The Fashion Institute of Technology placed two top officials on leave after the school hosted a “racist” fashion show that featured models wearing oversized red lips and “monkey ears.” According to FIT President Dr. Joyce Brown, Mary Davis, then Dean of the School of Graduate Studies, and Jonathan Kyle Farmer, Chair of the MFA Fashion Design Department, were both placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of an external investigation. In an email to students, Brown wrote that they should take out their anger at FIT rather than fashion show designer Junkai Hunag. She said it appeared that the “styling and accessorizing” of the show was “provided” to Hunag rather than something he chose. “Junkai has said, and his thesis notes and sketches support, that the collection he designed and produced was not aimed at invoking or provoking racial implications,” Brown wrote, without specifying who provided the accessories to Hunag.
