{"id":34189,"date":"2021-09-10T11:27:34","date_gmt":"2021-09-10T11:27:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/?post_type=articles&p=34189"},"modified":"2021-09-10T11:27:34","modified_gmt":"2021-09-10T11:27:34","slug":"five-questions-steven-kolb","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/five-questions-steven-kolb\/","title":{"rendered":"FIVE QUESTIONS FOR \u2026. Steven Kolb, CEO of CFDA"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Steven Kolb\u00a0 (Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris\/Getty Images for Michael Kors)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Did you really play football in high school<\/i>?\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was my freshman year. I wasn\u2019t very good so I didn\u2019t get to play much. I was a guard which is odd because I don\u2019t have the body of a lineman. I only got to play if the score was 53 to 3 and I would get put in because I couldn\u2019t screw it up. I wasn\u2019t friends with the guys on the team, but I was with the cheerleaders. So they\u2019d cheer \u201cPut Steven in! Put Steven in!\u201d It was embarrassing. I quit and joined the Drama Club. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Are you finally a cheerleader yourself now in your job at CFDA<\/i>?\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Patrick Robinson when he was the head designer at The Gap once referred to me as a kind of gym teacher or a coach. I think it\u2019s more of that than cheerleading. I mean, there is an element of the ra-ra to my job. I\u2019m constantly promoting American fashion or posting about it. But if you look at it from the team perspective, it is more the strategic, maneuvering, or planning and activation of something that reflects my job. Patrick also said that I was like that teacher or that coach who as the kid was walking by him in the hallway you wanted to make sure you were doing the right thing. I don\u2019t know if that reflects me so much. But it is more about how we orchestrate things for a goal or a touchdown. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

You use the word \u201cnurturing\u201d a lot when talking about your job. Why haven\u2019t you and your husband Jay had children like so many other gay men of your age and stature?<\/i>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ll be sixty this year. But it took me a little bit longer to hit my pace and take life seriously.\u00a0 I enjoyed going out more and focusing on partying and clubs.\u00a0 I always showed up for work.\u00a0 Don\u2019t get me wrong.\u00a0 I did get the perfect attendance award my sophomore year in high school and got a copy of <\/span>The Catcher in the Rye\u00a0<\/span><\/i>as the reward.\u00a0 I just think I was slower finding my footing in my career. I just wasn\u2019t ready financially or emotionally.\u00a0 Fast forward to today and its standard and common.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think I\u2019m ready\u00a0 to give that part of myself.\u00a0 I\u2019m looking at the next 20 years of my life.\u00a0 If it had lined up at the time and I had been financially and emotionally capable of it 10 or 20 years ago, I would have definitely done it.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

How has COVID affected your work at CFDA?\u00a0<\/i>\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

A big change was a commitment to building the direct-to-the-consumer part of a business. But these are conversations we\u2019ve had for a long time in the industry about the supply chain and how much stuff is really needed and shows going from New York to Palm Springs to Doha to Shanghai.\u00a0\u00a0 We focused that conversation around climate and sustainability and put some action behind that.\u00a0 And that\u2019s going to pillar out work for over a decade going forward.\u00a0 <\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We have one of the most comprehensive, open-access resources on sustainability on\u00a0<\/span>CFDA.com<\/span><\/a>\u00a0for students, designers, and business professionals.\u00a0 We have a materials hub that will connect the industry to innovation around material development, which is a core part of sustainability.\u00a0 We did a report about the future of Fashion Week looking through the lens of how it can be more sustainable. A lot of that talk about sustainability became an actionable movement.\u00a0 A lot of designers began to rethink their collections – how they show them and many they do.\u00a0 They are beginning to shrink down and not show so many collections.\u00a0 Not all of them did, but many of them.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We also did something at CFDA<\/a> about the Fashion Calendar.\u00a0 You had September and February.\u00a0 Because brands were starting to want to show collections at different times or different locations, we created this umbrella above NYFW and we call it the American Collections Calendar.\u00a0\u00a0 Christopher John Rogers, for example, feels his brand is best served showing closer to his shipment to retailers.\u00a0\u00a0So\u00a0he\u2019s not showing in September.\u00a0 He\u2019s showing at a later time.\u00a0\u00a0So\u00a0this American Collections Calendar allows us to glue together collectively the different approaches.\u00a0 That was something that came out of the pandemic – this\u00a0need\u00a0to do that.\u00a0 Michael Kors did it.\u00a0 He showed in October the season before this although he\u2019s showing in September this time probably because for the Met Gala.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So\u00a0I think the flexibility of showing the brand when it supports the commerce of selling the collection has been a result.\u00a0 The great thing about the new American Collections Calendar too is that we could never count Ric Owens although he is a proud member of CFDA.\u00a0\u00a0 He shows in Paris.\u00a0 But now we stake claim for that creative American working in Paris.\u00a0 It shows the breadth of American talent.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But what it doesn\u2019t do is diminish the power and importance of NYTF because it is still the coming together of a community\u00a0–\u00a0 a\u00a0lot of energy and creative thinking and economic import comes from that.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0So\u00a0with the American Collections Calendar, the NYFW will always be the core or foundation or the heart of that.\u00a0\u00a0 We work with IMG very closely.\u00a0 We are the official scheduler – we are the air traffic\u00a0control\u00a0 –\u00a0but we are not the producer.\u00a0 So together we are working very closely with IMG on that heart and that core which is NYFW.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

You love Elizabeth Taylor.\u00a0 You have several images of her in your home.\u00a0 Is she your gay icon?<\/i>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah.\u00a0 I love her.\u00a0 There are the three women I love: Elizabeth, Audrey Hepburn, and Jackie Kennedy Onassis.\u00a0 But Elizabeth is number one. I love her personal life and how she handled being such a target of the media and paparazzi.\u00a0 For someone who was a movie star, she was so human.\u00a0 I also love how kind she was to Montgomery Clift and Rock Hudson.\u00a0 And what she did for HIV\/AIDS.\u00a0 I love the companionship and friendship she brought to people who needed it and how honest and direct she was.\u00a0 My Instagram profile has a quote from her film <\/span>Butterfield 8<\/span><\/i>:\u00a0\u201cI\u2019m not like anyone else.\u00a0 I\u2019m me.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29575,"featured_media":34199,"template":"","format":"standard","categories":[38,16],"yoast_head":"\nFIVE QUESTIONS FOR \u2026. 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