A potent mix of high fashion and high Hollywood gathered in downtown Manhattan last night to discover the winners of this year's CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund - America's pre-eminent catalyst for young design talent.
Rooney Mara, Chelsea Clinton, Carolina Herrera, Arizona Muse, Liv Tyler, Diane on Furstenberg, Miranda Kerr, Tobey Maguire, Karlie Kloss, Jourdan Dunn, Tommy Hilfiger and Alexander Wang were amongst the guests as Christopher Bailey, the chief creative officer of Burberry, joined Emma Stone to announce Greg Chait's fledgling label The Elder Statesman the recipient of this year's $300, 000 (plus mentoring) prize. The expatriate British shoe designer Tabitha Simmons and jewellery designer Jennifer Meyer Maguire were both named recipients of the $100, 000 dollar runners-up awards.
READ: Fashion's finest attend CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund event at the Chateau Marmont
Before his presentation Bailey made a speech in which he promised "not to bang on too long", but then did bang on - engagingly so - about his path to the helm of Britain's most successful fashion business. Here are a few key snippets.
* Bailey on what got him into fashion. "I discovered fashion through something we have in the UK called jumble sales. Places where you bought old clothes, tried them on, looked silly - and that's where I bought my first Burberry trenchcoat, ironically."
* Bailey on Donna Karan's inimitable management style. "When I was at the Royal College of Art I met this incredible person: Donna Karan... She completely seduced me with the way she sees the world. She stripped naked within about three minutes of meeting, and tried on all my things. That was one of my first big wake up calls to how nutty - and how brilliant this industry is."
IN PICTURES: Burberry spring/summer 2013
* More Donna: "So I went to work for Donna after I left and it got even more ridiculous. We would be working very, very late. At 3am there would be a masseur coming around to give you a massage: that's weird. Then at 4am we'd all sit in a little circle and we'd chat over the fabrics: that was weird to me too. And then at five o'clock Demi Moore would come in for a fitting."
* On Tom Ford's interview technique: "I got this call: Gucci. Tom Ford had just had a really big, strong collection and he was looking for a senior designer and he wanted to meet me... It was a huge room, quite dark. In the middle of the room there were these two chairs. On one of these chairs there is this chap, sat there with his shirt open to his navel, with a huge gold belt... He had the mindset that you can create what you like. If you believe in something you can make it happen."
READ: Wedding bells for Burberry's Christopher Bailey
* On the beginnings at Burberry "It was this musty, dusty company. I met Rosemary Bravo (Burberry's then-CEO) and set off on this extraordinary journey... the important thing for me is that you feel what you are doing. Lots of people can do a job; they are technical, and professional, and they get it. But feeling it is for me the key to everything. So we tried to create a warm, kind, generous culture: a culture of teamwork, a company that was united.... Technology became a natural part of the company just because we were bringing in a young team of people. We were all Skyping, Facebooking and Twittering at home - it would have been counter-intuitive not to have brought that into the office. The technology became part of our DNA more through the people we hired than through any big strategy."
* One final Baileyism. "Dreaming is profitable. I wish someone had told me that when I was younger. We all need to be dreamers because it does make money, create jobs, and create excitement."
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