(NEW YORK) Reed Krakoff’s on a roll! Last night at Chelsea’s Highline Stages, The Whitney Museum honored the designer and patron of the arts with their American Art Award. The award is given to those who show an outstanding commitment to American visual arts and culture and to The Whitney through supporting artists in their respective fields. Honored alongside Krakoff was Miami-based collector, Martin Z. Margulies (he recently made a $5 million donation to the museum!) and Michael Ward Stout, who is the president of The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation and the founding partner of New York law firm, Stout Thomas & Johnson. Co-chairs Susan and John Hess, Brooke and Daniel Neidich, and Kimberly and Scott Resnick hosted the event.
Krakoff has been honored left and right this month, having just received an honor from the Henry Street Settlement for his philanthropic efforts. “It’s a busy week, but I love being involved in all of these different things. Each one brings something new,” said Krakoff. What else is on his philanthropic schedule this month? “I’m doing a collaboration with a Kenyan engineer, Evans Wadongo who created a sustainable light. It’s a solar powered lantern and I did an installation with 1,000 of these lanterns at the Friedman Benda gallery and that’s on Thursday, actually.” The lanterns will be hung throughout the gallery and will have felt holders in a multitude of colors. Each lantern sold will pays for 10 to be donated to those living without electricity.
As for his own personal art, Krakoff’s new tome from Assouline, Women in Art, is due out later this month and includes his own photographs of twenty women artists whom he admires in their personal studios along with questionnaires from the designer that they each filled out. “I started photographing women who happen to be in the art world and I just love their sense of style and how they live their life and their whole aesthetic,” said Krakoff. “It’s a great representation of the women I aspire to dress.”
Other well-dressed belles at the party included Kate Lanphear, Vanessa Traina, Olympia Scarry, Ann Duong, and Diane von Furstenberg, among others. The latter stood in the center of the party, closely huddled with Stefano Tonchi and Duong, who wore a black and white check dress with lace detail by Krakoff. Duong said recently she’s been moved the most by artist Marina Abramovic‘s work and summed up the evening in reference to her own work by saying, “I think at the end when you do something you love, you are always thing about what you will do next so what you love always seems like it’s in the future.”
PAIGE REDDINGER
