By virtue of being a liberal arts school, Skidmore College churns out alumni who go on to succeed in all sorts of fields, from science and politics to business and the performing arts. Many grads end up straying far from what they studied in college, but are able to use the transferable skills they learned at Skidmore—critical thinking, communication, and problem-solving—to excel in any industry they choose to tackle. Fashion designer Barbara Tfank is the perfect example.
At Skidmore, Tfank studied education and psychology. She went on to design looks for Uma Thurman, Kate Winslet, Adele, and Michelle Obama. How exactly did a young liberal arts student dreaming of life as an educator wind up a Los Angeles–based fashion designer to the stars? We have to journey back to the 1970s to answer that one.
After graduating from Skidmore, Tfank got her master’s degree at Stanford University before moving abroad to work for the Ministry of Education in Venezuela. But there are two things you need to know about Barbara Tfank: She loves to learn, and she needs to be creative. While her job in education allowed her to do the former (heck, she learned Spanish while living in South America), she longed to flex her creative muscles. So she returned home to New York City, taking a job as an assistant to fashion designer Salvatore J. Cesarani. The role changed her life, and quickly became something akin to an apprenticeship. It was one of many times in her life that Tfank did something to which she now attributes her success: She found a great teacher and learned everything she could from him.
Photography by Guido Raimondo
After stints working under other great teachers as a photo stylist assistant (she worked with Richard Avedon and Bill King), floral designer (for the Whitney Museum, New York Historical Society, New York City Ballet, and Metropolitan Opera), and costume designer (she worked on feature films including 1992 war drama A Midnight Clear starring Ethan Hawke), Tfank struck off on her own. She designed her first fashion collection, and it got picked up by Barney’s New York, which launched her eponymous fashion label in 2001.
Since then, her work has been regularly featured in Vogue and during New York Fashion Week on Vogue Runway. In 2009, Vogue commissioned her to design a look for Adele to wear to the Grammys, at which the singer won awards for Best New Artist and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. (Tfank went on to design the looks Adele wore to the MTV Awards and Sony’s 2012 Grammy party, among other events.) Her designs eventually drew the attention of Michelle Obama, whose stylist came to see Tfank when she was showing her collection in Paris. Mrs. Obama went on to wear Tfank’s dresses to key events throughout her husband’s presidency, including a 2011 Medal of Honor ceremony, the 2012 State of the Union Address, and a visit to Buckingham Palace, where she met Queen Elizabeth. In 2019, Tfank broke into the wedding industry with her bridal collection, which has since been featured in Vogue Weddings, Town & Country, and Over The Moon.
The roots of all this success, Tfank says, can be traced back to her undergrad experience—or, more specifically, her undergrad professors. “The seeds were planted at Skidmore,” she says of the origins of her illustrious career. “The teachers there were so wonderful. They set a very high bar…and when I left, I looked for more great teachers.”
When Tfank started at Skidmore, it was still a women’s college. “We were told there was nothing we couldn’t do,” she says. “There were no distractions with guys and stuff—you could be very focused and everyone took you very seriously intellectually, which was really important for me.” Skidmore opened its doors to men during Tfank’s time there, but it took several years for the college to attract a significant proportion of men. Today, about 40 percent of the college’s student body is men.
Tfank says her time at Skidmore did wonders for her confidence. She recalls how insecure she used to be, and remembers entering college under the assumption that she wasn’t as brilliant as everyone else there. Her current view offers a kinder eye toward her teenage self. “It’s quite funny when I think about it,” she says. “I was doing fabulous costume design in high school, running around New York getting people to teach me things as a teenager, but I didn’t feel that way.”
In March 2023, five decades after she graduated from Skidmore, Tfank returned to the college to give the F. William Harder Lecture in Business Administration. Her talk coincided with an exhibition, Barbara Tfank: Fabric Inspires, which was on view at the Tang Teaching Museum. “It’s completely rebuilt,” she says of the campus. “I remember how the stables used to be…and driving up the main street—all these beautiful houses used to be dorms.”
Now living and working in LA—her studio was all but hemmed in by area wildfires this past winter—Tfank hires interns from her other alma mater, Stanford, to help her with the business side of her operation. It’s a full-circle moment for her: She has become the type of teacher she used to seek out as a young professional. One of her current interns, a talented student studying economics, is a high achiever like she was. “I encouraged her to take history of art, go to museums, and feed the other side of her brain,” Tfank says. Skidmore, she continues, was good at balancing creative arts with academics—a balance Stanford’s administration is realizing the school needs. Tfank says that’s why she’s been invited to host some creative workshops there; at a school known for its exemplary STEM education, Tfank is the token fashion designer alum.
“I get to the be the strange one,” she says. If being strange means possessing the impeccable taste, wide-ranging talents, and tenacious drive of Barbara Tfank, sign us up.
