Style icon and designer Iris Apfel, PAPER Magazine Co-founder and Editor in Chief Kim Hastreiter, and luxury jewelry designer and CEO David Yurman will be honored as Pratt Institute's “Legends” of 2014.
Legends is an annual scholarship benefit honoring icons of art and design whose works have helped shape the cultural landscape. The event, to be held on Thursday, Nov. 20, against a sweeping backdrop of Central Park and the Manhattan skyline at the Mandarin Oriental New York, raises money for merit and need-based scholarships—80 percent of Pratt students receive financial aid.
Iris Apfel
Apfel has been part of the fashion scene for more than 50 years. Her richly layered wardrobe and iconic sense of style is so distinctive that in 2005 The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute created an exhibition for her titled Rara Avis (Rare Bird). But her career is not just fashion—she has completed design restoration projects at the White House under nine presidents. Now, at 93 years old, she consults and lectures on personal style in addition to designing her own accessory line for Home Shopping Network (HSN). Early in her career Apfel worked for Women’s Wear Daily, interior designer Elinor Johnson, and illustrator Robert Goodman. Her extraordinary life was chronicled in an Albert Maysles documentary that premiered at the 2014 New York Film Festival.
Kim Hastreiter
Hastreiter recently celebrated 30 years at PAPER, an independent magazine with a focus on art, design, fashion, and pop culture—it is the magazine that tried to “break the internet” with Kim Kardashian last week, after all—that she co-founded with David Hershkovits. She and Hershkovits still own, edit and publish PAPER, which includes an internationally-distributed bimonthly print edition, and PAPERMAG.com, which has been recognized with a Webby Award for Best Fashion Site.
As PAPER’s editor in chief and fashion director, Hastreiter authors a monthly column on style, design and culture-of-the-moment as she sees it. Her curatorial work includes gallery shows, pop-up markets, and shops selling everything from conceptual fashion to underground food to art products by her many talented friends. Other credits include co-authoring two books on style and pop culture and penning a book about her late friend designer Geoffrey Beene, a work published by Assouline in 2008. She began her journalistic career in 1979 when photographer Bill Cunningham recommended her for a job as style editor of the SoHo Weekly News.
David Yurman
Yurman is an artist and internationally acclaimed jewelry and timepiece designer. After a series of apprenticeships with master sculptors Ernesto Gonzales, Jacques Lipchitz and Theodore Roszak, he began exploring jewelry design while working as a sculptor for Hans Van de Bovenkamp. Committed to fulfilling a creative vision without boundaries or compromise, he founded the David Yurman brand in 1980 with his wife and business partner Sybil, and they created the company’s iconic cable bracelet in 1983.
Today, David Yurman is a global luxury company with more than 30 retail boutiques throughout the United States, Canada, France, Hong Kong and Moscow. Over the last three decades, David and Sybil have been recognized for their commitment to excellence and contributions to American jewelry design. They were recipients of the JIC Gem Lifetime Achievement Award, The American Gem Society Lifetime Achievement Award, the Savannah College of Art & Design Etoile Award, and were honorees at the 2014 Museum of Art and Design Visionaries Gala.
Duro Olowu, acclaimed Nigerian fashion designer, will present the award to Apfel; Padma Lakshmi, cookbook author, model, and host of the Bravo TV series Top Chef, will present the award to Hastreiter; and Paul Greenhalgh, director of the Sainsbury Center for Visual Arts, will present the award to Yurman.
Each of the honorees will be presented with a sculpted glass and metal award, which are being designed specifically for this year’s event by Pratt Institute student Chengtao Yi.
Past Legends awards recipients include Marc Jacobs, Patti Smith, Julie Taymor, Margaret Russell, Richard Meier and David Rockwell.
The gala begins at 6 p.m. with a cocktail reception, followed by a 7 p.m. dinner and awards ceremony. To pre-order tickets, contact Aida Mejia at 718.399.4548, or via email.
