Steven Kolb has just flown in from Paris. He was there for the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund Americans in Paris Initiative — a showcase for emerging American designers that takes place during Paris Fashion Week and provides them with global exposure as well as the sales, marketing, and media support necessary to expand their businesses. But today, this gatekeeper of American fashion is meeting with me, an intern, to discuss the email that will go out tomorrow for the next CFDA board meeting. And instead of having me pull up a seat at his desk in one of the two gray accent chairs that he has in front of it, we sit at the black table in his office which is free of fingerprints.
“Audrey hates fingerprints on the black table,” he jokes, referencing Audrey Marzan, his executive assistant, for whom I am filling in while she vacations in the Bahamas.
Kolb, 56, first joined the CFDA in 2006, after working at a series of nonprofits such as the American Cancer Society and the Design Industries Foundation Fighting AIDS organization. And it wasn’t long before he became the CFDA’s President and CEO — a title he’s held since 2011.
At first Kolb can seem intimidating.
“Sometimes Steven walks around the office in the morning and does attendance,” Stephanie Soto, the Program Coordinator of Education & Professional Development at CFDA, tells me.
But for such a powerful guy, Kolb is unexpectedly nice.
“He likes for you to like him than to be intimidated by him,” explains Karyl Truesdale, CFDA’s Office Manager. “He’s famous, but he’s humble,” she continues.
At the CFDA headquarters, you’ll overhear Kolb discussing the latest episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race with Aldo Araujo, CFDA’s Marketing & Events Coordinator, announcing there are cookies in the kitchen, or looking for Sara Kozlowski, the Director of Education & Professional Development, and joking that she’s not allowed to use the bathroom.
“Yeah, he jokes a lot,” says Marzan, sarcastically. “And sometimes they’re funny, and sometimes they’re not, but I still laugh.”
“He’s not the type to yell at you; he never yells,” Marzan briefs me before leaving. “He would never ask you to get him coffee or fetch him lunch. I usually make a reservation for him at Sant Ambroeus — but only if he asks; it’s right around the corner. And if you have to schedule a call for him put his cell as the number to call. I don’t know if you know this, but Steven is hard of hearing so he uses this piece that is connected to his cell phone to help him hear during calls. So put his cell, and schedule his calls for only 30 minutes — he hates being on the phone for more than that.”
This made him human. And it wasn’t until we had our annual fire drill and everyone rushed to the front of the office except Kolb that I realized that he was hard of hearing.
“Come on Steven, we’re having a fire drill,” says Marzan.
“I didn’t hear it,” Kolb smiles.
Kolb’s office is painted black, and it’s in the far corner of the CFDA headquarters. On one side of his office a high-back, black, leather office chair is pulled in behind a fairly empty black desk. This side of his office is more open, with cacti, a desk lamp, his office phone, his desktop, keyboard, mouse and mouse pad, lining the perimeter of his desk perfectly. Kolb keeps the lights off (including his desk lamp), and instead, sunlight shines through three giant windows. Behind his desk, more cacti sit on a table that matches the style of his desk.
“Do you see that painting?” he asks pointing behind his desk. “A famous artist by the name of Ernest Trova painted it and I found this photo of Diane [von Furstenberg] sitting in front of the same painting. Isn’t it cool? He designed the awards we give out at the CFDA awards too!”
The opposite side of Kolb’s office is a colorful mess which includes collectibles like: a signed Rag & Bone New York basketball, an Oscar de la Renta post card, bottles of LIFEWTR, a Crave Case from the Telfar X White Castle drop, a framed photograph of he and his husband’s Chihuahua Terrier, Donna, a rescue dog, a gray and yellow pennant that reads “Do Your Best,” and lots of books (i.e, Geoffrey Beene: An American Fashion Rebel Book by Kim Hastreiter, Photo by Sammy Davis, Jr., and Owls of the World: A Photographic Guide Hardcover by Heimo Mikkola).
“I saw an owl one night, then my husband brought me an owl, then everyone started buying me owls — I have over a thousand of them — there was even an article written about me and owls!” Kolb says.
Like his office, he describes his style as “disheveled.” Today Kolb is wearing a white Adam Lippes button-down, paired with navy blue, Ovadia & Sons joggers, white, Adidas Stan Smiths, and of course his iconic circler frames by Ahlem Eyewear (American designers only).
As expected, our meeting lasts no longer than thirty minutes. Thirty minutes is also all the time that the designers have to pitch their ideas to the Advisory Board at the CFDA + Lexus Fashion* Initiative presentations. Kolb interrupts one of the designers who is rambling on and points out to her that she only has five minutes left. And in response to another designer whose presentation went past the 30-minute mark, he answers a phone call, got up, and left the conference room. “Hello, Steven Kolb!”
