lifestyle WEDNESDAY, JUNE 3, 2015

Fashion

Kanye West presents the Fashion Icon Award to Pharrell Williams. Pharrell honored, Kimye steals the show at fashion awards

t was Pharrell Williams who was being honored as a fashion icon, but it was another music superstar who got a lot of Ithe attention at the annual Council of Fashion Designers of America awards on Monday night. Introducing Pharrell, the producer-singer-songwriter who was receiving the evening’s Fashion Icon award, Kanye West took the opportunity not just to praise his friend, but to express some frustration at the fashion industry - for, he suggested, its cool reception to his efforts to be a serious fashion designer. “It is very difficult to break perception,” West said. “Fashion had to be the hardest high school I ever entered. At least I had a big brother,” he said, referring to Pharrell, who “talked me through it and kept me going” in the face of criticism over his fashions. West called Pharrell “my style idol.” Pharrell, in turn, thanked many fashion figures who’ve influenced his career and his personal style, and concluded by saying: “I’m not a style icon. I’m just inspired. And I’m OK with that.” Forgoing his famous shorts and tall hat for a very casual ensemble of lived- in jeans, a blue leather jacket and a beret-style cap, he spoke at length about his dual loves of music and fashion, and their relationship to each other. He also made a point of thanking the fashion world’s lead- ing arbiter, Vogue editor Anna Wintour, for giving him some key visibility in her magazine a decade ago. The emotional Kelly Osbourne Chelsea Clinton remembers the late TV Personality Kim Kardashian pres- highlight of the evening, which honors the year’s top design- designer Oscar de la Renta onstage. ents the Media Award. ers, was when Betsey Johnson, whose colorful, whimsical designs have been gracing the fashion world for more than 50 years, came onstage to accept her lifetime achievement award.

So supportive An ebullient Johnson, 72, treated the crowd to one of her signature cartwheels, and ended it with a split - a maneuver Anna Wintour and Bee Shaffer that led to a shoe falling off. She then called over her friend, presenter Kelly Osbourne, to help her up off the floor so she could give her speech. In an accompanying video which told the story of her career, Johnson spoke of learning to design clothes to fit her own body - a normal body, in other words - and how she realized that if she stuck to designing what she herself loved, her customers would stay with her.

Kelly Osbourne presents fashion designer Betsey Johnson with the Geoffrey Beene Lifetime Achievement Award.

Chelsea Clinton was another high-profile speaker, paying Olsen and Mary-Kate Olsen for womenswear for their high- tribute to the late designer Oscar de la Renta, a good friend of end, minimalist label The Row, and to Tom Ford for menswear. her family. Clinton called de la Renta “the man I would have Ford noted that last year, he’d been given the lifetime achieve- chosen for my grandfather,” and told a story about how he ment award, and said he was “so glad to know that there is still helped her gain confidence, when she was young, with the life after lifetime achievement.” The award for accessories went gift of a stylish brown dress. “I miss him every single day,” she to British designer Tabitha Simmons. The annual Swarovski concluded. Kim Kardashian presented the media award to awards for emerging designers went to Shayne Oliver of Hood Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom, who repaid the favor by by Air for menswear, Rosie Assoulin for womenswear, and calling her, in his speech, “the Queen of Instagram.” Earlier in Rachel Mansur and Floriana Gavriel for accessories. the evening, Kardashian had spoken on the red carpet about Also honored: Millard “Mickey” Drexler, CEO of J Crew, with the transition of her stepfather, Bruce Jenner, to womanhood the founder’s award, and Valentino designers Maria Grazia and the stunning Vanity Fair cover photo of Caitlyn Jenner in a Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli with the international award. strapless corset. “Everyone has been so supportive and so James Corden of CBS’ “The Late Late Show” hosted the amazing and I think that that’s all we could really ask for is evening, making frequent jokes about the healthy length of kindness, and we feel that,” said Kardashian. some of the speeches. He opened the show with a sometimes naughty musical roast of the fashion world - “The Unsewable Mary-Kate Olsen, Amanda Seyfried and Ashley Olsen. Designer Tom Ford and Joshua Jackson Frequent jokes Dress,” to the tune of “The Impossible Dream.” — AP The evening’s top design awards went to sisters Ashley

Designer Tabitha Simmons and Taraji P Henson Ashley Olson and Mary-Kate Olson accept the Brittany Hampton, Diane von Furstenberg and Karlie Kloss Womenswear Designer of the Year Award. Jemima Kirke