Among the Interior Design department’s prominent alumni are Samuel Botero (B.F.A. ’68), principal of Samuel Botero Associates in New York, New York; Joe D’Urso (B.F.A. ’65), president of D’Urso Design, Inc. in Santa Monica, California; and Laura Bohn (B.F.A. ’76), principal of Bohn Design Associates, Inc. in New York, New York. 

The late Naomi Leff (M.S. ’73), who created elegant spaces for celebrities and retailers like Ralph Lauren, Ferragamo, Gucci, and Giorgio Armani, endowed The Naomi Leff Excellence in Interior Design Scholarship, providing one full-tuition scholarship and several partial scholarships annually to outstanding Interior Design graduate students. She also recently left sketches and renderings from the Leff Archive to Pratt Institute. Leff, who was known for her contemporary reworking of traditional designs, was repeatedly listed among the top names in her field by leading magazines such as Interior Design. She was inducted into the Design Hall of Fame in 1991 and named the Dean of Design by Architectural Digest in 2005.  The late Harold E. Leeds, architect and designer, helped to establish Pratt's graduate school of interior design in 1968 and became its first chair. 

The U.S. News & World Report rankings were based solely on a survey of art school deans and other top art academicians, two per school, at 230 MFA programs in art and design nationwide. 

Text: Amy Aronoff

Pratt is proud to announce its 2012 Pratt Institute Fashion Show has sold out! Tickets are still available to this year’s Cocktail Benefit at PH-D at Dream Downtown, and the runway show and award presentation will be streamed live on Pratt’s YouTube channel!

Join in online to view the future of fashion as Pratt’s graduating seniors in the Department of Fashion Design present new looks in day and evening wear. On Twitter, make sure to mention #PrattLIVE when tweeting about the 2012 Pratt Institute Fashion Show + Cocktail Benefit!

Fashion Show
Thursday, April 26, 2012, 6 PM
Center548
548 West 22nd Street
New York, New York 10011 

Cocktail Benefit
Thursday, April 26, 2012, 7:30–10 PM
PH-D at Dream Downtown
355 West 16th Street 
New York, New York 10011

For more information, visit www.pratt.edu/fashionshow. To purchase tickets to the Cocktail Benefit, please email fashionshow@pratt.edu, or call 718-399-4548.

Winter 2012 has been one of the mildest in recent memory, with temperatures hovering in the mid-to-upper 60s range in January and daffodils appearing in early February. Concern that a sudden snowfall might freeze the first blooms and wreak havoc with their normal growth cycles proved to be unfounded, as the unseasonably warm weather brought a three-week-early bloom to trees and flowers all over the tri-state area. On the Pratt Brooklyn campus the early burst of spring-like temperatures led to the blossoming of red bud and flowering cherry trees, plants, and bushes well before the official start of spring on March 20. To see images of Pratt’s campus during the early onset of spring, click here.

Text: Adrienne Gyongy
Photos: Jeanne Wilkinson, Visiting Associate Professor, Fine Arts