Last Friday, CFDA kicked off a new series in collaboration with the National Arts Club centering arts and fashion, with CFDA member Cynthia Rowley as the program’s first designer in conversation with CFDA Editorial and Communications Director Marc Karimzadeh.
In a word, the Cynthia Rowley brand is joyful. A combination of adventure, arts, sport, and prettiness. Her life’s trajectory and career has been exactly that, too.
The designer hails from a small town in Illinois, born to a family of artists. She studied at the Art Institute of Chicago where, as a graduating senior, she won a fellowship award with $2,000 that she used to rent a U-Haul and move to her first New York City apartment on Varick Street, wasting no time to start her line and host runway shows.
Today, Rowley is the author of five best-selling books, has appeared on many TV shows, is a CFDA Fashion Award winner, and dear friend of the American fashion community.
Marc Karimzadeh: How has storytelling played a role in your process, from the design process to runway shows?
Cynthia Rowley: There’s a lot of ways to story tell—most importantly in the product itself—but also in presentations and collaborations. We figured out that we have had 100 runway shows to date which is kind of amazing. I think that’s a great way to tell a story, but it’s not the only way.
With a runway show, people will always ask, what’s your inspiration? I hate that question. You can’t just say it’s one thing. That mentality took me down the wrong path for the long time and down the rabbit hole of a thematic show. You can get carried away with that and the clothes start to become not as wearable or relatable.
It should be up to the audience whether they like it or not. What is their interpretation and how are they seeing it? Fashion for me is fantasy, vision, and dreams.