Raf Simons has made fashion history yet again. The Belgium-born designer at the helm of Calvin Klein won both the Menswear Designer of the Year and Womenswear Designer of the Year Award at the 2017 CFDA Awards tonight for his Fall 2017 Calvin Klein collection.Raf Simons has made fashion history yet again. The Belgium-born designer at the helm of Calvin Klein won both the Menswear Designer of the Year and Womenswear Designer of the Year Award at the 2017 CFDA Awards tonight for his Fall 2017 Calvin Klein collection. The victories are Simons’s first Calvin-related CFDA Award wins—he previously received the 2014 International Award for his work at Dior. They cement his place as one of the strongest forces in American fashion today, especially considering the ballot requests CFDA voters to choose a winner based on two seasons. What’s more, Simons’s big win is only the second time in the history of the CFDA Awards that the same designer has won both the menswear and womenswear prizes in the same year. The other designer to do it? None other than Calvin Klein himself, who took home both statues in 1993. In the history of the ceremony, six other designers have won both prizes throughout their careers, adding Simons to a list populated solely by American fashion legends. Donna Karan was the first designer to win both prizes, taking home the women’s statue in 1990 and the men’s one in 1992. (She won the womenswear prize again in 1996.) Ralph Lauren won for womenswear in 1995 and menswear in both 1996 and 2007, while Michael Kors won for women’s in 1999 and men’s in 2003. Marc Jacobs has taken home three womenswear prizes and one menswear, and Tom Ford has two menswear trophies and one womenswear statue. In addition to his 1993 double win, Calvin Klein was named Menswear Designer of the Year in 1999. The practice of awarding the same designer two of the highest prizes in fashion on the same night has a recent precedent. At the 2015 British Fashion Awards, Jonathan Anderson became the first designer ever to win both the Menswear and Womenswear Designer of the Year prizes in the same year at that ceremony.
POST: 2024-04-19