With her popular Fashion Icons conversation series in collaboration with the 92Y, Fern Mallis has been able to reinvent herself and impressively build on her decades-long fashion industry career. With demand for these engaging talks high, the CFDA’s former Executive Director is releasing the best of the best of them via Fashion Icons: The Archive on YouTube.
After first round in February, the executive has curated three memorable Fashion Icons with Fern Mallis with three fashion leaders who have led the CFDA: Stan Herman, Diane von Furstenberg, and Tom Ford.
“Having served as the Executive Director of the CFDA for 10 years, I know first-hand the many industry issues and complex problems these Fashion Icons have worked tirelessly to solve,” Mallis said.
She launched the first of these archival conversations last month with four episodes featuring Stan Herman, who recalled how CFDA Founder Eleanor Lambert thought he “wasn’t to the manner born.”
“The one thing I keep telling everyone, you must have an alter ego,” CFDA’s former President told the audience. “You must have somebody who takes the business aspect off of what you do. That’s what young designers have to do today because it’s tough.”
Diane von Furstenberg, whose four episodes start on June 14, discusses the evolution of her brand from the iconic wrap dress to a symbol of women’s empowerment. “I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but I knew the woman I wanted to be, and I became that woman,” the last CFDA Chairwoman said.
Finally, current CFDA chairman Tom Ford’s four episodes will start on June 28. “I think I willed my departure from Gucci,’ he said. “I had everything I’d wanted in my life. I had every material thing you could want. But yet, I was not happy.”
Mallis, who is working on the next Fashion Lives: Fashion Icons with Fern Mallis book for a Spring 2022 release, described the CFDA as “the heartbeat of the fashion industry.”
“Being its President or Chairman is not a paid position,” shesaid. “These Fashion Icons have demanding day jobs, designing and selling their own collections; but nevertheless, always make themselves available and give 100 perfect to the greater fashion industry. We all owe them a debt of gratitude.”
Watch the series here!
