Pratt to Honor Fashion Week Founder Fern Mallis at 2012 Fashion Show + Cocktail Benefit

Calvin Klein will present Mallis with the award at runway show that will feature best fashion designs by graduating seniors

2012 Pratt Institute Fashion Industry Lifetime Achievement Award recipient Fern Mallis

Pratt Institute's senior class of fashion designers will present original looks for women and men at the Pratt Institute Fashion Show on Thursday, April 26 at 2 and 6 PM at Center548 at 548 West 22nd Street in Manhattan.

Fern Mallis, creator of New York Fashion Week, former executive director of the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA), and former senior vice president of IMG Fashion, will be honored with the Pratt Institute Fashion Industry Lifetime Achievement Award at the 6 PM show. The award will be presented by designer Calvin Klein.

The show will be followed by a cocktail benefit in honor of Fern Mallis at PH-D Rooftop Lounge at Dream Downtown at 355 West 16th Street in Manhattan.

Tickets to the fashion show and cocktail benefit are available for purchase at www.pratt.edu/fashionshow. Proceeds from ticket sales will benefit student scholarships and Pratt's Department of Fashion Design.

"We are so thrilled to honor Fern Mallis, who has championed the importance of fashion design in New York City and worldwide," said Pratt Institute President Thomas F. Schutte. "We greatly appreciate all of our supporters who are helping to benefit the next generation of fashion design students at Pratt," he added.

The 2012 Pratt Fashion Show will feature the best work by graduating seniors from Pratt's Department of Fashion Design. The collections to be shown on the runway will be pre-selected by a panel of industry experts and press and will span several categories of fashion. One of the most prestigious colleges for art, design, and architecture in the world, Pratt Institute is home to the first fashion-design program in the United States.  

 "This year's runway show will be dynamic and experimental, simultaneously showcasing individual student collections as well as the students' work as a whole," said Jennifer Minniti, who was named chair of the Pratt Fashion Design department in summer 2011. "The presentation will celebrate the authenticity and strength of our students' creative approaches to design," she added.

Pratt Institute Fashion Industry Lifetime Achievement Award Honoree: 

Fern Mallis is president of her own leading fashion and design consultancy firm, Fern Mallis LLC. She formed the firm to advise, consult, create, and work with international and domestic fashion, lifestyle, and design companies on branding, image, creative business strategies, and event production. Mallis hosts a prestigious conversation series at New York's 92nd Street Y, titled Fashion Icons with Fern Mallis, which has featured guests including Fashion Industry Lifetime Achievement Award presenter Calvin Klein, Norma Kamali, and Donna Karan. Upcoming guests will include Tommy Hilfiger, Tom Ford, and Michael Kors. In addition, she hosts Fashion Insiders with Fern Mallis on Sirius XM's flagship celebrity talk channel, STARS, interviewing the best and brightest in the industry. Mallis recently celebrated the launch of her globally inspired jewelry line, titled Fern Finds: by Fern Mallis, available through QVC. She also made her theater stage debut this January in the Off-Broadway production of Nora and Delia Ephron's Love, Loss, and What I Wore. 

Mallis served as executive director of the CFDA for 10 years, where she furthered the organization's charter to promote American fashion as a "recognized branch of American art and culture" and helped to implement the foundation's burgeoning philanthropic goals to raise money for breast cancer and AIDS charities, design scholarships, and numerous other initiatives to benefit designers and the industry at large. "7th on Sixth," as it was first known, organized, centralized, and modernized the American runways, allowing American designers to compete head-on with Milan and Paris, forever changing the global fashion business. After "7th on Sixth" was acquired by IMG in July 2001, Mallis created new fashion weeks in Miami and Los Angeles, as senior vice president of IMG Fashion, and was instrumental in the expansion of IMG's fashion portfolio with events in Sydney, Melbourne, Moscow, Berlin, and Mumbai.    

Pratt Institute Fashion Industry Lifetime Achievement Award Presenter: 

Calvin Klein is an award-winning fashion icon globally recognized as a master of minimalism. His name ranks among the best-known brands in the world with Calvin Klein, Inc. reaching over $7 billion in global retail sales. He has been recognized with the prestigious Coty American Fashion Critics' Award—the fashion industry's equivalent of the Academy Award—and was the youngest designer ever elected into the Coty Hall of Fame in 1975. He has also received seven awards for outstanding design from the CFDA, including a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2001.


Text: Amy Aronoff
Photo: David S. Rubin

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