Hicks, Gunn Among YMA Panel Sure Shots

NEW YORK – Tim Gunn, co-host of “Project Runway” and chair of the fashion design department at Parsons The New School for Design, will lead a roundtable of industry luminaries discussing what it takes to get ahead and stay ahead in the fashion world.

The event, sponsored by the YMA Fashion Scholarship Fund, is scheduled from noon to 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 6, in the second-floor auditorium of Parsons.

Joining Gunn on the panel will be two of the honorees at the YMA’s annual awards dinner on Jan. 10 – Ken Hicks, president of J.C. Penney Co., and Karen Murray, group president of menswear, mid-tier, international alliances and licensing at Liz Claiborne Inc. Other speakers will include Chris Kolbe, president of Original Penguin, and April Singer, founder and designer of Rufus Apaprel.

About 100 fashion majors from Parsons, Fashion Institute of Technology, LIM and Pratt Institute are expected to attend, as will a number of recipients of 2006 Fashion Fund Scholarships. A question-and-answer session will follow the roundtable.

The YMA also announced that, at the January awards dinner, Hicks will be introduced by Mike Ullman, chairman and chief executive of Penney’s, and Murray will be introduced by Paul Charron, chairman of Liz Claiborne.

The third honoree at the January event, as previously reported, will be Paula Abdul, entertainer and “American Idol” judge.