Not limited to red carpets and catwalks, fashion is everywhere and is a dynamic form of communication and culture (USC’s new interdisciplinary minor in fashion is just one example). From teaching fashion to growing your brand, artists and scholars will discuss the changing landscapes of fashion and consider how to move fashion forward into the mid-21st century.

• Keanan Duffty, a fashion designer and creative director, has collaborated with brands like Aveda, Reebok, and Ben Sherman. He partnered with David Bowie on a Target collection and styled the Sex Pistols for their 2003 U.S. tour. A CFDA member, Duffty styled the 2016 CFDA tribute to Bowie and sponsored six Kyiv designers during New York Fashion Week 2022. His designs have appeared in over 150 global retailers, including Harrods and Bergdorf Goodman. Co-author of Rebel Rebel: Anti-Style (with Paul Gorman and BP Fallon, Rizzoli/Adelita, 2009) and author of The Fashion Entrepreneur (Hachette, 2024), Duffty has led academic programs at Parsons, teaching fashion innovation and entrepreneurship while lecturing at institutions like Central Saint Martin’s and USC Iovine and Young Academy. 

• d. Sabela grimes is a transmedia storyteller, sonic ARKivist, and movement composer. Improvisation and collaboration are at the heart of his creative practice, weaving together sound, visuals, and kinesthetic expression into interconnected, multi-sensory experiences. He explores the poetics of assemblage, the magic of mutability, and the art of mastering misuse. His current collaborative work, Parable of Portals, co-created with Meena Murugesan, dreams Octavia E. Butler’s body of work—including personal writings and unfinished manuscripts—into modular, multidisciplinary performance installations. On faculty at the USC Glorya Kaufman School of Dance, he continues to develop Funkamental MediKinetics, a movement system that integrates layered dance training, imaginative ritual, and community building and has taught the intersection of dance, fashion, and style in a course titled Improvisational Strategies in Movement and Materiality.
• Haven Lin-Kirk is Dean of the USC Roski School of Art and Design and an experienced artist, award-winning designer, and design educator. She has exhibited extensively include running shows in China and Claremont Graduate University. Born in Taipei, Taiwan, of Chinese descent, Haven Lin-Kirk moved to Montreal, Canada, before traversing various states in the U.S. and briefly residing in Saudi Arabia. Her nomadic family eventually settled in California, where Haven set down roots and married a 5th generation Southern California native. She earned her MFA in Art from the Claremont Graduate University and a BA in Drawing and Painting with an emphasis on Printmaking from CSU Fullerton. Haven, alongside her students, garnered the National Endowment for the Arts’ Access to Artistic Excellence award. Additionally, she received recognition from the Los Angeles Mayor’s Office as an artist for AAPI Heritage Month and holds several awards in publication design for her graphic design work.

• Alison Trope, PhD (moderator), is a clinical professor at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. She is founder and director of Critical Media Project, a web-based media literacy resource focused on representation and identity and is the author of Stardust Monuments: The Saving and Selling of Hollywood (Dartmouth, 2012). Trope teaches a range of media and cultural studies courses in the Annenberg School for Communication including Fashion, Media, and Culture, which she created and has taught since 2007––before there was Instagram.