“It was the toughest decision we’ve had to make,” Anna Wintour, the editor of Vogue, said at the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund award dinner on Monday night.
She was speaking of choosing a winner among the 10 finalists — a milliner, a jeweler, a shoemaker, and the designers of a men’s wear line, a knit line, two women’s wear lines, a handbag line, a sunglasses line and a denim line. And while the implication was clear that the difficulty was due to the level of talent, it was hard not to wonder how you even begin to compare such disparate businesses.
How would the judges decide? How could they? We were on the edge of our seats, even if some of us were scratching our heads.
And the winner of the award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America and Vogue was…
Paul Andrew, the maker of fancy shoes. He received $300,000 and a yearlong mentorship.
The two runners-up were Eva Zuckerman of Eva Fehren, a jeweler, and Ryan Roche, who does knits. Each received $100,000 and mentoring.
The result was not really a surprise. Mr. Andrew, who is something of an industry secret — he has made shoes for numerous big brands such as Donna Karan, Vera Wang and Agnona — but who introduced his own brand only two years ago, was widely tipped to be the winner. He already sells to such stores as Barneys and Bergdorf Goodman, and has a defined, and refined, aesthetic, which combines uptown classicism with a bit of healthy edge.
Ditto Ms. Zuckerman, who is stocked in a variety of Barneys’ stores throughout the United States.
The dark horse was Ms. Roche, the outsider in the group. She is a young mother who grew up in Idaho, works out of her house in upstate New York, loves pink and sells to a group of independent boutiques around the world.
The big upset, however, was Wes Gordon, who is often called a baby Oscar de la Renta and was in his second round as a finalist. He already has accounts such as Neiman Marcus, Kirna Zabete and Hudson’s Bay.
Of course, it’s possible that being relatively advanced down the retail road may have hurt Mr. Gordon, and that judges saw that he might not need the help as much as some of his fellow contestants.
In any case, the diversity of the final three highlighted the competing imperatives in this kind of award.
Sure, the award is about supporting and growing new businesses, but it is also about publicizing the breadth and depth of the coming American talent pool to the outside world. (Mr. Andrew was born in Britain, but I guess he qualified because his business is based in New York.)
Not to mention promoting the fairy tale of discovery and bringing talent to light. After all, they did make a TV show out of the event.
It will be on the cable channel Ovation starting on Wednesday.