CFDA Fashion Awards 2015

It may have been a long night, but the CFDA Fashion Awards, held as usual at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, weren’t boring. James Corden, of The Late Late Show fame and the evening’s first-time host, started things off by lampooning the industry to the tune of “to dream ‘The Impossible Dream,’” and got progressively more fearless as his bit went on, sticking it to Terry Richardson, who wasn’t in the audience to defend himself, and Kanye West, who was. “Kim and Kanye are both presenting this evening,” Corden said. “I should warn you that Kanye is going to interrupt both speeches to say that Beyoncé should have won them.”

West made no interruptions, but he did deliver one of his trademark soliloquies when it came time to introduce this year’s Fashion Icon, Pharrell Williams, near the end of the ceremony. “What’s up, CFDA? You know how [President] Obama brought out the angrier version of himself? I’m sort of like the angrier version of Pharrell.” After rapping the opening lines of “New Slaves,” he took the crowd to task for “completely destroying” his first collection, which, he reminded the audience, sold out-$6,000 shoes included. When he eventually did wind around to the subject of Williams, West said, “there would be no me, no A$AP [Rocky], without Pharrell being the nicer version of Obama.” Williams, displaying his own trademark niceness, had kind words for everyone from his jeweler Lorraine Schwartz to “the genius” Rei Kawakubo.

In between, Chelsea Clinton took to the stage for a remembrance of Oscar de la Renta; the Italian actress Valeria Golino paid tribute to the Italian designers and International Award winners Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli of Valentino; and Kelly Osbourne made an endearing speech about Betsey Johnson, the evening’s Geoffrey Beene Lifetime Achievement Award winner. Yes, Johnson is 72 (she’s got two years on J.Crew’s Mickey Drexler, who picked up the Founder’s Award). And yes, she did do a cartwheel into a perfect split, jostling loose a few crystals from her bib necklace, before accepting her statuette. 

To cap off the evening’s all-star lineup, The Row’s Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen accepted the Womenswear Designer of the Year prize, beating out Michael Kors, Marc Jacobs, the Proenza Schouler duo, and Joseph Altuzarra. It fact, it was a good night for women designers, celebrity and otherwise, with Tabitha Simmons winning the Accessories Designer of the Year Award, and Rosie Assoulin and Mansur Gavriel’s Rachel Mansur and Floriana Gavriel taking home the Swarovski prizes for womenswear and accessories, respectively. On the guys’ side of things, Swarovski winner Shayne Oliver of Hood by Air had almost as many letters stenciled on the back of his head-HBA-as he uttered words on stage. Tom Ford, who received the menswear award, and is a little more practiced at these things, remembered his 15 minutes at this venue last year. “I’m so glad to know that there is life after the Lifetime Achievement Award.”

We couldn’t leave out fashion’s favorite social media app. Picking up the Media Award and giving a shout-out to Kim Kardashian West (34.8m followers), Kevin Systrom (1.1m) said, “I may be the CEO, but Kim, you are the queen of Instagram.”