Abrima Erwiah

Abrima Erwiah is the co-founder of Studio 189 with actress Rosario Dawson, an artisan produced fashion lifestyle brand and social enterprise that is a CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund recipient, and the CFDA Lexus Fashion Initiative for Sustainability award winner.

Erwiah has recently been appointed Inaugural Director of the Joe and Gail Gromek Institute for Fashion Business at Parsons School of Design. Erwiah joined Parsons in 2019 where she teaches MFA and BFA Systems Design & Society thesis courses and MPS in the strategic design management program. Erwiah is a luxury goods / fashion industry executive with experience in sustainable development. She has worked for brands including Bottega Veneta, Cesare Paciotti, Hermes/John Lobb, has worked as an advisor to the United Nations International Trade Center and has served as a mentor under the Kering Foundation for Women’s Dignity & Rights. She developed a Master's at NYU Gallatin studying the economic impact of luxury goods in Africa. She holds a B.S. in Finance and International Business from NYU Stern School of Business.

Erwiah is the founder of Fashion Our Future, an organization that aims to leverage the power of fashion to engage underrepresented communities in the political process which she developed with designers including Virgil Abloh/OFF-WHITE and Tanya Taylor. Her design work is featured at the “Sustainable Thinking “ exhibition at the Ferragamo museum in Florence and at Musee des Art Decoratifs in Paris.

Erwiah believes that fashion can be an agent of social change and serves on the committee and is an advisor to organizations including Gucci Changemaker, NEST, H&M Global Change Award, CFDA Inclusive by Design, Slow Factory, Conscious Fashion, Parsons School of Fashion Vision. She is a published author and is the recipient of various awards including the prestigious FIT Changemaker Award, the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Emerging Designer Award and the Martin Luther King Jr Social Justice award from Upenn.