book (formerly Form, Fit, Fashion), which the LA Times called, "a new fashion bible for designers, aspirers and the just plain curious, this tome contains all the secrets." The Library Journal said, "In 100 short articles embellished with full-color photos and illustrations, Calderin brings even highly conceptual and esoteric fashion design ideas down to earth" about his second book Fashion Design Essentials. His books have been translated into German, Chinese, Spanish, and French.
Designer Ralph Rucci says, “The importance of Jay Calderin's book truly cannot be overstated. Not only is it important to show what the human hand can do, but equally as necessary is to guide young people through the process of working in this field. This book provides readers with that wide and deep overview,” about his latest book, What They Didn’t Teach You in Fashion School. In addition to his own books, he collaborated on Fashion Design, Referenced, and was a contributor to Native Fashion Now, the book that accompanied the Peabody Essex Museum's exhibit of the same name. He also wrote a column called Fashion Filter on RockPaperInk.com.
His work as a fashion designer has graced the pages of Vogue and Elle magazines as well as the New York Times Sunday Style section and been acquired by the Peabody Essex Museum to be exhibited in their Fashion & Design Gallery.
Calderin founded Boston Fashion Week and has served as the organization's Executive Director since 1995. In 2012 he was appointed Creative Director of the first Chengdu Fashion Week in China.
He also held the office of Regional Director of Fashion Group International of Boston (FGI Boston) from 2009-2010 and has served on the Design Industry Group of Massachusetts (DIGMA) Design Advisory Council since 2008. In 2015 Jay was invited to serve on the Leadership Council for Boston Creates - a citywide cultural planning process led by the Mayor of Boston's Office of Arts and Culture. He has served as chair of the Boston Arts Academy's Fashion Technology Advisory Board since 2017.
Calderin is Co-Director of Education, Director of Community Relations, and an instructor at the School of Fashion Design in Boston, teaching on a wide variety of fashion and professional development classes. In addition to artist demonstrations and teaching studio art classes at the Museum of Fine Arts, he teaches at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, facilitated a program called Fashion Tales at several branches of the Boston Public Library, and joined the ranks of CreativeLive's highly respected team of online educators in 2015.
Jay was honored by Big Brothers Big Sisters of Massachusetts Bay as “Big Brother of the Year” in 2009, by Youth Design as “Mentor of the Year” in 2014, then by the Boston Arts Academy in 2018 for his achievements in fashion, and in 2019 by Boston Design Week as “Mentor of the Year.” In 2021 he was presented the Lifetime Achievement award at the Boston Fashion Awards and in 2023 he was named one of Amplify Latinx’s ALX100 honorees as part of a year-long celebration of Latinx leadership.
His pursuits as a professional coach and motivational speaker have afforded him opportunities to share and explore his ideas about the fashion industry at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Peabody Essex Museum, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Nantucket Atheneum, and leading educational institutions that include Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Wellesley College, Tufts University, Lesley University, and Babson College. His dedication to education was recognized in Martha Stewart's Whole Living/Body + Soul magazine in a feature article by New York Times best-selling author Cheryl Richardson about "Finding Your Passion".
Photo: Joel Benjamin
The Boston Globe refers to Jay Calderin
as "a budding designer's best friend."
FORBES
How The Founder Of Boston Fashion Week
Has Been Mobilizing A Community
Of Artists For 25 Years
360° tour of PEM's Fashion and Design Gallery
ABOUT THE DRESS:
Jay Calderín, (b.) American
Evening dress, 2017
Silk
Gift of Jay Calderín, 2019
⠀⠀
“I learned so much from working with Cheri. The experience emphasized the importance
of involving the end-user in the design process. I learned that good design means
considering different bodies and that those differently-abled are not ‘other’.”⠀
— Jay Calderín
⠀
“I shared with him what works, what doesn’t, and my own life hacks. It was a lot of fun!”⠀
— Cheri Blauwet
⠀
Fashion designer Jay Calderín partnered with Dr. Cheri Blauwet to create this one of a kind work for Boston’s inaugural 2017 Fashion Accessibility Project. The pair collaborated on every step of this iterative process, creating a design that would not only show off Cheri’s muscular arms (she’s also an Olympic athlete) but one that would enable her to sit more comfortably in her chair without interfering with her mobility. This was Calderín’s first time creating a dress for a person who uses a wheelchair. It proved to be a moving and highly informative experience.⠀⠀
MISSTROPOLIS
What the Fashion World Needs Now
Jay Calderin founded Boston Fashion Week 26 years ago and has been helping to raise the profile of the local fashion industry ever since.
This year, an all-virtual BFW will celebrate the next generation of fashion visionaries with a full calendar of student runway shows, behind-these-scenes visits, and tech-inspired events exploring the future of fashion.
For his dedication, inclusivity and mentorship, we are proud to recognize Jay Calderin as our newest Visionary in the series.
— Robin Hauck
Check out the profile in The Visionary Series!
Inspired by identity
#specialprojects
Georgia O’Keeffe has influenced artists of all kinds for generations. The world of fashion is no stranger to her artistic aesthetic. Nods to her subject matter, scale and use of color have made their way down runways and onto the pages of fashion magazines before. However, the Georgia O’Keeffe: Art, Image, Style exhibition at PEM has provided a fresh new perspective for any designer wanting a deeper understanding of the artist and the image she crafted so carefully for the public eye.
Three students at the School of Fashion Design, Boston were invited to immerse themselves in all things O’Keeffe and develop garments based on their findings. Kavya Khandavalli, Stephen Lamonica and AK Liesenfeld set out to learn everything they could about the woman, the artist and the myth. Their goal was to translate the essence of Georgia O’Keeffe — as they saw it — into contemporary fashion, much the way a creative director interprets the established fashion brand they are charged with leading into the future. They each chose which elements of O’Keeffe’s brand resonated with them in order to craft their sartorial message.
SCIENCE SURFACES
Science Surfaces is a capsule collection of body coverings and accessories that serve as canvases for digital prints of ideas inspired by award-winning biomedical images produced by life science research labs at MIT. It’s the result of the first Peers + Pros Project, a Boston Fashion Week creative learning initiative sponsored in part by Koch Institute Public Galleries.
LEARN MORE HERE
#specialprojects
Creative Minds Out Loud
is a podcast for arts and culture nerds,
produced by the Mass Cultural Council
Episode 64: Fashion Rolls Forward
Jay Calderin discusses one of the most meaningful fashion projects that he's ever been a part of with Anita Walker, the host of Creative Minds Out Loud and the Executive Director of the Mass Cultural Council.It all started when Malia Lazu asked Jay to be one of the designers involved in the Fashion Accessibility Project. He jumped at the chance to design a dress for Dr. Cheri Blauwet and involve two of his students from the School of Fashion Design, Andrea DiTullio and Sydney Siagel, in the design process.
We learn not to make it "other" because when you do it as "other" it almost feels like you're doing a favor, like, you're doing something special and you're going out of your way or something like that and we didn't want it to feel like that. We wanted it to feel like, "No, no. They are giving us these great design challenges."— Jay Calderin
BOOKS
What They Didn’t Teach You in Fashion School : What You Need to Know to Make it as a Fashion Designer
"The importance of Jay Calderin's book truly cannot be overstated. Not only is it important to show what the human hand can do, but equally as necessary is to guide young people
through the process of working in this field. This book provides readers with that wide and deep overview.”
― Ralph Rucci
Fashion Design Reference + Specification Book : Everything Fashion Designers Need to Know Every Day
"A new fashion bible for designers, aspirers and the just plain curious, this tome contains all the secrets."
― LA Times
Fashion Design Essentials : 100 Principles of Fashion Design
"In 100 short articles embellished with full-color photos and illustrations, Calderin brings even highly conceptual and esoteric fashion design ideas down to earth."
― The Library Journal
Celebrating Native American design as an important force in the world of contemporary fashion, this book features beautiful, innovative, and surprising looks from Native American artists.
CREATIVE LIVE
In Fashion Design: Start to Finish, Jay Calderin will get you started through hands-on demonstrations and step-by-step guidelines.
Learn to navigate through the design process, from conceiving a garment to marketing it.
Check out Jay Calderin's classes on CREATIVELIVE
FASHIONCAST: The Voice of Fashion
Jay Calderin, Boston's Fashion Genius
Welcome to Boston Fashioncast fans! Often referred to as a ‘brain factory” with 50 higher educational institutions and more than 250,000 college students, heady intellects are easy to find. But, this week’s guest, Jay Calderin, is literally a fashion genius.
Immersed in the world-of-fashion since the age of 14, Jay Calderin is a “Who’s Who” in the fashion industry and arguably is the intellectual force behind Boston’s fashion scene. As the founder of Boston Fashion Week over 25 years ago, Director of Community Relations at the School of Fashion Design, Boston, and successful international author of numerous fashion design books (see links), Calderin’s fashion energy and “can do” spirit has catapulted Boston into an international fashion destination.
You’ll be as awe-inspired as we were listening to Calderin explain significant industry transitions over the past several decades including the ever-increasing role of technology, an international advance towards sustainability, online fashion education, and the importance of local community involvement in fashion events.
In addition, Calderin also details the fascinating role Boston now plays in the international fashion community. Given its vast student population, the college experience in many ways acts as a two-way exchange of ideas and culture as students graduate and ultimately disseminate a “Boston style” across the globe.
Calderin is the ultimate guest. He’s a designer, entrepreneur, academic, author, and fashion community organizer! Moreover, he’s articulate, humorous, and easy to listen to. Essentially, he’s everything you would expect from a fashion genius. Enjoy!
NPR: ALL THINGS CONSIDERED
Listen to Jay Calderin discuss the importance and the impact of Barbie's new shapes and shades with Tina Martin on NPR's All Things Considered' The Two Way segment. WGBH 89.7 fm
LISTEN HERE:
Photo courtesy of Julia Csekö
Marca X
A LGBTQIA/Latinx exhibition organized by Villa Victoria Center for the Arts, Inquilinos Boricuas en Acción (IBA), the Boston LGBTQIA Artist Alliance (BLAA), and the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard
Rodando Mis R’s (Rolling My R’s)
by Jay Calderin
Polarities manifest frequently throughout the exhibit to highlight stretches of tension and triumph. Jay Calderin’s Rodando Mis R’s (Rolling My R’s) tells of vulnerability reshaped into power and agency. A flamboyantly patterned dress stands in the second half of the exhibition space, regal and impossible to ignore in fiery fuchsia, pink, and purple. It is comprised of two garments—a gown and cape—with a small train flowing behind it. Upon closer inspection, the patterns feature photos and portraits of Rita Moreno, Ricky Martin, and Raul Julia, performing idols Calderin admired in his youth and today.
Calderin, who began sewing and designing garments in his teens, recalls the painful process of coming out, and the self-censoring that accompanied his immediate community’s homophobia. In his statement, the cape is meant to resemble a cocoon and then wings, symbolizing growth and change; however, on the other side of growth and change is adversity. “Mariposa,” I have learned, is a long-standing term of derision against gay men in some Latinx communities. Even when Calderin first ventured into design, he was careful to keep the designs more conservative, less colorful. Today, despite the fear and doubt that haunted his younger years, the dress stands with unswaying verve and irrefutable confidence. It wears its colors proudly and without compromise.
― Frank Redner, Big Red & Shiny