CFDAs salute inspirations Bowie, Prince, Ali
Designers gather to honor genius past and present
Tributes are a risky business, as fans have seen during this season of loss. The deaths of David Bowie, Prince and Muhammad Ali have inspired many reflections, not all of them wellreceived. Perhaps counterintuitively, some of the best came from the fashion industry Monday night.
During the Council of Fashion Designers Awards ceremony, all three were honored in various ways, though none can be claimed as an artist in the fashion business. Rather, they served as inspiration, muses and friends.
“When I was 12 years old, I dressed up as Ziggy Stardust, and then I got to meet (David Bowie) when he married Iman,” Michael Kors said while walking into the dinner. “He’s just someone who can’t ever be duplicated — remarkable talent, remarkable taste, remarkable style, a great human being.”
Designer Rebecca Minkoff reflected on the decision to name her 2-year-old daughter after the icon, a personal ode to his singular impact on fashion.
“He sort of blurred the line real early between male and female and what women could wear and men could wear and celebrated it.”
It was an undoubtedly poignant lesson for designers such as Brandon Maxwell, who went from Lady Gaga’s stylist to the recipient of one of the big awards of the night.
“I was very gay in a very small town,” he said while accepting the Swarovski award for womenswear. Styling and designing clothes “gave me a purpose in life and it made me feel like I could get by and was my language.”
Tilda Swinton, a longtime friend of Bowie’s, accepted the board of directors tribute on his behalf with a moving poem on what would have been his and Iman’s 24th wedding anniversary.
“We’re getting used to resting on stardust in your absence. Once upon a time, you gave us a freak of freaks, now and ever more in our missing you, and this is a good thing, you brought out the freak in everyone.”
New York Giants wide receiver Victor Cruz, a New York Fashion Week menswear ambassador and designer of his own fashion line, Young Whales, took a moment to appreciate Muhammad Ali and his impact on male confidence.
The show also paid tribute to the Purple One. Menswear de- signer of the year Thom Browne, womenswear designer of the year Marc Jacobs and the rest of the packed auditorium inside the Hammerstein Ballroom were treated to a special performance by Jennifer Hudson, who belted Prince’s The Beautiful Ones.
But not before a tribute to a modern, and luckily still hard-atwork icon. In a surprise appearance, Beyoncé accepted the fashion icon award, thanking her mother — who was in the audience — for helping her understand the power of fashion.
“My mother actually designed my wedding dress, my prom dress, my first CFDA Awards dress, my first Grammy dress and the list goes on and on,” she said.
“This, to me, is the true power and potential of fashion. It’s a tool for finding your own identity, expression, truth. It transcends style, and is a time capsule for all of our greatest milestones.”
Which makes it a perfect way to celebrate the lives of those who set our collective cultural milestones.