GQ Menswear Night
(GQ Menswear Award)
Fashion week began with GQ’s Best New Designer in America award. It’s one of the highest honors in menswear, and also an illuminating review since most of the events this Fashion Week are about women’s clothing. Once a year, GQ isolates six designers, constructs a stunning portfolio in their magazine, and presents all the designers one night during Fashion Week. Levi’s is a co-sponsor. The winner (chosen by a panel curated by GQ and Levi’s) gets $50,000 and a chance to design a limited-edition menswear capsule collection with Levi’s. The collection is then sold at all the Bloomingdale’s nationally.
(Vincent Flumiani of Caulfield Preparatory)
We are lucky to have one of our own Starworks clients, Vincent Flumiani of Caulfield Preparatory, nominated for this competition. I spoke to Vincent at the party who almost missed his airplane due to the blizzard. He managed to sneak out of the airport he was stuck in by some miracle of god. His whole plane was so happy upon landing in New York that there was an eruption of applause he described. Whatever the cosmic reason, we were just happy Vincent made it to his own party!
Overall, the nominees were:
• Richard Chai
• Billy Reid
• J.Crew’s Frank Muytjens
• Burkman Bros’ Ben and Doug Burkman
• Caulfield Preparatory’s Vincent Flumiani
• Unis’ Eunice Lee
(Diane Von Furstenberg and Nominee Richard Chai)
After the event, Unis took the chance to gather all of her downtown creative friends, and hosted a large dinner at the cool new restaurant The Smile. The freshly opened spot is one of those well kept secrets on Bond Street, but boasts a strong word of mouth with the right people. Beside our table was another private dinner for the Rodarte crew. The evening carried on until late with guests like Jewelry Designer Anna Sheffield of Bing Bang, Gordon Hull of the art collective Surface to Air, and Humberto Leon of Opening Ceremony.
(Steven Allan and Eunice Lee of Unis)
(UNIS)
(Richard Chai)
(Caulfield Preparatory)
(Billy Reid)
(J.Crew’s Frank Muytjens)
The official GQ winner was announced the next day. A big congratulations to Billy Reid who walked away with the prize. It was a tough competition, but personally I feel like they were all winners.