Savannah College of Art and Design

It’s a peculiar fun-fact about the university, one with a warm, even if a little saccharine, backstory. The gist of it is that bees shouldn’t be able to fly given their size and wingspan, yet they do. The parallel here is that an art and design university nestled in a picturesque southern town like Savannah, Georgia, isn’t quite a fail-proof, no-brainer idea. Its competitors—Parsons in New York and Central Saint Martins in London—are based in buzzy world metropolises in proximity to the industries they prepare their students for. But as this weekend’s annual School of Fashion runway show proves, SCAD is defeating all expectations. Even this alumnus’s.