CFDA Fashion Awards
The CFDA Fashion Awards are annual fashion prizes awarded by the Council of Fashion Designers of America. Founded in 1980 with the first awards given in 1981, they honor and showcase excellence in fashion design. They have been sometimes referred to as "the Oscars of fashion".
Nominations are submitted by the Fashion Guild, a group of over 1,500 CFDA members including fashion editors, retailers, and stylists. Award winners are determined by vote and announced at an annual black tie event held in Manhattan. Award winners receive a trophy made by the New York firm Society Awards.
History
1980s
The 1981 awards were given out at the first annual CFDA awards ceremony on January 14, 1982 at a dinner in the New [York Public Library Main Branch|New York Public Library]. The winners had been announced two months before the ceremony which was originally scheduled for a television extravaganza in the fall of 1981. CFDA president Bill Blass had set off controversy when he announced that all of the nominees will be named winners to avoid televising designers as they lose awards. In response, nominee Geoffrey Beene rejected the award and said, "The industry needs a major award for its merit, not its emotion."Under new CFDA president Perry Ellis, the 1984 CFDA awards in January 1985 had a broadened set of awards that included special citations for MTV, Nike billboards, and Details magazine. According to Donna Karan, who headed the awards committee, "We wanted these awards to go beyond designers. It's all about creativity and the whole scope of fashion." James Galanos received the first CFDA "Lifetime Achievement Award" in 1984, which the CFDA named after Geoffrey Beene. At the 1984 awards, Bill Blass presented the "Eugenia Sheppard fashion award" to Earl Blackwell and said it would be given annually "for outstanding contribution to fashion journalism."
The CFDA Awards were staged at the New York Public Library until they moved to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for the 1986 awards in January 1987. The CFDA's first "Perry Ellis Award" for new fashion talent was given to David Cameron in 1986, the award was named after the former council president who died that year.
1990s
The CFDA's first "International Award" was given to Gianni Versace in 1992. Princess Diana attended the awards in January 1995 to present a special award to her friend Elizabeth Tilberis, the British-born Editor-in-Chief of Harper's Bazaar.In 1997, for the first time, the CFDA did not release all of the award winners before the awards ceremony. The nominees of the "Perry Ellis Awards" were announced at a press conference in November 1997 but the winners were not named until the February 1998 awards ceremony. In 1999, the date of the event was changed from January to June when the awards were televised for the first time, as the 18th Annual American Fashion Awards on E! Entertainment Television, marking the beginning of a five-year partnership with General Motors.
In 1997, the CFDA Fashion Awards began including emerging designers.