Faculty member Jan Ardel has been in the fashion industry for over 30 years, and been teaching for 15. She graduated from University of California - Los Angeles (UCLA) with a BFA degree.
Professor and author Wynn Armstrong teaches computer aided design classes for the fashion department at Santa Monica College. He has developed curriculum for Digital Portfolio Development, and bridged the Photoshop/Illustrator gap between graphics and fashion industry users. Jemi Armstrong, M.S., Wynn Armstrong, M.Ed. and Lorrie Ivas, M.S., combined efforts to co-author two books on fashion and the digital world entitled From Pencil to Pen Tool: Understanding and Creating the Digital Fashion Image and Fashion Design Drawing Course: Principles, Practice, and Techniques: The New Guide for Aspiring Fashion Artists.
Bachelor’s Degree from California State University, Northridge in 1990 majoring in Apparel Design and Merchandizing, from Family and Consumer Sciences. Master’s Degree from California State University, Northridge in 2007 in Apparel Design and Merchandizing, from Family and Consumer Sciences . Currently Marine Boyadzhyan is a part-time lecturer at Santa Monica College. She teaches courses such as Beginning Clothing Construction, Advanced Clothing Construction, Pattern Making, and Tailoring.
Twenty seven years of teaching and curriculum-building experience at the state and independent university level (Santa Monica College, Mt. St. Mary’s College – Brentwood and doheny, American College for the Applied Arts and American InterContinental University, as well as guest lectures in the Design Dept at USC) enables Lorrie Ivas to bring the fashion and retail industries into the classroom. She blends the contemporary fashion field with the visual arts world through her experience in visual display/propping, retail design consulting, and design line sheets and website editing. She conducts seminars and workshops specializing in fashion and media-related topics as well as directing specialized study tours in New York City. Lorrie has co-authored a book on fashion and the digital world (2006) by Fairchild Publications/Condé Nast (New York) entitled From Pencil to Pen Tool: Creating the Digital Fashion Image, with another Fairchild textbook coming in 2010/11. She is completing research for a two-part volume involving fashion advertising and photography.
Sofi Khachmanyan first learned garment construction when she was in high school, in Armenia. Her further education in Armenia was in Embroidery arts, after which she was teaching, also participating to variety of exhibits in the former USSR as a Master Embroiderer. Her professional training as a fashion designer, patternmaker, sewer, and textile specialist was in America. Sofi has her AD from FIDM, BA and MA, both in Fashion and Textiles from California State University of LA. She worked for a number of Fashion houses as a fashion designer and patternmaker. From 1993 to 2006 she had her own small company of high quality knit wear. Sofi did some projects for costume industry as a designer and costume builder and has an award for the Best Costume Design in LA from LA Weekly. Currently she is an instructor at Art Institute of Hollywood for more than a decade, teaching pattern making, draping, sewing, Textiles, Fashion History, and Costume specialties. One of her major interests now is doing research about historic costumes and textiles.
Education: BFA, Temple University
Experience: 20+ years in the textile industry as textile designer, art director and consultant; 18 years teaching experience including Santa Monica College and Woodbury University.
