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The CFDA Awards Praise Immigrant Designers

By Serena Anthony | June 7, 2017 0 Comments

Comedian Seth Meyers was seen Monday night cracking jokes at the Council of Fashion Designers of America Awards rather appearing on his own show.

Even at the CFDA Awards, Meyers was still busy poking fun by saying, “This year, it is even harder to separate fashion from politics.”

The Awards show took place at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York where Seth modeled his Thom Browne tuxedo without socks, of course. The comment he made was simply something that the audience could definitely agree on. Politics and fashion have not been mixing well lately, but designers are hoping to adjust that.

The final presentation at the CFDA Awards proudly summoned up three courageous and beautiful women. Gloria Steinem, Cecile Richards who is the President at Planned Parenthood, and Janelle Monae were applauded for their efforts at the Women’s March in Washington. The chairwoman of the council Diane von Furstenberg went up on stage earlier to ask the immigrants in the room to raise their hands and not to anyone’s surprise, a majority of hands fluttered up. The crowd was loving it as designers came forth to say how much they are grateful for a “socially conscious business model and platform”.

Janelle also had a few things to say, particularly commenting on Hillary Clinton’s human rights speech by saying, “L.G.B.T.Q rights are human rights; immigrant rights are human rights; minority rights are human rights.” and that was the greatest moment of the night.

There were many different awards given out to fashion designers, including the Fashion Icon Award given in remembrance of the editor of Vogue Italia Franca Sozzani who had passed away at 66 in December.

The International Award was handed to Georgian-based designer Demna Gvasalia who is currently working in Balenciaga and Vetements.

The founders of Monse Laura Kim and Fernando Garcia were given the Swarovski Award for Emerging Talent because they moved to the United States and blew up their business successfully in a short time period.

There have always been constant complaints about immigrants and the influx of new and talented individuals. The CFDA Awards was not the place for an argument to start. There has also been criticism because many events are repeated with the same designers and fashion heads and some of them have won twice. But what people are forgetting to say is that there would be more up-and-coming designers (which will happen in the near future) if immigrants felt comfortable coming to America. It sucks that politics has a huge effect on the fashion industry, especially since fashion is erupting success. The definition of America should be open to new opportunities and invite people in with open arms, but that is something that people still have to figure out.

The limitations of designers is a concept not possible because tons of individuals have what it takes to make it big in the fashion industry. There are millions of creative minds floating around and it is a shame that sometimes we are restricted to freeing them. Raf Simons, one of the winners expressed his input about the need for unique ideas and visions because a global market needs global talent.

Raf Simons did not have much to say when he accepted his awards, but that does not make him any less of an influencer. While he was unprepared and drifting off when he was on stage, he looked up and noticed the fashion students who were invited to this event.

He said, “To all the students, if we as creators can be an inspiration for how the world should look, that is something we should take as a very important task in our existence.”

Applaud.