Growing up near Naples, Italy, Francesca Granata (Bachelor of Fine Art/Bachelor of Arts '99) wasn't allowed to learn to sew. "It was kind of a bastardized idea about feminism," she says. "My grandmother made clothes, but not me. I was supposed to concentrate on my schooling."

Granata still cannot sew and she is still concentrating on her schoolingshe'll finish her doctoral dissertation this springbut ironically, she has made clothing and fashion the focus of her studies. At the University of Arts in London, she is researching experimental fashion and how it intertwines with performance art and gender. "I'm interested in the idea of body image and the relationship of the body to clothesor the lack of clothes," she says. "Fashion is pretty closed in terms of what kind of body is considered beautiful, but experimental fashion tries to break with that codified body image."

Besides her academic work, which includes a recently-completed fellowship at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute, Granata also has become a publisher. Fashion Projects, launched four years ago, is a collaborative print and online magazine that explores experimental fashion through interviews with artists, designers, and curators.

It is a little surprising to learn that Granata did not begin to make art until the age of 16, when she came to the United States to learn English . At the Museum School, she focused on painting, figure drawing, and performance art, then earned a master's at New York University with a focus on fashion in silent cinema. She was dubious, however, about entering the New York art world. "My personality isn't suited to the competitiveness of it, or to the self-marketing you have to do," she says. "I thought I would get bored if I concentrated on my own work exclusively. I'm interested in a broader view."

Still, publishing Fashion Projects keeps Granata connected to one reality of the art world: the search for funding. She has secured grants for the publication from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, but generally has found it difficult to win over arts organizations and foundations. "A lot of people [in the arts] are resistant to fashion," she observes. "It's not seen the same way emerging artists are. It's seen more as a commercial venture."

Granata points out that art is commercial too; it's just that there are far fewer art collectors in the world than there are fashion consumers. "I'm so involved with it that I get surprised when people don't think of fashion as art."