The Council of Fashion Designers of America — among them, Carolina Herrera, Diane von Furstenberg, Ralph Lauren and Zac Posen — are trusted to be the arbiters of good taste.
But some fellow designers and industry veterans think the group is squandering its cred. On Monday, Kim Kardashian — a woman known to wear sheer black tights as pants — will be given the first-ever Influencer Award at the CFDA Fashion Awards.
“It’s ridiculous,” said a fashion insider. “I’m just completely baffled. What is she influencing? People to have a very false sense of beauty and body?”
The reality-TV star has 111 million Instagram followers — to whom she has hawked everything from morning sickness pills to diet shakes — putting her among the app’s top 10 most popular users.
“I think Kim’s an influencer in that she has a huge social-media following, so everything she wears or buys, whether it’s clothes or a vacuum cleaner, will sell out, because her reach is so far. But I wouldn’t call her a fashion influencer,” said one fashion designer.
The insider agrees, saying that Kardashian lacks a personal sense of style. “She doesn’t have a style worth emulating. She has her evening look, which is to be sexy and provocative, and very, very unremarkable casual clothing. It’s nothing memorable.”
Fashion publicist Kelly Cutrone, who has represented CFDA members Jeremy Scott and Yigal Azrouël, agreed: “I’ve never woken up in the morning and wondered, ‘What is Kim Kardashian doing today, and how is that going to affect my industry?’ ”
CFDA was founded in 1962 by Eleanor Lambert, the fashion publicist who also created the International Best-Dressed List (a distinction Kardashian has yet to earn). The non-profit’s goal is to help American designers by providing funds, low-cost studio space, and business and networking opportunities. The organization began hosting its CFDA Fashion Awards in 1981. Among this year’s honorees are Tom Ford, who refused to dress First Lady Melania Trump but seemingly has no problem being in the same ranks as Kardashian.
But with the magazine industry in free fall, some insiders acknowledge that the 500-member CFDA has to do what it can to keep up with the changing times.
“Part of the award has to do with the zeitgeist, and it’s certainly the CFDA’s point to be ‘with it,’ ” said designer Jeffrey Banks, who sits on the Emeritus Board of the CFDA.
“It’s the same as the Met Ball. In the days of the old Met Ball, it was about New York society and fashion and designers,” Banks added. “Now you have . . . people who are really not connected to fashion at all taking up a lot of space on that carpet.”
As Cutrone pointed out, “Supermodels used to be on covers of magazines. And then they were replaced by actresses, and now we’re having the downward spiral of traditional fashion and the upward spiral of digital influencers.
“It’s a crazy time. All the rules of fashion are off,” she continued.
In an interview with fashion industry trade journal Women’s Wear Daily, CFDA President Steven Kolb said Kardashian’s Influencer Award was board member Tommy Hilfiger’s idea and acknowledged that it was partially a ploy to bring more viewers to the event, which will be held Monday at the Brooklyn Museum and also live-streamed.
“By connecting to someone who has that great of influence, it also brings more attention to what we’re doing,” Kolb told WWD. “There’s great value in acknowledging her, but also for the event itself and the exposure it brings.”
(Kolb declined to comment for this story.)
Some insiders, including the designer, argue that the very concept of an “influencer award” is gratuitous and cheapens the CFDA.
“Rewarding any fashion influencer is ridiculous,” said the designer. “The awards are supposed to be for designers. It defeats the purpose to be giving out all these extraneous awards that don’t mean anything.”
In 2013, Kardashian’s stylist Nicola Formichetti told Elle that high-profile designers refused to lend clothes for the magazine’s photo shoot with the reality star. “But that’s fashion snobbery,” Formichetti said.
Now, as powerhouse publicist Paul Wilmot told The Post, Kardashian can’t be ignored, even by the most precious of fashion institutions.
“She’s the most famous woman in the world,” said Wilmot. “[CFDA is] recognizing her importance and not making any comments about her taste. She’s more famous than Beyoncé. More famous than Rihanna.” (Both of those women have received Icon Awards from CFDA in recent years.)
Kardashian has also, thanks to her meeting with President Trump this week to discuss prison reform, become an unlikely political influencer.
Still, the fashion insider says there’s “no integrity” in the organization’s choice to honor Kardashian.
“A fashion [influencer] is someone who really inspires you, and who you want to be like,” said the insider. “What has Kim done? Sell a bunch of cosmetics online? It’s a joke.”
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