Congratulations to 2023 CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund winner Melitta Baumeister for being honored with the 2025 National Designer Award for fashion design by the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. The award is given to an individual or firm for the forward-thinking design of apparel, accessory, jewelry, footwear, and textiles.

On April 3, Baumeister will be accept the recognition during a seated dinner at the National Design Awards 25th anniversary celebration at the James Burden Mansion at 7 East 91st St., which overlooks the museum’s Carnegie Mansion home, where other honorees, design leaders and museum patrons will be in attendance.

Baumeister made her runway debut with the closing show at September 2024’s New York Fashion Week. The German-born, New York based designer based received her MFA in Fashion Design at Parsons The New School, and her independent brand has since gained acclaim for its expressively unique wearable garments that reject trends, body standards, and beauty ideals. Based on a futuristic, minimalist aesthetic, the clothes often feature exaggerated volume and sculptural silhouettes, using innovative techniques and materials to infuse the surprising, the mysterious, and the humorous of the everyday.

The National Design Awards is a Cooper Hewitt initiative launched in 2000 as an official project of the White House Millennium Council. The awards and its associated public programs seek to increase national awareness of the impact of design in our everyday life.