CFDA Awards Under New Creative Direction
The CFDA Awards will have a new look this year, thanks to a change in the creative teams that will work on the awards. After years of working with Laird + Partners, the CFDA has enlisted The Creative Group, Condé Nast to develop all of the print digital materials surrounding the event, including the invitations and the nominees’ videos.
“It’s always nice to try something different and freshen it up,” said Steven Kolb, president and chief executive officer of the CFDA, of the decision to work with The Creative Group over Laird + Partners. “We put out an RP and got a number of proposals and landed on The Creative Group.”
The invitation design, which features quotes from designers — “I don’t design clothes. I design dreams,” Ralph Lauren; “We need leaders,” Public School — in graphic, colorful blocks, will also be distributed as a poster, and will be plastered around the city leading up to the event. “We want the awards to have a sense of playfulness and also New York casualness. The quotes give a voice to designers and the members of the CFDA,” Kolb said.
The printed CFDA Awards journal has been discontinued in favor of a digital portfolio. Portraits of the nominees and honorees, back story and video content will live in a digital portfolio on CFDA.com. The move from print to digital allowed the CFDA to allot resources elsewhere. To that end, Stefan Beckman has been enlisted as the Awards’ design director. “We realized in terms of the event as we shifted to the Hammerstein Ballroom last year, that we lacked the creative director who tied all the elements together from arrival to dinner to cocktail to stage,” Kolb said. Beckman will work with The Creative Group on those elements, while KCD will produce the awards and Nian Fish and Natane Boudreau of N+N Films, will develop the honoree tribute films.
The CFDA also revealed that Seth Meyers would be hosting this year’s show on June 5 at the Hammerstein Ballroom. Kolb said they had been trying to get him back after he initially did the honors in 2012. “When I looked back at the hosts that have worked better than others, to actually have fashion knowledge helps,” Kolb said. “Seth is friends with a lot of designers and Diane [von Furstenberg]. He and his wife go to fashion events, so we don’t have to give him a fashion 101 lesson.”
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