For the first time, absolute gender equality has been achieved in the fashion design department of the Iceland Academy of the Arts with five male and five female students having enrolled this term.
Archive photo: Páll Stefánsson/Iceland Review.
“It’s a very pleasing change that we welcome wholeheartedly,” the department’s program director Linda Björg Árnadóttir told Fréttablaðið.
Linda explained that the image of fashion design has changed over the years. “The notion that fashion design is arts and crafts for women only is fortunately changing. It has become a profession taken seriously as a job opportunity upon graduation.”
She calls Guðmundur Jörundsson a male pioneer in fashion design, having designed a very popular men’s collection for Herrafataverslun Kormáks og Skjaldar.
Guðmundur graduated with a degree in fashion design from the Iceland Academy of the Arts in 2011 and is so far the department’s only male graduate. However, in addition to the five first-year male students, two other men are studying fashion design at third year.
ESA
