In 2017, designers Instagram and Tweet about their social activism almost as much as they do about their red carpet coups, but it wasn’t always thus.In 2017, designers Instagram and Tweet about their social activism almost as much as they do about their red carpet coups, but it wasn’t always thus. When Kenneth Cole released his 1985 AIDS awareness campaign, lensed by Annie Leibowitz and starring Christie Brinkley and Paulina Porizkova, among other top models of the era, it was nothing short of radical. Remember, President Reagan didn’t even utter the word “AIDS” until 1987. The advertisement transformed Cole, he has said, “as an individual and as a brand.” Two years later he joined the board of amfAR, an organization that has invested over $450 million to fight AIDS through innovative research (he’s now Chair), and he has continued to combine fashion and philanthropy in the decades since. On June 5 at its annual awards ceremony, the CFDA is recognizing him with the first-ever Swarovski Award for Positive Change. Gabriela Hearst, who may share the Hammerstein Ballroom stage with Cole next Monday night—she’s one of five nominees for the Swarovski Award for Emerging Talent—has blended activism and advocacy into her eponymous label since its founding in 2015. A recently launched sweater project will raise funds for Planned Parenthood ($50,000 is she sells all 100 sweaters); she co-chairs the annual Save the Children Illumination Gala; and last month she provided Chelsea Manning, the transgender woman and former Army Intelligence analyst convicted of a 2010 leak, with clothes upon her release from prison following Obama’s commuting of her sentence. Vogue brought Cole and Hearst together at Cole’s 11th Avenue offices to talk fashion and activism. The former was fresh off a plane from Cannes, where amfAR holds its biggest gala of the year, and the latter was on her way to a photo shoot in Brooklyn for her Resort collection. They discussed the importance of taking a strategic approach to service, the challenges of combatting the cynics (they’re out there!); and the not insignificant personal rewards of doing good. Highlights of their conversation are included here. Kenneth Cole: I continually remind all of us here that nobody in the world needs what we sell. If we stop selling it, nobody’s going to go barefoot for 15, 20 years. If every shoe store in America stops selling shoes, no one’s going to go barefoot for 15, 20 years. No one needs shoes, for the most part. We have shoes, our problem is what to do with them. I’ve always been a bit obsessed with trying to find meaning in what we do, and amfAR, this pursuit, has been part of it for me. Everybody here feels better about what we’re doing because it’s part of something that’s bigger than we are. It’s not always easy to find that. It needs to be organic and real. Often people ask me about getting involved in service and philanthropy, and my first advice is: Make sure it’s real and it’s transparent. People are very smart today. In the past the fact that you did philanthropy was in and of itself important. Today, it’s not that you do it as much as the impact that it makes. Gabriela Hearst: One of the things that resonates to me is that you’re so successful because it’s personal to you. For me, just starting, I don’t have a board of directors. I’m a free agent. Right now, I feel an obligation to illuminate subjects that are under are attack. [The question is] how to approach it in a strategic way. I care for so many things.
POST: 2024-04-26