The Friends of the CFDA celebrated Cynthia Rowley’s Founder’s Award a little early by throwing a cocktail party at the designer’s West Village apartment Monday night.
The style-minded crowd included designers Jeffrey Banks, Frederick Castleberry and Aurora James, actor Alan Cumming, journalist Alina Cho and L’Agence’s Tara Rudes Dann, among others. The CFDA’s president and chief executive officer Steven Kolb shared with guests how he first met Rowley 30 years ago at a Design Industries Foundation Fighting AIDS fundraiser in Miami. Kolb was working for DIFFA and, for some reason, he wound up on the runway, which was the first and only time that happened. He said the “beautiful white shirt” that Rowley hand-painted with a flower was the most treasured shirt that he has ever had. From his viewpoint, that shirt represented the joy that Rowley uses as a designer to create.
Informing guests that one of the pleasures of his job is being able to call people with good news on occasion, Kolb said, “You almost didn’t believe it.”
“I still don’t believe it,” Rowley responded.
“It was exciting for me to share that emotional moment with you on the phone,” Kolb said of that full-circle career recognition.
The event was a two-folded celebration, as it drew attention to the Friends of the CFDA, a collective of people who love fashion, wear it well and appreciate and support the organization, Kolb said. Encouraging more individuals to join, Kolb said, “We get to do fun things like this. Come into homes in New York City that have a pool in the backyard. That is not something that you get to do that often.”
Rowley, who was wearing one of her designs, extended thanks to Kolb, the CFDA, the Friends of the CFDA, her design team, her “roommates” and daughters Kit [Keenan] and Gigi [Powers] and Cumming.
Alina Cho, Sharon Coplan Hurowitz, Ezra J. William, Raul Penaranda, Tara Rudes Dann, Steven Dann and other guests toast the designer.
Sabrina Steck/BFA.com
Joking that she and Cumming had met in the 1900s, Rowley said they became fast friends, following his Broadway debut more than 30 years ago in “Cabaret.” While recently going through imagery from 100 of her runway shows, Rowley said she noticed that Cumming was there supporting around 99 of them. The designer praised his talents in theater, movies, bestselling books, dance and TV, as well as his work as an outspoken advocate for LGBTQIA+ rights. (In January, Cumming will help launch Out in the Hills, a new three-day festival celebrating LGBTQIA+ creativity, performance and discussions in Scotland.)
Speaking to Cumming, Rowley said, “There have been high and lows through the years. Your beautiful marriage to Grant [Shaffer] and a couple of not so beautiful ones of mine. You’ve always been my rock,” she said.
Noting how she has made a lasting impact on American fashion, Cumming said Rowley has done so without following the fashion crowd. He said her fashion and way of life “leads with joy, mischief and subversion.” Suggesting those are all things that “the fashion crowd has never understood,” Cumming said, “and how sad for them really, because as Diana Vreeland said, ‘A little bad taste is like a nice splash of paprika.’ We all need a splash of bad taste — it’s hearty, it’s healthy, it’s physical. I think we could use more of it. No taste is what I’m against.”
Rowley’s clothes are about the experience that you’re going to have wearing them, Cumming continued. Like the CFDA’s founder Eleanor Lambert, Rowley is “a hard-working midwestern girl, who moved to New York and is curious and endlessly fascinated by artists,” he said sizing up the appropriateness of her receiving the Founder’s Award.
