Angela Bray
Journal Staff

NESAD senior wins tuition scholarship

Suffolk’s New England School of Art and Design’s (NESAD) Anna Parfentieva won a $30,000 scholarship for her senior year. The interior design BFA student received the national scholarship as a reward for her retail store design, “ALLEY,” from the 2010/2011 Donghia Foundation Scholarship.

The Donghia Foundation provides annual scholarships to exceptional interior design students in the U.S. The award is named after one of America’s most influential interior designers, Angelo Donghia.

Parfentieva was born into a family of designers in Russia. She was raised in Dubai, where she completed two years of creative advertising and graphic design at the American University of Dubai. Upon recognizing a desire to go be yond visual design, Parfentieva decided to seek a school with an interior design foundation and traveled to Italy and the United Kingdom. Boston settled as the final decision, as she felt the sense of cultural identity and status as “the home for students of all nationalities.”

“I was taking a class at NESAD called Contract II with Professor Nacer Benkati,” she said. “We were taking a class on retail space and the professor got to choose two students from NESAD [to compete for the scholarship].”

According to Parfentieva, Benkati chose two students who were “divine, had the ability to challenge, and a strong desire to achieve design.”

“Professor Benkati is a great professor in our school,” said Parfentieva. “He does challenge his students. I also had Nancy Hackett guide me with my project.”

Participants had one month to complete the project, due June 14, and were required to be undergraduate juniors who would be entering their senior year this fall.

“The project itself was a retail space,” said Parfentieva. The first step was to choose a clothing designer, her choice being Matthew Williamson. “I literally had to learn about his store and clothing. He focuses on how clothes fit on a woman.”

Parfentieva paid a visit to Williamson’s store in New York City to take photos and a floor plan for inspiration. Store locations are also in London and Dubai. A Kuwait location is also in the works.

“I needed a store that had the clothing and a unique feel,” she said. “In his space, he wants people to feel like they are walking through a garden.”

Parfentieva titled her retail store design “ALLEY.”  “I wanted people to feel like they were walking through an alley. Sort of like walking down Newbury and seeing an alley. In mine, the changing room is like going into an apartment coming from the street.”

Parfentieva’s concept store includes office space, a bathroom and three changing rooms. She used only Williamson’s collection, saying the space is made to occupy his clothing, the gems of the store.

“I’m really happy I got this opportunity and hope I can do much more,” she said. “[The scholarship] is the best present I can give my parents, it’s like a gift to them.” Parfentieva is planning to find a job in New York and work her way up.