The Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) named Carolina Herrera and Sean Combs as womenswear and menswear designers of the year at the 2004 CFDA Fashion Awards in New York.
Reed Krakoff of Coach was named accessory designer of the year; Zac Posen won Swarovski’s Perry Ellis award for ready to wear; and Eugenia Kim won the Swarovski’s Perry Ellis Award for accessory design.
Actress Sarah Jessica Parker, star of HBO’s recently completed “Sex and the City” TV show, received the Fashion Icon Award “for her personal and professional commitment to fashion, and for her quintessentially New York style”; designer Donna Karan was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award; Miuccia Prada received the International Award; The Wall Street Journal’s Teri Agins received the Eugenia Sheppard Award “for her 14 years of excellence in covering the business of fashion and retailing”; photographer Irving Penn was honored with the Eleanor Lambert Award; and fashion designer Tom Ford, recently retired as Gucci’s creative director, was given the Board of Directors’ Special Tribute “for the indelible mark he has made as an American on international fashion.”
The event, at The New York Public Library, was co-chaired by CFDA members Donna Karan, Marc Jacobs and Narciso Rodriguez, and underwritten by Swarovski, the international purveyor of cut crystal. Swarovski crystals were incorporated into a dramatic crystal beaded curtain in Astor Hall, site of the evening’s cocktail reception, and artist Harry Allen was commissioned to create a Swarovski crystal “light sculpture” as a focal point in the Gottesman Exhibition Hall, where guests dined. The ceremony was held in the Library’s Celeste Bartos Forum.