But if you are missing it, or if you did miss it (it closes May 23), then here is your consolation prize: more photos of the fabulous work by the (equally fabulous) Smiljana Peros.

In Packaging Design, in the lobby of The Museum at FIT:

Skin care product packaging by Kathleen Gamboa, Packaging Design ’13. The triangular boxes have major shelf appeal.

In Illustration, in the downstairs gallery at The Museum at FIT:

“Queen Elizabeth as the Cat and the Fiddle,” an oil painting by Sunna Yim, Illustration ’13. So lifelike, one could almost believe that man-dog is real!

Another luscious illustration with phenomenal detail:

“Solitary Woman,” an oil painting by Alyssa Bauer, Illustration ’13.

The floor plans by the Interior Design BFA students were hard to capture in a photo, so here’s a design by an AAS Interior Design student.

“Bird House — Inspiration: Ridley Scott,” a mixed media project by Esther Bang, Interior Design.

Last but not least, the Visual Presentation and Exhibition Design group project is an exhibition about the superhero, entitled “Heroes and Villains,” in the Pomerantz lobby. It’s a lot of fun, especially for youngins and comic-book geeks, but also for anyone who enjoys superhero movies and innovative exhibitions.

A jester in the Heroes & Villains exhibition in the Pomerantz lobby, created by the Visual Presentation and Exhibition Design graduating students.

Through May 23, the culminating work of 800 graduating Art and Design students is displayed all throughout the school; for example, Accessories Design and Photography in the Feldman lobby, more Photography in the library, Fine Arts in the Great Hall, Packaging and Fashion Design in the museum lobby, and, oh gosh, just take a gander at this chart.

Hue will post a few more times about the exhibition before its end; for today, here’s a sampling of stunners.

“Transience,” fantastically fluorescent shoes by Rachel Bohn, Accessories Design.

“Ode to Southern Summer,” a necklace by Daniell Hudson, Jewelry Design, made with real cicadas, just in time for the Jurassic Park rerelease this summer. Oh, and the cicada “swarmageddon.”

Spectacle in the Fine Arts exhibition hall. The green resin clutter of body parts is “Ouch,” by Dimitri Dimizas, Fine Arts, a commentary on our culture’s lust for violence.

The “Sammy” plush toy and the “Sammy Can’t Stand Her Bangs” book. Is it a response to Michelle Obama’s look at the inauguration this year?

Hue finally understood Grandpa’s wisdom on Sunday, April 21, at Type-In NYC, “a jam session for manual typewriters and the people who love them.”

This is how Hue imagines newsrooms of yore.

The lobby of Theatre 80 on St. Marks Place was packed with manual typewriters; it verily echoed with the clacking of keys. A speed-typing contest brought high-stakes intensity to an already nerve-wracking pastime.

On the left, a TV news reporter. On the right, Bryan, a thirteen-year-old typewriter collector/salesman who owns 76 of them. Check them out at typewriters101.weebly.com.

To type on these stunning but maddening machines, Hue had to jam down hard on each key, a process which required great finger strength and a steep angle of incidence. Typing too quickly would jam the typebars together. And forget the delete key; if you make a mistake, you might as well just jump off a bridge.

Hue’s first dalliance with an Underwood. Note the missing number 1.

Oh, and there was the pesky problem of the number 1. Most of the typewriters didn’t have one. “You have to type a lowercase ‘L’,” counseled everyone.

Type-In NYC resulted from a far less frustrating mechanical passion. Michael McGettigan, co-owner of Trophy Bikes in Philadelphia, rendezvoused with Steven Huang, Graphic Design ’99, over their mutual adoration of Brompton folding bikes. When Huang heard about the Type-Ins McGettigan had been organizing all over the world since December 2010, he offered to help out. Theatre 80 offered its lobby gratis (other establishments thought the noise would upset customers), and typewriter collectors near and far brought their beauts.

The winners of the speed-typing contest, Matt and Michael (not the organizer, who shares his first name). “They’re fun to write poetry on,” Michael says of his small collection of typewriters. “It gets friends and family looking forward to opening the mailbox.”

“Workers and hippies have sit-ins, so why not have a type-in?” McGettigan quipped.

When doing market research, sales associates are the best teachers. They do like to talk. I learned all about the brands out there, and the best sellers for each age group, why some brands cost more, etc.

Some people buy expensive underwear, like $60 a pair.

Each buyer for a retail store starts with only 20 to 30 pieces. After all the effort of getting the buyer, that number seemed low. But it has pushed me to look for other ways to sell. Also, many of these stores sell on a consignment basis: A shop owner will give me space to display my product, and he pays me based on what I sold for the month. That can still be a great opportunity, though.

I used to wonder why brands spend so much on branding, and whether that was necessary. India isn’t so much into branding, so I didn’t expect that everything would boil down to a brand. Now I understand its importance. Certain demographics won’t even look at underwear if it’s not branded. They won’t even give it a chance.

Another thing I was not ready for was the emotional roller coaster of working for myself.

Underwear is such a small product, one would imagine that a factory could pull it off with no trouble. At every step, I learned not to take anything for granted.

In Tirupur, where my product was being dyed, many dyeing houses were shut down recently because there was no proper chemical treatment plant.

People are not used to women designing for men—it’s almost always the other way around. And they don’t expect an Indian woman behind the work. It’s a conversation starter, an opportunity for me to show that I’m passionate about it.

Vasumathi Soundararajan, Fashion Design ’10, knows men’s underwear.

Risotto alla Milanese (Saffron risotto Milanese-style)

INGREDIENTS

Most of the ingredients for Risotto alla Milanese. Yes, Hue is prepping on a washing machine.

2 beef stock cubes, crumbled [Hue used 2 tsp Better Than Bouillon, a concentrated stock that tastes better than the Liptonesque dried cubes in the supermarket. Surely Napoleone has access to top-quality cubes, though.]

1 large onion, thinly sliced

80 g (3 oz) unsalted butter [For people who use sticks of butter (read: pretty much everyone), this measurement is going to mean very little. It’s 6 Tbsp or ¾ of a stick.]

350 g (12 oz) arborio or carnaroli rice [Carnaroli rice sounds delicious, but Hue could only find Arborio--still much better than standard Uncle Ben’s, which turns into horrible muck when cooked in this style. Also, for people without scales in their kitchens, Hue did the math. It turned out to be two-ish cups of rice.]

Hue loves cheese. Also the microplane, which is infinitely easier to clean than a box grater.

2–3 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese [Hue, a confirmed sybarite, prefers risotto with about a cup of cheese. But then it does get a little sticky. Also, Hue used grana padano, the brilliant but less flashy cousin ("She's a nice girl," her mother tells all the eligible men she can find) of parmigiano reggiano, because it was on sale.]

Hue stores leftover wine in plastic bottles to take up less space in the fridge. Super classy.

2 glasses white wine [Who measures their liquids in glasses?! Hue imagines Napoleone stirring her risotto with a wine glass to her lips, then, with an insouciant shrug, upending the glass into the pan. Perhaps 2 glasses means 10 ounces?]

1⁄2 teaspoon saffron powder [For those readers who lack supermarket curiosity, pound for pound, saffron is probably the most expensive substance you will ever ingest, with the possible exception of David Bowie's perspiration, 1973 vintage. The unit price on the supermarket tag for saffron is always five digits. It is often more expensive than gold. Hue owns neither a spice grinder nor a mortar and pestle, so creating powder from the threads meant crushing it between fingers over the pan. This was not difficult.]

Salt [Hue only had salted butter, so no extra salt was necessary.]

DIRECTIONS

Make the stock in a saucepan by dissolving the 2 beef cubes in 1.5 litres (21⁄2 pints) boiling water.

The sliced onions right after going into the pan.

Fry the onion in 50 g (13⁄4 oz) [Note: a little more than half] of the butter in another saucepan or heavy casserole until transparent and soft but not colored. [“Colored” must mean browned. Whoops, the heat was too high and the onions browned along the edges. Oh, bother.]

Stir the rice into the onions for 1 minute, then stir in the white wine and the saffron.

Allow the risotto to fully absorb the liquid. Add a ladleful of stock, stirring constantly, allow this to absorb before adding the next ladleful and continue in this way for about 20 minutes (20 minutes cooking time is essential for a good risotto, do not overcook!). [Hue realized too late that the pan was not big enough. A deft switcheroo solved that problem.]

Stirring in the broth does get tedious.

When there are few minutes left to reaching the cooking time, do not add any more stock but allow any excess stock to absorb. The rice should be cooked but still firm to the bite. [Hue erred on the side of too firm, leaving a cup or two of stock left in the stockpot. It was a wise choice. At this point, the dish seemed a little bland, so Hue stirred in another teaspoonful of the Better Than Bouillon.]

Add the remaining butter in knobs, one by one, and the Parmesan. Season with a little salt if necessary and serve immediately.

Serves 6 [Actually, it served two quite nicely, each taking a moderate portion, then hovering over the pan with large spoons, gobbling madly. And still there were leftovers for risotto pancakes in the morning.]

The finished meal. Diet food!

That fate befell Hue’s feature on Shoe Obsession at The Museum at FIT, that homage to droolworthy footwear which (sadly) closed April 13. Hue’s spring textile issue just got too jam-packed for a spread on shoes, even those as gorgeous as those The Museum displayed.

But in the age of the internet, nothing ever dies, not really. Loyal reader, clasp your hands with glee: you can read about Shoe Obsession here!

First, the design team shops at high- and low-end stores for inspiration. They liked these resin earrings—and neon is hot right now—and wanted to create something better.

Back in the studio, the designers make dozens of sketches, based on materials chosen by the product development team. The design director picks the best one—in this case, the one on the lower right. She thought the teardrop shape with just one ring of stones looked special without costing too much.

Next, Mehta makes a clear and informative technical drawing that is sent to the manufacturer.

The manufacturer takes a “first pass” at the earring, and the designers tweak it. In this case, they wanted the blue resin piece to look shinier and asked for it in a range of colors.

Mehta’s work is done when the showroom sample comes in. This piece, in Kensie’s Spring/Summer 2013 collection, sells for $38 at Lord & Taylor and Macy’s.

The pictures tell the story pretty nicely, in Hue’s humble (and insanely biased) opinion, but if a picture is worth a thousand words, then this video of the testing lab’s machines in action, at 24 frames per second, is worth almost 2 million words. That’s almost twice as long as the longest novel in history, In Search of Lost Time. You’d be a fool not to watch.

A design by Yuko Yamaguchi that combines floral patterns with a leopard print. Originally the design was much flatter; Cody suggested adding brushstrokes for texture.

The Garment District-based company designs patterns and embroidery—about 200 a week—and sells them to fashion designers high and low. Those clients might use the pattern for one garment or an entire collection. Most similar companies are based in Europe; Tom Cody Design is one of the few American companies in the business.

Cody, who started his company after taking a Textile Design course with Professor Lee Stewart at FIT, employs three FIT-trained illustrators and designers on his team and would look favorably upon applicants from FIT’s Illustration or Textile/Surface Design majors (hint, hint).

A design by Yamaguchi inspired by winter foliage.

Using a computer and tablet pen, Yamaguchi creates two to three patterns per day. Those that Cody and assistant art director Yat Yee Tam approve are printed onto mock garments and shown to clients. The job, though demanding, is a satisfying creative outlet for her.

Yamaguchi finds inspiration from runways and street fashion and just about everywhere else. “I think fashion is related to the economy, politics, art, music, literature, news, psychology, technology, and architecture,” she says.

The catch? She can’t get credit for her designs when they hit the runway. Once a design is sold, it’s treated as the buyer’s intellectual property. It’s sort of like having an affair with a celebrity: You get all the fun but none of the status.

“It’s kind of hard,” she admits, “but the good thing is, you’re not bored. When Yat and Tom accept one of my ideas, it’s so exciting. Where I was working before, I’d suggest an idea and they’d deny, deny, deny.”

An abstract painterly design by Yamaguchi. Fewer colors makes the design more appealing to cost-conscious fashion companies.

Her unique and beloved silk garments are represented in the Musée Galleria de la Mode et du Costume, a museum of fashion history in Paris.

Her clothes aren’t just meant for runways, so she decided to hold a fashion show outside Cafe Le Nemours in Place Colette in Paris, near her eponymous boutique.

Sophie Hong’s outdoor fashion show. Photo by Liam Cheng.

The show could have been mistaken for a bunch of well-dressed coffee drinkers and umbrella carriers wearing matching chunky clogs, except they were far more orderly than  your average size-zero Parisians. And… it wasn’t raining.

Hue isn’t the only one who likes Ms. Hong. Last year, she received the National Order of Merit from the French government for her fashion design and her French bookstore in Taipei, Le Pigeonnier (The Dovecote). The shop was founded by her late partner, Francoise Zylberberg.

Sophie Hong at her fashion show in Paris last September. Photo by Lucien Lung.

And the icing on the cake? She spent a month at FIT in 1992 on a scholarship. She says the culture she absorbed while here enhanced her vision. Consider Hue flattered.

Sophie’s portrait by Jacques Camille Picoux.