Education’s new frontier: Fashion school for children

New York - As New York City’s preeminent fashion institutions, Parsons and FIT, prepare to open their studios and sewing labs to a new batch of bright-eyed freshmen for the fall semester, a slightly different fashion school is gaining notice. And while images of children operating sewing machines have often accompanied exposés on sweat shops and exploitation, Britta B. Wheeler, the founder of The Children’s Institute of Fashion Arts (The CIFA), a non-profit organization devoted to expansive education in the culture and craft of clothing for kids, provides a positive and empowering narrative around such images. FashionUnited sat down with her to discover why the search for the next great American designer might begin as early as pre-school.