Leading style companies, designers, and bosses were venerated Monday night at the forty-first AAFA American Image Awards, reaping benefits from the Council of Fashion Designers of America Foundation.
The occasion, hosted via Brooke Shields, occurred at The Plaza and raised more than $1 million.
American Eagle Outfitters took home the trophy for Retailer of the Year; Birkenstock received Company of the Year; Eileen Fisher obtained the Designer of the Year Award; WWD became offered the Media Brand of the Year; Isaac Ash, chief government officer of United Legwear & Apparel Co., received Person of the Year, and Disney Princess x Ruthie Davis changed into provided Fashion Collaboration of the Year.
The room was filled with such enterprise and style executives as Brandon Maxwell, Peter Som, Stacey Bendet, Lala Anthony, Nick Graham, Laurence C. Leeds Jr., Abbey Doneger, Rick Darling, Tracy Reese, Jeffrey Banks, Naeem Khan, Cynthia Rowley, Todd Snyder, Victor Luis, Josh Schulman and Todd Kahn.
“This night is ready for fashion’s future,” said Rick Helfenbein, president and CEO of AAFA. “We preserve to discover ourselves during the unsettling transition.” He said there’s a profound change in how the industry sells products and navigates the delivery chain, and the surroundings require “the industry to be agile, to be visionary and most vital, you have to be vocal.”
The AAFA represents 1,000 emblem names and advocates on Capitol Hill and around the world and speaks on behalf of four million U.S. Workers and money owed for $four hundred billion in annual U.S. Retail sales.
Steven Kolb, CEO of the CFDA, mentioned that his agency’s foundation raises price range for such initiatives as HIV/AIDS, Fashion Targets Breast Cancer, the ACLU, and Planned Parenthood.
In accepting her award, shoe dressmaker Davis stated while she was growing up, she never turned into a “boy-band lady” and didn’t have pix of adorable boys on the wall, but she did have an image of Brooke Shields on her wall. “She’s my suggestion; you continue to be unbelievably suitable,” stated Davis. She thanked Disney for giving her a top-notch possibility to design adult princess shoes. “The shoes have sold out,” she said. “Women get it and are stimulated by it,” she said.
WWD, which has blanketed the fashion international for over 109 years, covers “one of the most competitive industries on earth,” stated Shields. James Fallon, editorial director of WWD, and Paul Jowdy, leader commercial enterprise officer and publisher, WWD and Fairchild Live, common the award.
“The enterprise has changed over time, and so too has WWD. We recently stumbled throughout a masthead from WWD in 1926, which confirmed that we were a six-day-a-week published paper. But it also showed that WWD became international earlier than global — with places of work in 18 cities worldwide. And now that we’re a basic terms virtual publication, we are more global than ever, overlaying the news and traits from China to Cleveland, Paris to Los Angeles. Our stream is at a file high, and our website visitors keep climbing,” said Fallon.
David Kahan, CEO of Birkenstock Americas, became carrying black-tie with Birkenstocks. “I am probably the most comfy guy inside the room,” he stated. He recalled only a short while ago, each fashion writer said that Birkenstocks have been “the ugliest footwear they’d ever visible. I’m no longer positive what that asserts approximately fake news.”
He stated that few businesses can trace their lineage back 245 years to a small village in Germany and “end up in a ballroom in The Plaza Inn.” He thanked his crew, retail companions, AAFA, and most importantly, “the tens of millions of folks who wear our product.
“You are our enthusiasts and not simply our lovers; you’re our passionate brand missionaries,” he said.
Fisher sits atop one of the most important girls’ fashion agencies to reap B Corp certification, generating more than $450 million in sales. She thanked her group and the AAFA for the work it does “and the remarkable power you’ve got in the international to make a distinction. You preserve $four hundred billion of retail income, and it’s outstanding to consider the electricity that you maintain. I need to thank you for the opportunities.”
She said her groups are enthusiastic about simplicity and the undying layout and try to help ladies with the desire to experience security and assurance. “Simple is hard. Design is an effective opportunity to change the world and make a distinction,” said Fisher.
“Our enterprise is one of the worst polluters. I don’t need to be a downer. I think it’s a massive opportunity. Every day, we can make a difference in this crisis,” she stated, noting the U.N. Says we’ve 10 to 12 years earlier than we’re in a literal catastrophe and explaining her business enterprise’s Vision 2020 idea to make it a hundred percent sustainable.
Jay Schottenstein is CEO of American Eagle Outfitters, the $4 billion worldwide enterprise with 1,000 stores and a $1 billion digital commercial enterprise. On Monday, the agency celebrated the 25th anniversary of its preliminary public presentation on Wall Street. The organization has had sixteen instant quarters of similar sales profits, with Aerie reporting a double-digit will increase.
Schottenstein said he asked his son what he thinks the most challenging component becomes to achieve success. His son spoke back that it turned into to make human beings care. “We have a group of leaders who care and accept as true within the brand,” stated Schottenstein. Today, Schottenstein said American Eagle is the variety-one denim brand amongst people 15 to twenty-five years old in the U.S. “And for girls’ denim, we’re number one,” he said. “Our intention over the next few years is to be primary, period, in denim within the U.S.”
Finally, Ash, CEO of United Legwear & Apparel, which has given away more than 4 million pairs of socks, standard his award as Person of the Year. “I’m simply beside myself for being on the stage this night,” he said. He recalled that two decades in the past, he by no means would have a concept that might be feasible.
“Making money and giving return is a necessary part of being a successful enterprise,” he said.
In 2016, he partnered with Delivering Good and commenced an annual one million pairs of socks initiative throughout the enterprise. “Socks are the quantity-one-asked item in homeless shelters,” he said. When he checked out the numbers and noticed they’d amassed 19,000 pairs of socks through April 15, he decided Monday to donate 500,000 towards the initiative’s one-million-pair intention.
