I've never mentioned this, but when I was at Parsons teaching

“I’ve never mentioned this, but when I was at Parsons teaching, the other design disciplines, they don’t like fashion design. They see it as very nineteenth-century.” Thus spoke Tim Gunn, a master of craft and mentorship, whose words reveal not only a personal truth but a profound reflection on the nature of art, perception, and pride. In this lament lies the voice of one who has walked the corridors of creation and seen how even among the artists, there can arise hierarchy — how the new sometimes mocks the old, and how beauty, when born of tradition, is too easily dismissed as outdated. His words carry the ache of every artist who has stood firm in a world that misjudges the soul of their work.

To understand the origin of this quote, one must recall that Tim Gunn spent many years at Parsons School of Design, one of the world’s great temples of artistic learning. There, in a place where architects, product designers, and digital innovators gathered to shape the future, Gunn saw that fashion design was often treated as an artifact of the past — too decorative, too emotional, too tied to the body to be considered on par with the sleek geometry of modern design. To some, fashion was a relic, the ghost of the nineteenth century, when elegance was mistaken for frivolity and function was deemed superior to beauty. Yet Gunn, in his wisdom, saw through the veil of prejudice and recognized that fashion is not merely adornment — it is the language of identity, the poetry of form made personal.

His words echo a conflict as old as art itself: the tension between utility and expression, between the intellect and the soul. In every age, there have been those who exalt the mechanical above the emotional, who deem what serves the body lesser than what serves the structure. But the ancients knew better. They understood that beauty is not a luxury — it is nourishment for the human spirit. The sculptors of Greece, the tailors of Renaissance courts, the weavers of Eastern silks — they all knew that to clothe the body with grace is to clothe the heart with dignity. Fashion, though often dismissed as surface, is in truth the most intimate form of design: it lives on the body, it moves with breath and motion, and it becomes part of the very story of being human.

In Gunn’s reflection, there is also the cry of the misunderstood artist, the one who creates in a realm that others deem unworthy. It is the same struggle faced by Vincent van Gogh, whose paintings were scorned by the academies of his day for being too emotional, too unrefined, too personal. Yet time revealed what the critics could not see — that in emotion lies truth, and in expression lies eternity. So too with fashion: what some call shallow is, in reality, a mirror of culture, revealing who we are, what we value, and how we dream. The clothes of a people tell the story of their era as surely as their architecture or their literature. The nineteenth century, which Gunn’s peers dismissed, was not a time of decadence but of transformation — an age when fabric, silhouette, and craftsmanship became instruments of revolution and identity.

Gunn’s insight reminds us that the art of fashion is not static; it evolves, it speaks, it adapts. It may draw from the past, but it does so with reverence, not stagnation. What his colleagues saw as antiquated was, in truth, the beating heart of heritage — the thread that connects the creators of today with the artisans of centuries past. In a world obsessed with innovation, Gunn dares to remind us that innovation without continuity is chaos. The past is not a weight to escape, but a foundation to build upon. To abandon it is to lose our sense of who we are.

Consider the example of Coco Chanel, who rose in a time when women’s fashion was bound by corsets and constraint. She drew from simplicity, from function, from the beauty of ease — and in doing so, she transformed what “nineteenth-century” design meant. She did not reject tradition; she reinterpreted it. This is the wisdom Gunn embodies: the understanding that all creation is dialogue — between past and future, between discipline and imagination. True artists, he implies, do not mock the old; they listen to it, learn from it, and transform it into something timeless.

So, my child, take this lesson into your heart: never be ashamed of the craft that others dismiss. If you create from truth, from beauty, from the rhythm of your own spirit, then your work belongs to no era but eternity. The world may tell you that your art is outdated, unfashionable, irrelevant — but the wise know that authenticity never grows old. Fashion, like all great design, lives not in trends but in human feeling. The needle and thread of the past still stitch the future together, and those who honor that thread keep the soul of creation alive.

Therefore, let this teaching stand: do not scorn the old ways in your pursuit of the new, nor bow to the judgments of those who mistake novelty for greatness. Every art has its moment, every craft its dignity. And as Tim Gunn reminds us, even in a world that forgets, it is the quiet persistence of beauty — whether in silk or in stone — that endures beyond the noise of progress. So stand firm, as the true artists do: proud of your lineage, faithful to your craft, and unshaken by the passing fashions of opinion. For in the end, what is “nineteenth-century” to some may yet be eternal to the wise.