Jeremy Scott was celebrated at Pratt Institute’s annual gala Wednesday night in New York City as a recipient of the school’s Legends award, and his connection with the school runs deep.
The 50-year-old former longtime creative director at Moschino is known for his inventiveness and bold riffs on Americana and pop culture. Scott, who earned a bachelor’s degree in fashion design from Pratt in 1996, is a favorite with such celebrities as Katy Perry, Margot Robbie, Taylor Swift, Madonna, Miley Cyrus, Beyoncé Knowles-Carter and Sabrina Carpenter for his signature designs. Although Scott was not available for an interview with WWD Thursday, Pratt shared an audio recording of his acceptance speech.
Another Pratt alum, Mavis Wiggins, was also honored.
His friend Heidi Klum took a break from her Halloween party planning to salute him. Pratt shared their remarks with WWD including the model’s opening lines, “Creativity is honoring someone who is creativity personified. Jeremy has never blended in. Thank God. I’m also not here to blend in. His work is bold. It’s witty, fearless and just the right amount of crazy. I love crazy, basically Jeremy in fashion form.”
Scott brought his mother Sandra and thanked her on many fronts. “Even though growing up maybe she didn’t know what my artistic ideas were about and these things I was pursuing, she did the most important thing a mother can do. She loved me, she protected me, and she advocated for me,” Scott said.
The designer also thanked his sister, Barbara, who gave him money to buy a sewing machine to make his first collections, while he was living in Paris. His sister did that despite the fact that she was in law school and in debt with student loans at that time. Scott also noted how he had bought an industrial Juki sewing machine, because that was the model that he had learned on at Pratt.
As many undergrads may be able to relate, Scott shared with attendees that his route to Pratt wasn’t “so straightforward,” having initially aspired as a high schooler to be “a ceramicist.” At that time, Scott was really into art. He said, “I was making ceramics and paper sculptures, and my art teacher said, ‘You know, you should put a portfolio together. You should be a fashion designer. You love clothes. You’re always making these things and you’re wearing things and drawing things and putting things on your friends.’”
Models backstage
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Scott continued, “I just kind of thought, that’s not even really a job…so she helped me put together a portfolio. And I’m like, ‘Well, where do we send it? She’s like, we send it to FIT.”
Once that happened, Scott waited for an acceptance letter. After more than a month, he said he was “so excited seeing the letter from FIT, which I opened, and it said, ‘We regret to inform that we cannot accept you because you lack creativity, originality and artistic ability, quote, unquote, I s–t you not. So, you can imagine, at 17, high school senior, I was devastated. I thought, ‘Well, maybe I’m just a big fish in a little pond.”
Katy Perry attends the 2019 Met Gala celebrating “Camp: Notes on Fashion” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Getty Images for The Met Museum/
Describing that time in Kansas City, Mo., Scott said, “It felt like ‘the Great Oz’ had spoken. After a few weeks and a few boxes of Kleenex, I made a decision. I would go to New York, and I would go see the schools myself and present myself in person.”
With appointments lined up at Parsons, FIT and Pratt, Scott said Parsons was “rather supportive,” but they questioned who his customer might be. He said, “I said it was me and my friends. I thought this is what Donna Karan made her whole industry out of — just different friends. But I should have toned it down, though, and made it more [about] Fifth Avenue.“
A few days later after navigating the A train to the G train to get to Pratt’s admissions office in Brooklyn, Scott said that was when he “felt seen and understood immediately.” He recalled having been told, “’You have this talent, and your work is a little bit science fiction, and you look more towards Europe and European fashion. And you know, we’re here to give you an education, a structure, to teach you all the things that you need to be able to go forward.’”
Miley Cyrus and Jeremy Scott at the Jeremy Scott & Moschino party with Barbie on Dec. 4, 2014, in Miami Beach.
WireImage
Scott said that was all he needed. He applied for student loans and called his mother immediately. That “rigorous” education at Pratt meant that if things weren’t made, “they were ripped apart in front of you, in front of the whole class,” Scott said. “Unless you decided to rip it apart yourself in private, until it was perfect.”
Learning to be able to make patterns, to drape, to cut, and to sew, is what allowed him to do all of those things for the first two collections that he made on the sewing machine that his sister bought for him, he said.
“In debt with gratitude to Pratt” for giving him those skills, Scott said, “Pratt gave me one other gift that’s even more valuable. And that’s my best friend, Pablo Leia, who is here tonight.”
The designer connected with Leia, who was studying, painting and photography on a full scholarship through someone, who thought they were from the same place in Missouri. They grew up 45 minutes apart, but met on the Pratt campus. Scott said that started a lifelong friendship, noting how Leia is the only person aside from himself to have attended every one of his fashion shows. “Pablo was championing me in school, telling people, ‘He’s gonna be a famous fashion designer one day.’’ Scott said, “So, on behalf of Pablo and myself, I am graciously excited.”
