CFDA announces nominees for 2017, plans to honor Franca Sozzani

By

Godfrey Deeny

Published
Mar 24, 2017

The CFDA also revealed plans to honor the late departed Franca Sozzani, for 39 years the Editor-in-Chief of Vogue Italia. While, The International Award, given for a designer’s creative contribution to the international fashion stage, will be presented to Demna Gvasalia for Vetements and Balenciaga capping his meteoric rise from obscure, Georgian-born talent to the designer of what most critics believe was the stand-out show of the most recent international runway season that ended in early March.

American fashion’s governing body, the CFDA broke the news after a two-hour meeting in its Bleeker Street offices in downtown Manhattan.
 
In the category, Womenswear Designer of the Year Award, the nominees are Joseph Altuzarra for Altuzarra, Raf Simons for Calvin Klein, Marc Jacobs, Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez for Proenza Schouler, and Ashley Olsen and Mary-Kate Olsen for The Row.

For Menswear Designer of the Year Award, the nominees are Raf Simons for Calvin Klein, Robert Geller, Thom Browne, Tim Coppens, and Todd Snyder.
 
The announcement marks a remarkable entrance into American fashion for Simons, whose debut show for Calvin Klein staged inside the house’s Garment District headquarters featured both men’s and women’s fashion.
 
Franca Sozzani, who passed away in December, will be awarded The Fashion Icon Award posthumously.
 
The 2017 CFDA Fashion Awards, held for the past 16 years in partnership with Swarovski, will take place on June 5th at the Hammerstein Ballroom.  A former opera house on 34th street, the space will allow the CFDA to stage a more Hollywood like ceremony, compared to Lincoln Center, where the awards were held for the past seven years. The change of scene will be seen, in part, as a response to the growing attention paid to the Fashion Awards in the UK, which are staged amid much glitz and glamour in the Royal Albert Hall. The CFDA’s CEO Steven Kolb has promised a celebrity host ad star presenters, though announced no names at a press conference breaking the news.
 
In other categories, Stuart Vevers for Coach, Irene Neuwirth, Rachel Mansur and Floriana Gavriel for Mansur Gavriel, Paul Andrew, and Ashley Olsen and Mary-Kate Olsen for The Row were nominated for Accessory Designer of the Year Award.
 
The CFDA also unveiled a new Swarovski Award for Emerging Talent that applies to womenswear, menswear and accessory design, and a new Swarovski Award for Positive Change, to honor an individual in U.S. fashion who has made a positive impact on American communities and improved the welfare of others.
Laura Vassar Brock and Kristopher Brock for Brock Collection, Gabriela Hearst, Laura Kim and Fernando Garcia for Monse, Virgil Abloh for Off-White, and Sander Lak for Sies Marjan have been nominated for the Swarovski Award for Emerging Talent, while the inaugural Swarovski Award for Positive Change will be presented to Kenneth Cole.

The Geoffrey Beene Lifetime Achievement Award, named for the fiercely independent, four-time CFDA Fashion Award winner, will be presented to Rick Owens.
 
The Founder’s Award, given in honor of CFDA founder Eleanor Lambert who is widely credited with putting American fashion on the map, will go to Pat McGrath, the distinguished British-born makeup artist.
 
Finally, The Board of Directors’ Tribute will be presented to Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards,  the noted feminist Gloria Steinem, and singer and latterly actress Janelle Monae, acknowledging “their tireless work and achievements on behalf of women around the world, and the powerful voice each had at the historic Women’s March.”