It was fashion gridlock at Diane von Furstenberg’s Meatpacking District flagship last night, as seemingly every designer and editor in New York turned out to welcome Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, the former Vogue Met ball consigliere and newly-appointed Fashion Director of Lincoln Center, which will be the official home to New York Fashion Week come September.
“We’re celebrating a new decade, and the fashion decade will officially start when we move the tents from Bryant Park to Lincoln Center,” said von Furstenberg. “We needed someone who is tough, firm and good to oversee it – and there’s no better person than Stephanie.”
Wolkoff, who had ostensibly left Vogue to spend more time with her three young children, laughed off her short-lived retirement. “Just when I thought I was out, you pulled me back in…” she joked to a crowd that included former boss Anna Wintour, Hamish Bowles, Glenda Bailey, Meredith Melling Burke, Virginia Smith, Amy Astley, Joe Zee, Steven Kolb, Fern Mallis, Harvey Weinstein, Kelly Cutrone, Lynn Yaeger, Mickey Boardman, Olivia Palermo and designers Richard Chai, Thakoon Panichgul, Rachel Roy, Shelly Steffee, Ana Beatriz Lerario, Robert Gellar, Catherine Malandrino, Erin Fetherston, Mara Hoffman, Georgina Chapman, Gilles Mendel, Justin Giunta, Peter Som, Rafe Totengco, Kenneth Cole, Vera Wang, Donna Karan, Tommy Hilfiger, Dennis Basso, Betsey Johnson, Lisa Mayock, Tory Burch, Sophie Buhai, Sam Shipley, Jeff Halmos, Sophie Theallet, Daniel Silver, Stephen Burrows, Yigal Azrouel, Michael Kors, Yeohlee Teng, Nicole Miller, Zang Toi and Nanette Lepore (whew).
In summing up why Wolkoff was the best person for the job, which involves acting as coordinating liaison between Lincoln Center, IMG Fashion, the CFDA, and designers, press and retailers, Von Furstenberg was characteristically blunt.
“When we had that incident at the White House in January, my first thought was, ‘this never would have happened if Stephanie was there.’”
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